anarchy, acrylic and arrivederci

 Turns out there's a time and a place for acrylic. No really, there is.

It snowed last week so it must be Winter. And The Boss needs a warmer school jumper. If I'm going to knit one, then it's got to be acrylic. I'll tell you for why.

1. For two quid you get a ball of yarn as big as a large baby. And if you are going to risk making your child look like the 'special' one in the playground, you really don't want to spend actual money on actual wool, in case the whole idea is rejected after day one by a small person who suddenly realises that fitting in is very VERY important.
2. While we're talking about cost, perfectly adequate generic supermarket school cardigans cost less than a fiver. A hand-made school jumper has got to compare favourably with that. I might have my head in the clouds but I'm not a bloody idiot.
3. It's going to have to be chucked in the machine along with everything else. Often.
4. Wool yarn, in proper flat-textured bottle green, doesn't appear to exist.

While it's a horror to knit with, it is actually making quite a nice, tight, even fabric. My tension must be all over the place because the stitches keep sliding around on the needles, but the yarn is incredibly forgiving of that; the fibres seem to find their own squashy equilibrium.

Her favourite jumper is the fuchsia Rubble I made while waiting for the Dragon Baby to arrive. The fuchsia Rubble that has recently gone missing. (We'll discuss it later young lady, mark my words.) I think that pattern'll make quite a nice school sweater. Long-sleeved white t-shirt underneath and her grey skinny jeans... we might be stretching the uniform policy to breaking point, but there aren't many acceptable acts of mild anarchy in family life. You've got to take them when you can.

Probably get 4 sweaters out of that ball...

So listen, I think this might be my final Yarn Along post. But if there was ever a good reason to start a blog, Yarn Along has been it. A better source of inspiration, help, advice, ambition and charity I couldn't have imagined. And as for the (largely) women behind the posts? Truly I feel like we are face-to-face friends now. Though you won't be reading my waffle any more, I'll still be reading yours.

And do you know the strangest by-product of Yarn Along? I get sent all these mysterious emails from various publishers and book websites, promoting their latest Young Adult fiction. It took me the longest while to figure out that it can only be because I've typed "YA" and "book" into a whole lot of blogposts, and the bots must have tracked my keystrokes or something. I've never knowingly read Young Adult fiction in my life (and honestly, can't see it happening, no matter how many newsletters I get from Goodreads. Soz chaps.) Anyone else had this YA misunderstanding happen to them? No? Just me then.

So there we are.

I'm so delighted to have linked up with some of you over at my new portfolio site, or on Pinterest. I don't want to lose touch, so if you haven't visited yet, I'd love to see you there. I believe my new place is on Bloglovin, though I have simply no idea what that means. So please, if you do Bloglovin type things, then y'know, do whatever that is.

Sounding like a halfwit yet?

Well, let me redeem myself by trying to appear frightfully clever: you remember when I won that design competition back in July? The Art Deco design thing? Well, the silk scarves are now for sale here. Can you believe it?! I really can't.

I'm powerfully un-cool about the whole thing. I'm literally jumping up and down and pinning these images twelvety times a day. My resolution on January 1st 2013 was "to make something capable of selling this year" (notice that I didn't have to actually sell it). So it's seriously mind-bending to have sold a few hundred pounds worth of cards and tea towels this week alone (and some of them have even sold to strangers; a crucial milestone!). I have grinned dumbly at this silk scarf web page for A. Long. Time. I don't even get a profit share, so I don't know why I'm so pleased. It just looks so PROPER. I think it might be the first New Year's Resolution I've ever kept.

www.betafashion.com

So, that's where we are right now. Technically inept, terminally uncool, and draping The Boss in acrylic (while I lust after silk). I can't quite decide whether it's all downhill from here on, or if things can only get better. Either way, it's been lovely Yarn Alongers, and everyone else. Thank you all, Happy Thanksgiving, and I'd love to see you over on the other side sometime soon.

Tally ho.

party poopers and a few leftover macaroons

About ten years ago I lived in a wee flat with my friend and work colleague, we'll call her Bella, because that is not her name. Across the landing was the flat of another friend and work colleague, we'll call him Bazza, because that is not his name.

It was all very Friends. Except that we lived above a sandwich shop rather than a coffee shop... oh, and it was in a small, skanky armpit of a Scottish town rather than NYC. So not at all like Friends really.

