cakeyvoice

knit one, purl FUN (not my words, the words of Simply Knitting magazine)

2009-10-20T02:02:00.006+01:00

Get a load of this! I am in Simply Knitting magazine. The back page, no less. That's the magazine equivalent of the back seat of the bus, where the driver can't see you messing about and stuff.

Thanks Simply Knitting Magazine! You have almost inspired me to make something new. Considering I haven't actually finished a single thing this year, that can only be a good thing.

10 wonderful knitted movie characters (not my words, the words of totalfilm.com)

2009-08-12T19:02:00.004+01:00

OK, I'm sorry for not bragging about this earlier, but TADA!

10 Wonderful Knitted Movie Characters.

Thanks Total Film! You're way better than Empire magazine.

It took me 15 minutes to log into my blog, as I had forgotten both my username and password. Then I had to guess the unfathomable nonsense anti-spam verification word about 40 times (granhanks? crobnatch?). This is the virtual equivalent of hacking my way blindly & relentlessly through a thick forest, so you're lucky I'm here at all.

While you're here, feast your eyes on just a fraction of my windowbox produce this year. I am currently cultivating a glut of peppers, which may make their way into some hot pepper sauce, if I don't eat them all first.

a fake Polaroid of some tomatoes growing on my windowledge, yesterday

2009-04-29T00:39:00.005+01:00

i have made soap and this is it here

2009-03-18T01:58:00.002Z

I had to make labels for it, because otherwise it just looks like cheese. Hey, maybe I should make cheese? I went to a cheese factory once, there was a man behind a big window who made cheese while you watched, which is a bit weird really when you think about it. I think he was stirring it with a spade, I can't remember. It really smelled like cheese in there though, let me tell you.

But take my word for it, this is good old-fashioned cold process soap. You make it by melting solid fats & oils and mixing them with a solution of sodium hydroxide and water. Then you stir it up until it starts to get thick, add essential oils and pour into a mould. I used a shallow cardboard box lined with waxed paper. It takes 12 or so hours to set, during which time it heats up alarmingly - it burned off a lot of the essential oils during this process, leaving it with a fairly subtle scent. Then you hack it into chunks and leave it to cure for a few weeks.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I was really surprised when it actually worked. I mean, it lathers up like real soap and everything! Wowsers.

zombies do not want to eat your brains

2009-02-03T20:11:00.000Z

Let's get something straight. Zombies do not want to eat your brains. 'What?' you say, 'but zombies LOVE brains, whenever I pretend to be a zombie, I'm always like "ughghghhhhhh braaaaaiiins", that's what zombies do'. Wrong. Zombies do not talk, for a start. Except for that one that says 'Hello Aunt Alicia' - we'll let that one slide. Also, they do not crave brains. Perpetuating this myth makes a mockery of the genre that I simply cannot allow to continue. So, I have swallowed the facts. Then I digested them, and this is what came out of the other end.

OK, so zombies do sometimes eat brains. I know I just said they didn't, but I am trying to make a point, for heaven's sake. Anyway, zombies do sometimes eat brains. They also sometimes eat feet, fingers, guts and anything else they can get their grubby undead hands on. The point is, a zombie would pretty much only eat your brain if your head had already been conveniently smashed in. A zombie won't take the time to bash your head in like a 4 minute egg when there's a nice bit of fresh neck on offer. That's because:

Zombies do not use tools. Except for that one that shot some guy. Don't try to pick holes in my argument, zombies aren't real, you idiot. Anyway, they don't use tools. Except for that one that smashed a window with a crowbar. Look, whatever. Imagine how hard it would be to gnaw through someone's skull. Why would you bother with that when you can just rip out their soft gizzards? Exactly.

Zombies reproduce by biting, which infects the victim with zombie germs. If the victim manages to get away, the resulting infection will eventually kill them, whereupon they become a zombie themselves. However, if said victim were overpowered by zombies and unable to escape, they would only be eaten until they became a zombie. There's no time for eating brains! We're talking lights out to re-animation in a matter of minutes. It's a cold, hard fact that zombies do not eat each other. If they did, you wouldn't have to worry about them so much. Note that I said 'you' wouldn't have to worry about them. Me? I'm not worried.

The myth that zombies crave brains above all other human meat arises from just one film - Return of the Living Dead. There are at least 307 zombie films in existence, meaning Return of the Living Dead makes up approximately 0.325% of zombie movie history. By allowing this fleeting side-step in the evolution of the zombie to perpetuate, we are grossly inflating the cinematic importance of this comedic shambles of a film.

