claire platt

week four: lomography

2012-01-27T19:21:00.000Z

more pictures here

Our department recently got a few Diana Mini Lomo cameras which was quite exciting, so I took one out last week and got the film developed this week. It was relatively easy to use, although one draw back was it came with no instructions so I had to use the site to work out what all the buttons did, but perhaps this is because I am very amateur when it comes to photography. Once I got going (oh I forgot to wind on the film for the first... ten shots, oops!) I got the hang of it. I think the double exposures come out really well so I want to have a go at doing some more of those + the flash comes with colour flash gels (little coloured acetate strips!) to tint the pictures with different colours which will be fun to experiment with.

It has the option to shoot square frames and half frames too which is quite interesting, although I couldn't get mine to switch over to half frame it was incredible stiff to slide over! So although some of my pictures look like half frames they aren't, I'm not sure what happened when they got developed but a lot of the pictures came out with part of the picture missing (despite the full picture being on the negative!) but perhaps that's more a printer issue than a square format one. Oh, I just looked at this page and noticed the recommendation of developing the negative at home, which would be fine if I was super into it but perhaps a little over the top for just experimenting. However the example for a panoramic shot mixing half and square formats does look amazing!

So my first adventure with lomography was not perhaps as exciting as I'd thought it might be but there's definitely something intriguing about it. I'm in two minds about recommending the camera at the moment, I think I need to shoot some more film to really play about so watch this space! On a slight side note though I don't think I've ever had so many people look at my camera before, you will most definitely get a few stares if you take one out!

week three: gifs and wrist warmers

2012-01-18T20:32:00.002Z

I finished my wrist warmers! I haven't quite mastered taking a photograph of both hands at the same time though I'm not sure that it's an achievable goal. I've been reading a bit more over the last few weeks which is good. It's strange thinking two years ago one of my new years resolutions was to read a book a week (I think I actually only managed about 32 over the year) and that now I barely managed to read any! I think last year I only read 8 and 3 of them were on a holiday in the summer! Terrible. I'm reading Waterlog and 1Q84 at the moment. I think if I could read a book a month I'd be pretty satisfied. I'm always on the look out for reading recommendations if anyone has any suggestions!

I've been having a lot of fun at work this last week as I'm doing an animation project with a couple of groups. This week we're doing animated gifs. I followed this wonderful tutorial on say yes to hoboken, and had some fun making my own examples! One group are making subject related self portraits (hence the maths) and the other group have been making packaging, I've used a lamb perfume box I had to demo it. I also had a go at making one of one of my blythe dolls. It's really quite addictive, I think my next step will be to try and make a cinemagraph, there's some amazing ones out there like these by Jamie Beck and a good tutorial here. I think I've a long way to go till I create anything remotely sophisticated but I'm definitely having fun trying a new technique...

week two: knit, knit, knit

2012-01-10T21:41:00.000Z

Well the first weeks flown by but I think I'm off to a good start. I finished that jumper I started back in November. It was actually a fairly quick and easy knit once I had enough time to just get on with it. I think it will be well worn this winter. I've also started my next knit project, yes following a pattern, I think I'm addicted, I already had the yarn so I wanted to just get this one done (oh and there's that other jumper I already got the yarn for... hmm) before I start making my own pieces.

I've been pinning beautiful knits on pinterest. I love the idea of collecting up inspiration in that way its so instant and means I can look at all the things I'm finding in one go, although I do miss my sketchbooks. I think I might have to begin a new little scrapbook/sketchbook to get some new ideas going.

In other news I've set myself a few extra challenges for the year. I'm doing the swimathon and the great swim, both one mile distances (one indoor and one outdoor) and I'm doing a Triathlon. It's a bit scary to think all 3 will be over in 18 weeks, good thing I've been getting into 6am swims and gym sessions! Anyway I'll leave you with my favourite thing from about last week... keeping warm wearing my chunky knit socks!

week one: happy new year!