Anyway, after every jolly evening down the pub, we would end up back at Bazza's flat, playing loud Indie music, getting more and more sozzled while we moaned about the state of the place we had to work in. In certain ways it was great. But the greatest thing about the whole set up? I would excuse myself for a wee bathroom break, and then without the others noticing I'd nip back across the landing to my flat and go to bed. Bella and Bazza would continue with their party, too pissed to realise that I'd been gone for hours. We'd all feel like death warmed up the following morning, but I'd have the rosy glow borne of a few hours more sleep and a few hours less beer. The very definition of smug.

So, I admit it, I'm the party slope-er-off-er. Have you ever done it? Has anyone ever done it to you? I can only imagine how annoying it is to realise that your friend left hours ago without saying goodbye, and is now fast asleep (in pyjamas, with her make up taken off) while you got so plastered waiting for her to return from the bathroom (three hours ago) that you can't even say pyjamas, let alone contemplate the whole face-wash/tooth-brush caper.

I sense that your opinion of me has fallen somewhat. What can I say. We were young, and I'm a pain in the arse.

But I am determined not to be the party slope-er-off-er from this here blog shindig. I feel it would be rude, after all this time, and after we've had so much fun, to just disappear without so much as a by your leave. And so I have some finale posts planned, this being one of them. There's a Yarn Along or two in the pipeline perhaps, certainly a final fling with a Random Recipe. I keep you (literally) posted.

So "why has the blogpost cupboard been so bare recently?" I hear you ask in your best faux-sincere, head-tilty lilt. A neurosis shared is a neurosis indulged after all, and I do ever-so like to indulge.

Well, it turns out that sometimes it's best to take the plunge and commit to something wholeheartedly, rather than to dither about. And so it is with the illustrating lark I've found myself in. I have taken the plunge, put my name behind it and a tiny wee bit of money too.

So instead of planning a lovely, theoretical, perfect creative business where everything's just "so" before I begin (and therefore will never actually exist) I realised, for once in my life, that I had better just bloody well get on with it. Full steam ahead.

And none of it is perfect, none of it matches, and I haven't found my own personal illustrative style yet, but the process is great fun. Precious few hours are left for my witterings about cake, and wool, and cake, and my apple trees (and did I mention cake?). But while I may seem to have disappeared altogether, I'm actually all over the place. Just not here.

For example:

• I'm building a portfolio here. 
• And you can read a little about my background here, and my latest larks here. 
• And you can buy things from here and here. 
• And you can vote for my latest contest entries here and here.
• And I'm Pinning things here, and Spoonflowering things there. 

And what I'm trying to get at is that I would love to connect with you in all these online places. Because otherwise we'll not bump into one another all that much any more, and that would be an awful shame. (But, don't worry, I still read your blogs, so I'll continue sticking my beak in where it's not required in the comments sections, thank you please very much.)

Anyway, while you're filling your glass and having a wee browse through those links, it's getting late so I must just nip to the bathroom. I may be some time...

Click through to cast your vote for my scarf design on the theme of "Cabinet of curiosities"!

Click here to buy a cushion, it's available until 11th November at ohhdeer.com!

stop the presses :: there's news

It's 1pm and there's still breakfast mess all over the table. For lunch, The Boss was fed an old croissant and a box of raisins in the garden. It was easier than clearing up breakfast. The Dragon Baby looks like he's had whole body dermabrasion with a coarse cheese grater. (He hasn't, it's roaring eczema. I'm so anxious about it I can hardly talk. So let's just not okay.)

I literally cannot remember the last time any of us washed our hair.

I know. It's any wonder I don't find it more of a burden being such a astonishingly fabulous mother. Even as we limp towards the end of the Summer holidays, all this perfection just comes so easily to me. Guess I was born this way.

Blurg.

Anyway. I feel I need to share with you. It's a great big A* pat on the back that I got recently. Not least because some of you helped me to get it. I entered an open design contest a couple of months ago with some Art Deco silk scarf designs. People voted/scored them and I did OK. Top 20%. (Thank you to those who voted.)

The company then chose their favourites - and mine was one of them!

I can scarcely believe it, and probably won't until I'm holding a scarf in my own two (chipped and flaky) hands. I won actual money (which of course I haven't received yet, but have spent, obviously). And my design will be sold on the BetaFashion website and in Topshop's flagship store in Oxford Circus. TOPSHOP! That's the bit I have to keep repeating to myself over and over again. Squishy, neurotic, Scottish mother-of-two designs silk scarf for Topshop? It's a bit mad.

I am beyond... I can't think of a word. Just beyond. I'm working on the next one, and loads of other stuff you can see over here. Go and take a look.