In a nutshell - if you destroy the brain, you destroy the zombie. Therefore, if zombies went round eating people's brains, they would cease to be the exponentially reproductive threat that we all know they are. And that just doesn't make sense. So stop it.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/02/20/

new year's resolution: never leave the house again

2008-12-30T15:05:00.005Z

Praise the lord! I am back in my own house. The problem with visiting parents is that a) their food is always much more expensive & luxurious, not to mention abundant, and b) their houses are so much cleaner. Now I am back here, everything seems to be coated in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs and there's nothing but old potatoes and toffee pennies to eat.

This is the first time I've been on the internet in 4 days. 4 LONG DAYS. My feed reader has collapsed under the weight of all the backed up information. Unfortunately, in the absence of the internet, I have become addicted to Fallout 3. Now all I can think about is getting back out into the irradiated wastelands to club some bloated mole rats upside the head with a baseball bat. So there's no time for grocery shopping really. I'll just live off the fat reserves I have built up from eating sherry trifle every day for a week, until hunger finally drives me out of the house.

knitted han solo

2008-12-02T12:53:00.001Z

Let's play Star Wars! I'll be Han Solo because my name is Han and also because I am a sassy nerf-herding rogue who will eventually come good and set up the entire rebel alliance for a colossal win. You can be Jabba, or that stormtrooper that runs into a door.

5, 6, better something something...

2008-11-17T20:19:00.007Z

"One, two freddys coming for you 3, 4 better lock the door 5, 6 better something something 7,8 dont stay up late 9, 10 lets sing it again i dont know something like that..."

That's a direct quote from a response to a Yahoo! Answers question, asking how the Freddy rhyme goes. I actually think it's more terrifying than the original - the omission of such crucially relevant information makes for a tense read.

Do you see where I am going with this? I do. I have knitted Freddy Krueger and here he is:

Freddy Krueger ceases to be scary when you realise that he could easily be thwarted by tricking him into plunging his knife hand into a large butternut squash. Since he is constantly blunting those knives by scraping them along pipes for effect, it would take several minutes for him to free himself. This would give you more than enough time to knock his hat off and run away.

Fearsome he is not. But I like his jumper and there's no denying that he's an icon of modern horror. As such, he has earned his place in the minion hall of fame. Come to daddy!

let's put a smile on that face

2008-11-16T23:52:00.006Z

The Joker is such an indisputable badass. Like many before him, he skipped his way right up to the top of my list, overtaking the diorama I keep meaning to make of Siegfried and Roy being attacked by tigers. That's still on the cards, by the way.

Oh, and NEWSFLASH! it's all go in the shop... get over there for your chance to own knitted ash and this shambling resident evil zombie.

More to come! I told you I'd been busy. It's knitting season.

christmas is what you make it

2008-11-13T00:22:00.006Z

Although Christmas doesn't really start until I pop open a bottle of sherry, we all know it is already Christmas because it says on the TV and also in Tesco. Christmas is great. If you don't enjoy it then you are doing it wrong and are probably suffering from sherry deficiency. Get it down you.

Ahhh, poor neglected blog, I am at a loose end for the first time in yonks. The craft fair is over. Sleep was lost, favours were called in, frantic setting up was done, old ladies were confused and children delighted. It was quite a day. Oxford Town Hall is an awesome place to hang out and I managed to restrain myself from rushing the stage to have a go on that colossal organ.

But enough of that, ladies and gentlemen, I have written a book. A very slim book. A very slim, small book. A pamphlet, if you will. But don't be fooled by its diminutive stature, it contains no fewer than 10 of my top secret ideas for making awesome Christmas presents. Even better, because it's so small, there's no room for any of my nonsensical & rambling prose. Although I do reveal the greatest Xmas album of all time, which is worth the money alone.

This was a real labour of love, with pages cut from scrap fabric, titles punched from real dymo label and text typed up on a proper old school typewriter. I then scanned the whole thing, sent it to the printers, assembled the pages into a book & stitched them up real good on my sewing machine. Why? Because I want you to make my ginger whisky. It really is THAT good.

knitted ash from the evil dead

2008-10-31T17:26:00.005Z

hail to the king, baby

i love the smell of a looming deadline in the morning

2008-09-25T01:18:00.007+01:00

Hello world. A veritable tsunami of hits, due to my deluxe hot chai recipe making an appearance on the CRAFT: blog, has shamed me into throwing my blog a fricken bone.