2012-01-01T12:26:00.000Z

1. gingerbread house, 2. jumper in progress..., 3. sleeves up , 4. baby knits!, 5. carrots!, 6. drawings/sketchbook, 7. Stitched Science at The Science Museum, 8. drawings/skechbook, 9. Grannies Inc. Pop-up Catwalk, 10. Fabric Manipulation, 11. marmalade, 12. keeping my neck warm, 13. Munich! 14. Featured in the book Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery, 15. drawings/sketchbook, 16. great nan and mum

2011 has been a pretty good year I think. I've been involved in some cool exhibitions/projects, been to some wonderful places, grown (vegetables) and generally had some fun times. I'm not normally one for resolutions (last year it was simply, more knitting) but I feel like making some this year...

To knit more - I've enjoyed knitting garments etc a lot more this year and I think perhaps I should take this forward to try and knit my own little collection. I am sure inevitably I will do little more with it than wear it but whatever happens it would be a nice challenge and I think it will fit in well around work.

30 things - this year I managed to hit the half way point with my 30 things before I'm 30, the ones I did were a combination of exciting, frikkin' hard work and accidental (having my work published in a book + flying trapeze, completing a triathlon + a charity run and going to see a ballet) so it would be good to carry on a pick out a few more for the coming year. I quite like the idea of flying a plane, moving out of my parents and road tripping in a foreign country but I shall have to see what 2012 brings!

cook more - I cook quite a lot now but I want to be more organised with it. Me and my mum have decided we're going to have a chalk board up in the kitchen so that we can plan and pick recipes for each day of the week and get organised both with our cooking and our shopping. I want to try and cook more seasonally and become more aware of what is in season and when! Gardening has helped me with this, this year but I think it'll be a fun challenging. The first step to get started with this is getting on with making the chalk board!

blog more - I enjoyed my 12 days till Christmas posting so I think it would be better for me if I got into a more regular pattern with blogging. Mostly I think it will help me to keep on track with different projects but it will also be quite the challenge for me. This is my first post 'week one' I'm not being too ambitious I'm going to aim for a post a week. I want to post more about work in progress, teaching, baking and gardening.

to take the handmade pledge - my aim for 2012 is to only buy (or make) handmade items. I know that there will be some things that fall outside of this but for the most part I hope to keep it this way!

Well that's probably more than enough resolutions to get me started! Happy new year everyone!

1 day till Christmas: gingerbread house

2011-12-24T14:25:00.000Z

I think this may be the hardest thing I've ever tried to bake, getting that roof to stay on was a task and a half so I'm relieved that when I removed the supports this morning in stayed intact! This is matt's christmas present from me - we decided to make each other something so I hope he approves. I followed this recipe it was really easy to follow (apart from the bit about the roof but I think I made my gingerbread a touch to thick) and the gingerbread tastes really good so even if you don't want to make a house the gingerbread alone is ace!

Phew! Well I'm impressed with myself for posting 12 days consecutively it's been quite challenging but fun nonetheless, perhaps this is the start of some kind of new years resolution! Anyway...

M e r r y C h r i s t m a s!

2 Days till Christmas: knitted bows

2011-12-23T12:00:00.001Z

Matt has two adorable little nieces so I've knitted them some little bows for their hair. I followed a pattern from the Debbie Bliss A/W 2011 magazine (which is full of many wonderful things) and just used spare bits of yarn leftover from other projects. I think it makes a cute little gift in itself and if I thought further ahead I could have made them to decorate the presents I'd wrapped for a little two in one present attack! Next year perhaps! Can't believe it's Christmas eve, eve! Almost there!

3 Days till Christmas: wrapping presents

2011-12-22T11:40:00.002Z

There seems to be a lot of beautifully wrapped stuff around this year and I love brown paper so I decided to jump on it and give it a go myself. I think I'm well known in my family for being both anti-wrapping (such as waste of paper!) and also at being pretty terrible at it if I do ever attempt it. I don't think I've quite achieved the same look as the beautiful things I've been looking at (I think perhaps too random a combo of colour and probably should have stuck to one thing!) but it's a marked improvement on my normal attempts and I'm excited to collect back the brown paper to make sketchbooks with and some of the ribbon/string should be able to be reused by me or the recipient!