Below is a work in progress for a 'Dreaming in Colour' brief. Not sure I'm quite loving it yet. More work to do.

hamstrung on happy street

Usually the kind of freak who uses electronic baking scales (because precision is fun) and finds ironing bedlinen therapeutic (just call me Monica), our lives are currently a complete bourach. (Google it, it's approximately the most onomatopoeic word in the known universe. Thank you Gaelic.) It's actually quite liberating, but the panic is starting to kick in. Because nobody can find their clean knickers in the morning.

It's chaos, but it's (mostly) brilliant.

I've been trying to keep up with the illustrating, doing respectably well in recent Spoonflower contests but still just missing out on the top ten. And my silk scarf designs for BetaFashion both placed very near the top in the Art Deco competition (there are about eighty entries altogether, and as far as I can tell, one of mine placed eighth, the other about sixteenthish). The judges have yet to decide which (if any) of the scarves are to be printed, but I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far regardless. Keeping my fingers crossed. My theory is that if I keep plugging away at these open contests, I'll break into the top flight eventually, and it's all great Illustrator practice in the meantime. That's the idea anyway.

But what is not going so swimmingly is reading and knitting. I have completely stopped reading. Between the gardening and the school holidays and everything else, I'm not making the time. I have a list as long as my arm to catch up with, but I suspect it's just not going to happen until school starts again.

And knitting. Well, that is where I need some of your solid gold-plated advice.

You probably know that I fell head over heels with Veera's Happy Street pattern as soon as I saw it. It's so rare to see a knitting pattern that is youthful and modern, and Veera just seems to hit the nail on the head every time.

Image from 100% rain

So I spent weeks trying to find the Madelinetosh colours in any shop that wasn't going to bankrupt me. As soon as I mentioned my struggles here a few months ago, Sarah contacted me to say she could try dyeing the colours for me! She did, and they are AWESOME, and I have the dual self-righteous warm fuzzies of a) having supported a lovely UK-based businesswoman and b) not being bankrupt.

Win, win.

So I wound the wool, packed my needle, printed the pattern; all ready for a wee trip away. After settling down in a comfortable chair, all set to cast on, I read those fateful words: Cut yarn after each colour change.

Heart sink.

What I love about all the other Veera shawls I've made (and I've made a LOT) is that you can carry the strands all the way through the pattern, resulting in (usually) just two ends to weave in at the beginning and two at the end, and a very neat finished product. But looking at the picture of Happy Street, I guess it's going to end up with at least two dozen cut ends. And I'm a novice, so my finishing is very far from invisible. So I'm in a quandary, and would love to hear your advice.

1. Have you made Happy Street? Do you think I should just crack on regardless and hope for the best (because the pattern is so beautiful)?
2. What's the secret to finishing? There is almost certainly a "proper" way to do it that I'm not aware of (I basically make it up as I go along). Do you know of an online resource I can read/watch to teach me how to weave in neatly?
3. If the answers to the above are both "No", do you know of another pattern that would look as fantastic using about 400m each of these beautiful colours that Sarah made for me? 

I get so much great advice, tips and tricks through this blogging lark (not to mention recipes, hand-dyed wool, book recommendations, inspiration, ideas, support... I could go on). Thank you, I appreciate it, and will try not to be absent for so long again.

midsummer update

Isn't this pretty? I love the crinkliness.

So, I've been busy studying and drawing and studying and drawing. And, six months in to the year, on midsummer's day, I achieved my New Year's resolution for, I'm pretty sure, the first time in my life. (My resolution was to make something to sell - deliberately vague.)

Do a little search for greeturchin on the deigners tab of Spoonflower, and you'll see my Midsummer Night's Dream design, entered in the fabric of the week contest this week, and available now as fabric, wallpaper and giftwrap. (Yay!)

In the absence of a job or any design briefs or confidence, I'm using competitions and contests as my clients. Adobe Illustrator isn't the most intuitive package, and I know from my days in publishing that if you don't use it - and use it every day - you lose it. So the weekly Spoonflower contests, as well as some others, seem like a good way to discipline myself into frequent illustrating.

And to keep a track of my nascent digital skills, I've started a little online portfolio here.

So, sorry I've been a bit absent lately. To be honest, though I love writing, I was even starting to annoy myself. So I'm guessing below par wisecracks about cake, children and knitting were probably getting a bit old for you too. Thanks for being kind enough not to say so though.

But if you'd like to follow what I'm working on, do link up with my fledgling portfolio.

There's an Etsy shop in development too (as soon as I have cards to put in it, which could be soon or could be... ummm... never at this rate). Just don't buy any Christmas cards from anywhere else yet is all I'm saying (as if you were buying Christmas cards in June anyway).