Excitingly/worryingly, it's only a matter of weeks until I take part in my first ever craft fair. This means I actually have to finish the many, many unfinished and barely started projects that I have lying around my flat. Which was the whole point of this when I decided to sign up in the first place. Last night I had my first performance anxiety related dream, in which I turned up with NOTHING TO SELL. Nggghh.

Anyway, all being well I'll be cooking up some truly spectacular multimedia items, finishing up some long overdue knitted figures and debuting an exciting new knitting pattern I've been working on. I'll also be churning out a few homemade soy wax cinnamon candles and some radical Xmas tree decorations (electronics, anyone?). I've got even more on my list, but writing it all down is making me feel funny. Come along & see what I done at handm@de, Oxford Town Hall on Sunday 9 November.

Today I bought another pair of truly awesome vintage curtains, bringing the total number of pairs I own to 6. This might not seem excessive, until you consider that I don't even have curtains up in the house, only blinds. I buy them because I love the fabric, thinking I'm going to cut them up and use them for something, and then I just can't bear to take the scissors to them. These are really cool - I reckon they're from the 1960s, beautiful quality barkcloth, how could I not? They are going in my cupboard forever, I tell you.

monthly round up

2008-06-30T23:36:00.010+01:00

CLEAR!

I have just got back from holiday. It was fun. I drank a lot of rum and generally loafed about. The sea was bloody freezing and a swarm of jellyfish washed up on the beach the day after we arrived, but we went swimming anyway because we are so very British.
You know when you get back off holiday and everything seems really weird and you can't remember what you used to do before you went on holiday? I feel like that now. I suppose I'll just quietly get to work on regenerating my liver.

CLEAR!

Trying to take a decent photo with my camera at the moment feels a bit like I am one of those monkeys trying to thrash out the works of Shakespeare on a typewriter. This is partly because I am too stubborn to not have it on a manual setting and partly because I have gone from never even so much as holding an SLR camera to attempting complicated HDR techniques which are clearly beyond the realms of my capability. After much windswept, amateurish fumbling, I finally managed to cobble one together, so here it is for posterity. You will, of course, overlook the fact that not a single part of this entire scene is properly in focus.

CLEAR!

Doctor Who, eh? Doctor WTF, more like. I totally didn't see that coming. What's going to happen now, then? WHO IS WHO?

-FLATLINE-

life on mars. knitted.

2008-04-14T00:46:00.008+01:00

I'd never seen Life on Mars before I received a request to make these guys. So I watched the first episode. Then the second one. Then suddenly it was 16 hours later and I'd watched the whole lot. Not really. (But NEARLY.)

You either love Gene Hunt, or you've never seen him in action. He's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and if I had a car I would totally drive like him.

DCI Gene Hunt & DI Sam Tyler are off to Japan next week, which is sad (for me).

But the good news is that IT IS MY BIRTHDAY today, and also my Mum's. Happy birthday Mum! Thanks for teaching me to knit - without you, there would be no wooly Gene Hunt out there smashing up nonces with a bin lid, so this post is dedicated to you.

tea at monty's

2008-03-30T00:53:00.006Z

Our Matt (my brother) recently made a pilgrimage to the now woefully dilapidated Sleddale Hall in Cumbria, better known as Uncle Monty's country retreat from Withnail & I. It looks as if it's been empty since the film was made - a rotting memorial to what was surely both the best and most mistaken holiday destination of all time. Check out his pictures here.

'country man about town' camera case

2008-03-13T02:38:00.007Z

Hey everyone - sewing is the new knitting! Not really, of course, sewing is still just the old sewing. Had you there for a minute though, didn't I? It's annoying when people say things like that, I know. Sorry. I couldn't help myself - I have been at the wine.

I made this for Rob for his birthday. It's not an original idea, being rather inspired by a number of similar camera cases I've seen kicking around Etsy. I based it loosely on the Diana. It features real suede patches, and a proper lining and everything:

Goodness me, sewing is fast compared to knitting! I couldn't believe I'd finished it so soon. Sewing through suede is hard, and I totally ravaged my thumb making this. But it is also fun, even though the process is actually 80% cutting & pressing, 20% sewing. What a massive swizz.

Coming up next in sewing news: I attempt an extremely challenging bag, not at all recommended for beginners. All will be revealed in several months time. Until then, I've got a lot of knitting to do. Good day.