get inspired like I did looking at these examples of beautiful wrapping...
here, here, here, here, here and here. ah! beautiful

4 Days till Christmas: Christmas Pudding

2011-12-21T18:16:00.000Z

Well traditionally Christmas Pudding should be made all the way back in November on stirring day, which was on the 21st this year. I made mine then which is why this is probably the least exciting Christmas Pudding you've ever seen - it's all wrapped up as it's been hiding in a cold dark place since I made it. Never the less I don't think you have to make it that early and if you still haven't brought one I'd say stop! Make one! It's super simple and tasty and you can even make mini-ones, I made mine on Christmas Eve last year, although I made a catastrophic error - I used plastic pudding bowls which were fine when I first steamed them but began to melt when I reheated on Christmas Day, horror moment! I should be safe this year I've used a proper ceramic one and gone for one large pudding. I followed this recipe to make mine, hopefully it's tasty I'll find out in 4 days!

5 Days till Christmas: Paper Snowflakes

2011-12-20T12:20:00.000Z

Paper snowflakes are something that I am truly quite terrible at creating. I'm not sure what it is but my inability to create them haunts me ever year! This year I decided to look for some kind of tutorial that would take me though it and I found this delightful one by scrumdilly-do that uses cupcake liners. I still don't think I've got it but it is a marked improvement on any previous attempts so I've adorned my window with them - this may in-fact motivate me to make some more!

6 days till Christmas: A mix CD

2011-12-19T22:14:00.001Z

Nothing get's me in the mood for Christmas quite like a few Christmas tracks so I've made a mix CD and a little cover to go with it. I love putting together tracks, if you want a bit of Christmas cheer I've made a little playlist on YouTube.

7 Days till Christmas: Cranberry Sauce

2011-12-18T08:00:00.002Z

I love making cranberry sauce! It's quick, easy and tastes delicious and it makes the perfect little gift if you pop round to someone's just before Christmas! I've used a different recipe each year: this one is really simple and traditional, this one has some good ideas for additional things to add and this one is a bit more unusual but tastes great. I sort of made it up as I was going along this time and added different things as it was cooking, which is a bit adventurous for me. I put cloves and lemon in for flavour and added the juice of 2 clementines rather than oranges and opted for a bit more port than I've ever seen suggested but it seems to have worked I used...

100ml port

100g light muscovado sugar

Juice of 2 clementines (and a bit of the zest)

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp of lemon zest

Heat the port, clementine juice, sugar and cranberries until the cranberries begin to soften and burst (around 10 mins) then add the cloves, lemon and clementine zest and leave to simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to cool then put it into your containers.

Not sure that I'd feel that confident recommending my concoction but I definitely recommend having a go at making your own sauce!

8 Days till Christmas: Oranges and Cinnamon

2011-12-17T19:21:00.000Z

I wanted to make some cute bits and pieces to tie onto presents this year so I dried out the cinnamon sticks and oranges I used when I was making my mulling syrup. I baked the oranges in the oven over night on the lowest temperature, it smelt amazing in the kitchen in the morning!

+ I love this, too cute!

9 Days till Christmas: Chocolate and Cranberry Log

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000Z

I think I'm still in shock that I actually made this! I watched Lorraine Pascale make a swiss roll on her baking made easy programme a while ago and thought, you must be joking that looks crazy hard! I take that back though having had a go, it was surprisingly simple - it really does roll quite easily. I followed this recipe, I think it might be my favourite handmade Christmas item so far!

10 days till Christmas: Chocolate and Cinnamon Shortbread

2011-12-15T08:00:00.005Z

I love recipes with cinnamon as well as the chance to put my edible glitter on absolutely everything. If photographs could sparkle you would see how crazily glittery these looked in real life! This recipe is super simple + tasty and would be great if you had some cut festive cookie cutters (which I sadly do not)

Ingredients

200g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon

250g unsalted butter

60g icing sugar

caster sugar (for sprinkling)

edible glitter (for sprinkling and glamour)

Preheat the over to 160C (Gas mark 2-3) and line two trays with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and icing sugar (in an electric mixer if you've got one!) until light and creamy. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and cinnamon together into a separate bowl, fold the sifted mixture into the icing/butter mixture then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead till smooth.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper till it's about 1cm thick then cut out the biscuits using a awesome shaped cookie cutter then put them onto the baking trays. Prick the dough with a fork, sprinkle the caster sugar over them then put them in the fridge for 30mins

Bake for 15-18 mins, remove them from the oven and whilst still warm sprinkle glitter on them then allow to cool on the trays!

