There are so many things that nobody ever tells you about earrings. And I'm learning them all, at some speed, unexpectedly late in life. Let's be clear: I do not in any way regret having my ears pierced. I was never going to, but having tried
There's only one thing I don't like about latch hook rugmaking, and that's the fact that you can, after all, use only so many rugs; and, these days, I can't use rugs at all, or at least not the thick and luxurious
I'm not sure where I first came across the art of zhostovo painting. It is true that my Porthos is half Russian, but I don't think I heard about it either from him or from his redoubtable mother, who was born in Siberia and made good
Before I start talking about dress forms... yesterday's post didn't go down too well, did it? My own fault; I used the M-word in the title, and a lot of people are unduly frightened of maths. The reason for this is almost always poor teaching at
It was Alex Bellos who started it all off. I can't remember which of his books it was now, because of course I no longer have it (this is becoming an habitual refrain); but he happened to mention hyperbolic crochet and I was immediately intrigued. Here's
Peyote? That's the cactus, right? The one that produces mescaline? Actually, not in this case. I'm not planning a screed against mind-altering substances here (not that I'm interested in taking them myself, since I can quite happily manage to be as strange as anyone
It started with the Southbanks. I picked up some more fabric in a sale to make a few more of them, since they are so immensely useful, which means I'm going to end up with one in every colour I want to wear. Thankfully for my wallet, that
I used to be in the SCA, which stands for the Society for Creative Anachronism. This was (and still is) a mediaeval re-enactment society, probably best known for the fighting. People get themselves up in mediaeval armour, with a good deal of padding, and engage in mock sword fights with
Many years ago, I used to make bobbin lace; and then the furry gentleman in my icon walked into my life, along with his brother. The furry gentleman in the icon was called Minsky, and he was by far the most intelligent cat I've ever had the privilege
A long time ago I was on Facebook, before I found out enough about it to make me twitchy. I was mostly there for the games; and the game I enjoyed most was called Fluff Friends. Fluff Friends was great for a number of reasons. First of all, though there
Yesterday I was writing about designing for Kasia; and that was great fun to do, but in fact she had a fairly unusual figure. And you really wouldn't believe that from looking at pattern envelopes (though, thankfully, that is changing these days). Manufacturers of both patterns and ready-to-wear
There is not very much that inspires my creativity better than another similarly creative person; so today I'm going to tell you about Kasia. Kasia wasn't her real name, but she was Polish, so it will do. I met her through my next-door neighbour, who quite