This afternoon I had to take a trip into the city for a meeting. Whilst I was there I took the opportunity to visit the long anticipated Nottingham Contemporary.

I’ve mentioned this new art gallery before in my ‘Blanket of Ideas’ post and I’d been looking forward to it opening since I heard about it. Not least because their very first exhibition is David Hockney which was not a disappointment, especially ‘A Bigger Splash‘.

The other thing I was hoping to see was the Blanket of Ideas and sure enough it was there with my little shell stitch crochet square right in the middle! That put a grin on my face for the rest of the day I can tell you :) Lisa Anne Auerbach has a really good photo of it on her website ‘The Little Red Blog of Revolutionary Knitting‘.

If you’re in Nottingham visit the gallery. I’m sure I’ll be spending lots more time there.
www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

So, you’re familiar with the idea of writer’s block? Well I think I have a serious case of that, but with sewing.

I’ve just spent 3 hours discovering the wonderful world of BurdaStyle (which seems perfect for a beginner like me), I have shelves full of books, a head full of ideas, a cut out dress pattern from ‘making things from vintage patterns’ class and a thousand started-but-not-finished embroidery, sewing and crochet projects but can’t set myself to do any of them. Its a bit like standing at the bottom of an insurmountable mountain and I think I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all!

It seems that crafting and dressmaking requires a lot of patience and acceptance that you can’t expect to be able to do everything instantly. But I want to be able to do it all instantly and its frustrating! This is a bit of a diversion tactic. Instead of getting to it and just tackling something I’ll just write about it here instead. I never seem to get writer’s block with writing.

Can anyone help me shake off this feeling?

That’s what I’ve been learning to do lately and will be doing through until February.

I’m sitting Claire’s weekly evening course ‘Making Things from Vintage Patterns’ at the Textile Workshop. The first thing we made was this 1950′s domestic goddess apron. The fabric for mine came from a really pretty duvet cover I bought in a charity shop ages ago.

Then yesterday Claire and I sat Hannah’s one day vintage slippers class. How sweet are these? They’re from a 1940s pattern and will make a great gift so I can’t wait to get on with my next pair.

I really want to do some dressmaking for the next few weeks of the course so I have bought two dress patterns and one smock top one, 1970s of course. I’ll let you know how they go.

Finally, yesterday we made this Halloween lantern from a home grown pumpkin. We liked the way that he looks too happy to be evil…