Take them to work and share them so everyone feels happy and festive!* yay!

*you don't have to do that, but I did and it was fun!

11 days till Christmas: Mulling Syrup

2011-12-14T08:00:00.002Z

I've already enjoyed my first mug of mulled wine as I had some of this Cinnamon Mulling Syrup leftover when I made a batch - it was wonderful. I've always added the spices etc to the wine but I've never tried a syrup so thought I'd give it ago this year...

Ingredients

650g Caster Sugar

6 slices of fresh ginger

2 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg*

8 cinnamon sticks

6 juniper berries (lightly crushed)

12 cloves

2 oranges

1 litre of water

*I don't know about you but I'm terrible at grating nutmeg. If anyone has any top tips please share I kept letting go of mine and it went flying across the room a few times!

Cut the oranges in halve and stick the cloves in the skin then put all the ingredients into a large pan. Bring to the boil, stirring to make sure the sugar dissolves fully, then simmer for 10 minutes. Leave it to cool then sieve into a jug and finally pour into a bottle/container.

I put mine into 250ml bottles and would recommend adding one bottle of syrup to one bottle of red wine (or cider!) I've decorated my bottles with some holly that my wonderful neighbour gave me and attached a copy of the recipe so that the recipient can make some more!

12 days till Christmas: Spicy Pickled Christmas Cabbage

2011-12-13T08:00:00.002Z

There's 12 days till Christmas and I'm feeling really festive this year - I've been making lots of gifts, foods and crafts so I thought I'd share one a day till Christmas. To kick it off is some spicy pickled Christmas cabbage, when I went to Munich I fell in love with pickled cabbage so when I came across this recipe I had to try it. There's just enough time to make this in time for Christmas as you're meant to leave it for 2 weeks and I think it'd be the perfect pickle to go with your leftovers on boxing day!

I followed this recipe from the mail online, my only warning is that boiling vinegar leaves a really strong smell and it lingered for a few days! The colour of it is fantastic, it's a really bright magenta and it tastes amazing with sausages. It makes 5 jars so I've tied some ribbons round it to make it look beautiful and given the other 4 away as gifts. Yum yum!

knitting and alphabets

2011-11-26T14:43:00.004Z

The autumn term in teaching always seems the longest and busiest (she's says only just coming up to finishing her second ever autumn term). I've been teaching graphics this year and I've fallen in love with typography so much I've started playing about a bit in my own sketchbooks, more to come soon I'm sure. I'm currently knitting the above jumper - I'm using this free pattern by Rowan but with a different yarn. I really love the pattern and the length so I'm hoping it will be my super winter jumper!

I think I mentioned this back when we first started doing it at work, but me and two other colleagues run course blogs (here's the textiles one, you can get to the other ones through that too) and I'm really starting to enjoy it. We're launching new types of updates next week which will be fun, we've started using them for lessons and we've got students in one of my classes using blogs instead of a sketchbooks, it's exciting to be involved with. We've also been uploading tons of pictures, mostly of student work, to flickr. I made these 'good luck' 3D letters with one of my classes this week; I love being able to do such a variety of different creative stuff for my job! I did a craft fair with some students a few weeks ago too! Awesome! + This is what our department looks like in case you wondered! So whilst it does seem like it's been crazily busy I'm still enjoying it immensely!

p.s I've also fallen a little bit in love with pinterest... if your on there add me and I'll add you back!

sew sew

2011-11-05T15:09:00.000Z

It's been a while since I last did any sewing. I was asked to embroider some initials into some hankies for someone this week - I've really enjoyed it. I feel like I've been surrounded by typography over the last few weeks; I've been doing a project with students about it and just as that was coming to close I had a mini project of my own. I quite like the idea of doing some embroidered typography myself so perhaps this is the start of a new project!