HE'S GOT AN ARM OFF

2008-02-19T18:45:00.007Z

Zombies, eh? I can't let it lie. I am giving George Romero ONE MORE CHANCE to redeem himself after Land of the Dead. Has anyone seen Diary of the Dead? Please tell me it isn't shit. I really, really want it to be good, even though I know it won't be. And let's not even mention the upcoming remake of Day of the Dead, in case my brain explodes.

Anyway, look! I've knitted a new zombie:

It feels good to be knitting zombies again. Like I've come home. And, no joke of a lie, this is my favourite of all the ones I've made so far. He only appears on screen for a few brief moments in Shaun of the Dead, meaning that I had to watch the same scene loads of times to pick up on the details of his outfit.

I wish I could find a link to it on YouTube, because no matter how many times I see it, Ed's reaction to this guy shambling into their front room cracks me up EVERY SINGLE TIME.

This zombie is for sale. Click here to check out the listing in my shop. Who KNOWS what I might knit next! You would, if you were on my mailing list. (It's down there on the right.)

picture box

2008-02-11T18:14:00.001Z

I bought this last week for £3.99 from a charity shop, after picking it up and putting it down about a hundred times. Then I suddenly imagined somebody else coming in and buying it, and there I was, sprinting towards the till with it clutched in a white-knuckle grip. It might have been my imagination, but the old lady behind the counter seemed overly happy to see it go. I think it might be haunted.

I'm glad I bought it though, because even though I've never actually seen one of these in real life, I remember it well from my childhood. It's PICTURE BOX, from the children's educational TV show of the same name. And now I own it.

Picture Box featured the weirdest theme tune known to man, guaranteed to make you feel as if you were gently riding a fairground horse on a one-way trip into another dimension. It's called 'Manege' and it featured on this (1968?) album (which I have yet to find down the chazza, but I live in hope):

Francois Baschet was a sculptor who, along with his brother Bernard, invented and built loads of crazy experimental instruments. Jacques Lasry was a modernist composer. Together with Baschet's wife Yvonne, they were 'Structures Sonores Lasry Baschet'.

But I digress. Because while looking for the title sequence for Picture Box on YouTube, I discovered that it is EVEN WEIRDER than I remember. I don't even know what to say about it, except that when Alan Rothwell pipes up with his jovial

"Hello! Do you remember that scene from the film last week?"

you can be sure that somewhere in the depths of time, a hundred thousand mentally damaged schoolchildren are silently screaming

"YES ALAN! FOR IT IS BURNED INTO MY MEMORY FOR ALL TIME AND HAUNTS MY EVERY WAKING MOMENT."

Watch it here, but don't say I didn't warn you.

zonino!

2008-02-08T02:32:00.000Z

I discovered a new word! It happened by accident when I tried to type in 'Woohoo!' using predictive text on my phone. The word is 'Zonino!' and I shall be using it liberally from now on.

I fixed the margin error on my template! It took many gruelling hours, and I'm still not quite sure how it happened. Zonino!

I dremeled a miniature cricket bat! There was a tremendous amount of dust flying everywhere. I probably shouldn't have done it in the living room, but Jeremy Kyle was on & I didn't want to miss the lie detector results. The cricket bat is to accompany the Shaun of the Dead figure that is going into the shop tomorrow. Zonino!

deluxe hot chai mix

2008-02-05T00:52:00.000Z

This is an unbelievably delicious recipe for instant spiced chai. I made two big batches of it for Christmas presents this year, and everyone who tried it absolutely LOVED it. Forget the supermarket and get yourself down the nearest Asian grocer, unless you like paying through the nose for those silly little jars of Schwartz spices.

This was my deluxe version of the recipe. For everyday consumption, I would probably reduce the sugar by half a cup or more, and maybe substitute half of the coffee whitener for more milk powder. Here we go.

You will need:

2 cups caster sugar (vanilla sugar is best)
1 cup Typhoo QT instant white tea
1 cup coffee whitener
1 cup dried skimmed milk powder
1 cup Coffee Mate 'Latte Creations', original or vanilla
4 teaspoons ground ginger
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon white pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. Process the mixture in a blender or food processor, 1 cup at a time, and store in airtight jars.

To serve, put 2 tablespoons in a mug, top up with boiling water and wait a few minutes before drinking to allow the spices to settle at the bottom. Now drink up! Your life will never be the same again.

bing bang boing

2008-01-31T23:18:00.000Z

I don't know why I'm so excited about this, but I am. I had no idea this game existed until this morning, but right now I can think of NOTHING I would rather do than wang a ball bearing down the Bingle Flinger, across the Humdrums, up the Banglevator, through the Flickerticker and into the Boingle Bucket, all accompanied by the musical stylings of Jean-Jacques Perrey. I'm talking "Bing Bang Boing" by Ideal Games, from 1972.