It was half term last week so me and Matt spent a few days in Munich which was really fun, we went to a Kraftwerk video installation which was amazing! We also went to Dachau, the olympic park, some markets and of course a few beer halls. I love being able to get away for a few days! One of my favourite things was how many pumpkins they had around...

It reminded me how badly my pumpkin growing went this summer but made me a little bit more determined to get it right next year! I love pumpkin - I made pumpkin soup (I added cinnamon and nutmeg) last weekend, bliss.

I'm in a book!

2011-10-16T15:44:00.000+01:00

This week I recieved something rather exciting in the post; a copy of Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery which includes an interview with me and along with examples of my embroideries. A friend of mine shared a link with me last year, a call out for artists/embroiderers' to submit projects for an upcoming book about embroidery and so I thought I'd give it a shot. Much to my surprise I was contacted and rather than submit a project they wanted to do an artist feature and interview me for the book, so I jumped at the chance. It was really exciting to actually see the finished article in the flesh and read what I've said in print!

The book itself is really beautiful, there's some great projects I'd love to try as well as some work by some amazing people such as; Sarah Terry, Takashi Iwasaki, Laura Splan and Cate Anevski to name just a few.

tartan wrap

2011-10-10T19:12:00.002+01:00

Remember when I started this? Yeah, it was a pretty long time ago! I finished it during August at some point and finally got round to photographing it this week. I've not really done much colourwork so at first I found it quite difficult but I think I got better as I went along. For some reason though I kept leaving it till last in my knitting pile almost convincing myself that it would be impossible to complete and then the summer holidays began and I knitted pretty much all of it (I'd hardly done any since that blog post, terrible!). I think it might actually be one of my favourite ever knitted items, roll on cold weather I want to start wearing it!

pinboard

2011-09-17T18:04:00.000+01:00

I went to see the Degas Exhibition at the Royal Academy last night (teachers private views = free and awesome). It was quite interesting, lots of drawings. I went with some people from my deptartment at work. We talked about being easily distracted/overwhelmed with inspiring, beautiful art and it made me come away wanting to make work and get some kind of focus on it. So I decided it was time my pinboard was revamped. I looked through all my various cuttings, leaflets, magazines etc and settled on these pieces. I'm feeling quite uplifted whenever I look at it now!

more baby knits...

2011-09-11T16:03:00.001+01:00

Yep! More baby knits! This time of the boy variety, my friend gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last weekend and I am quite excited to be handing over these pieces to her/him. I love the jumper I want to try a similar style but adult size; the front and back are a straight knit. I wonder how if it'll work on an adult body...

I went along to that new knitting shop near me last weekend. It's lovely! The owner was super helpful and sorted me out with a little conversion so I could subsitute the wool for this pattern. Awesome stuff!

play/art/toy

2011-09-07T08:00:00.001+01:00

The wonderful Susan Schwake invited me to be part of this fun exhibition over at the Artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH in the USA which I'm very excited about! The show opens today and there's a exhibition reception on the 10th; if only I could fit in a bit of transatlantic travel to be there! Also all the pieces in the show are available to buy in the online shop.

pop-up video!

2011-09-06T18:36:00.001+01:00

A little bit late on the update with this but I only just came across this - a video of the Grannies, Inc pop-up catwalk shows! Brownie points if you can spot me (and my dad) in the crowd!

cute dress on cute girls

2011-09-03T10:46:00.001+01:00

I gave Grace and Alice (matt's niece's) their dresses last weekend when we went camping and they kindly danced around in them so I could make these little moving photos! They are awesome! I used glickr to make those, I really need to learn how to make gifs properly.

In other news, I'm currently excited by this competition at ALL knitwear. I literally love all their pieces. If you enter and you win my eyes will be crazy green. These are just a few of the pieces I would love to own from the shop like this jumper, this jumper, this hat and this cardigan to name just a few. Also a new knit shop has opened sort of near me, well near to where I work more so, I'm gonna check it out today!