Bring it back! I want one so bad! Click here to check it out at the start of this reel of old 70s toy adverts. Seriously, I can't stop watching it. The sight of all those ball bearings hopping off into the distance fairly brings tears of yearning to my eyes every time.

And if that's not enough Moog for you, have a look at this video of Jean-Jacques Perrey in action, playing the very music from this ad - "Chicken on the Rocks". Just the sort of thing you should listen to on your iPod while you are walking around your local neighbourhood. I'm telling you, you really should.

i has a graphics tablet

2008-01-24T01:45:00.000Z

WOWEEEE! The slacker got a graphics tablet for Christmas and it has finally spurred me on to make a proper banner. Look how professional it is! I bet you thought I'd had the graphic designers in, didn't you? That's my ACTUAL HANDWRITING up there. Don't act like you're not impressed.

Also, get a load of the fancy new layout - I've always wanted a three column template and have even considered moving to Typepad in the past (£££). Turns out there's no need! I got the code tweaks from Tips for New Bloggers, in case you're interested. It took me three hours to get it how I wanted. That's one hour per column. I'm never changing it again. Even though the left margin is still bigger than the right margin.....I'm fine about it though...ngggghhhhhhhh

My computer is fixed - its treacherous faulty hard drive has been ripped out and impaled on a stick on my desk as a warning to the rest of the hardware. The computer doctor tried to thwart me by inexplicably adding an administrative password and then not telling the slacker what it was when he went to collect it. But alas he had met his match, and I cracked his puny, ill conceived password like the rotten nut it was with a mere 5 minutes of guessing. Pah!

I now have NOTHING in my iTunes. It's really liberating.

Stay tuned and I might just show you the BEST CHAIR IN THE WORLD that I bought yesterday. No really, it is.

the emergency laptop

2008-01-07T03:37:00.000Z

By the power of Greyskull!!! My computer has gone for a Burton. The technical diagnosis is that its most crucial registry files have been sucked into another dimension. I knew this would happen again eventually, because my house is built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Almost.

Tomorrow I am taking it to the computer hospital to be purged of ghosts, since my last home exorcism was nothing short of a miserable failure. This time, however, I shall be forced to admit to them that I punched a gaping hole in my firewall during my vain attempts to host networked games of Settlers of Catan. Ahhhhh, but mock ye not, for tis surely by my fearless nature that I shall one day earn my rightful place in Valhalla.

This post is therefore brought to you courtesy of the emergency laptop that I borrowed off Rob. The emergency laptop is my new (slow) best friend. When I plugged it in and everything (slowly) worked, I could have kissed its (slow) little LCD face. Then I remembered that it used to belong to James, who was probably sick on it at least once, so I restrained myself. Instead, to celebrate my ongoing internet connectivity, I ate a mince pie and looked at my Christmas tree, but the magic was well and truly gone and I felt strangely empty. Welcome to 2008.

the day i traded art with Mike Mignola

2007-12-29T19:08:00.000Z

Remember knitted Hellboy? Well, shortly after being featured on Drawn, I received an email from Christine Mignola, asking if I would make another for their collection - the original having sold within 8 hours of making its internet debut.

I could hardly believe my luck when she agreed to get Mike to do a sketch as a trade. The slacker was FREAKING OUT. So I duly set about making another, trying to recreate the original as faithfully as possible from my illegible notebook scrawlings. The pressure was really on, but I did it. And it was even better than the first one, even though I say so myself. You'll have to take my word for that, as I didn't take any pictures. Ooops.

I sent it out & thankfully they loved it - even the cat was trying to get in on the action, meaning that knitted Hellboy now resides upon a high shelf in the Mignola household. True to their word, the sketch arrived a few days before Christmas, whereupon I wrapped it carefully to give to the slacker on Xmas day, thus earning me a billion girlfriend points.

Yes, Mike Mignola and I traded art. I surely got the better end of the deal, and it was the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER. God bless us, every one.

stick a fork in me, someone...

2007-12-21T18:07:00.000Z

... I'm done. Homemade Xmas presents for EVERYONE! I can't believe I pulled it off. Of course, I can't reveal what any of them are, as it will spoil the surprise. Suffice to say that I have an awesome recipe to share, as well as something ULTRA MEGA EXCITING. Seriously. It's the best thing ever. I'll reveal all on Boxing Day.