So, now that you're all in the loop-dee-loop, ta ta for now, and enjoy your Summer.

summer in the comfort zone

You know the "what would I do if I won the lottery" conversation? My best friend and I have it frequently. Sometimes gin is involved. In fact, gin and the lottery game are positively correlated. Me and her bought lottery tickets together the week it was launched in the UK. We were just old enough to play (though technically not old enough to watch the inaugural draw on the pub telly. Ahem.)

So what would we do if we won? All the selfless generosity items have to be ticked off first; pay one another's mortgages (and those of all one another's brothers), buy local pet rescue, make record-breaking charity donation. You know the script.

Once that's out of the way, the selfish indulgences can be debated. And that's always more interesting.

It's taken nearly twenty years to be absolutely sure what my first selfish indulgence would be. It would be The Summer Of All Summers.

On May Day, I'd spring the kids out of school and tell the Breadwinner to quit his job. We'd fly somewhere beautiful and decrepit for a couple of weeks, probably Procida, where there's genuinely nothing to do except eat your own body weight in lingua di bue pastries. Returning to London, having got our heads around being bajillionaires, we'd start a Summer of solid gold-plated wonderment; the Chelsea Flower Show, the Hay Literary Festival, a family-friendly music festival or two, a full fortnight of fabulous seats at Wimbledon. We'd string out the gallivanting until the last night of the Proms in September, and then go to Japan to watch the trees change colour from an onsen in the mountains.

Of course we'd stay in a string of achingly beautiful guesthouses and powerfully inauthentic yurts throughout, the weather would be the colour of a peach, and we would all become gently bronzed and gorgeous. Meanwhile, the traditional Procidan fisherman's house we bought for thruppence would be under renovation by Miuccia Prada herself, and our relatives' bickering (over the value of first brother's mortgage being twice that of second brother's) would have escalated and required arbitration.

It would all be rather nomadic, incredibly indulgent and gently adventurous.

Funnily enough, we're not living that Summer.

Mr Breadwinner is working a very, very long way away for a wee while, so I am currently sole custodian of two small children, an elderly cat, a draughty old house and an overgrown garden. If you're a little bit neurotic (I think I just heard him snort at the "little bit" from nine thousand kilometres. Amazing.) this level of responsibility can make you an eensy weensy bit risk averse.

We're not doing bikes. Or scooters. Or secateurs. Or lawn mowing. Or balancing on low garden walls. Or playing the how-long-can-I-hold-my-breath-in-the-bath game. In fact, let's just not do baths. Too slippery. Did I really say we'd make rhubarb jam? We're not doing boiling sugar. Sorry.

In fact, this week is exactly the opposite of The Summer Of All Summers. As if to underline the point, it's actually just started hailstoning on my clean washing line.

But we are knitting, and reading, and watching coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show on the telly. We're ticking off the days, trading for cooperation in whatever currency seems most appropriate: Merida stickers and playdates for her, carbs and chewy silicone kitchen utensils for him, online window shopping and caffeine for me. Safe safe safe. Well inside the comfort zone. Only a few more days to go.

I want to thank everyone so much who voted for our 'Flatterned Man' competition design after reading this post. You are lovely and I appreciate it. Really, during a tough week, it's disproportionately and outrageously uplifting to know that the numbers are still creeping up. There are still a few days left to vote, and while our tally is pretty respectable, we're a good long way off the top spot.

But I've done some sums and if everyone who reads my YA posts were to vote, we'd be neck and neck. So, if you'd like to know about how I came to enter this little design contest, click here. Or if you've got a spare twenty seconds to just give me a wee boost, you can click on the 'Flatterned Man' by me & Robin here.

It's not going to be the multimillion Summer Of All Summers, I haven't bought a lottery ticket after all. But you could help me to the runner up position and it won't cost anyone a penny!

please help :: the one where Mill calls all her favours in

Last month, my best friend moved into a new flat. She asked me to design a change-of-address card, based on a sketch by her father. Her Dad’s an uber-creative who even has an OBE. For services to serious artistry. M’ya-ha darlings, that’s arty royalty right there. So the card turned out well. Her friends loved it.     

Her Dad emailed me more sketches, beautiful little scribbles that would compete with any Quentin Blake. And we all wondered if there might be a way to harness his lifelong sketching talent to my fledgling graphic design skills and make cards that people (other than close family members) might actually want to buy.   

Of course, a major stumbling block sits squarely in our path; he’s retired and I’m a full-time Mum, therefore neither of us has a grubby fiver to spare to print cards that may or, let’s face it, may not sell. 

And that’s when a little competition was announced; to design a Thank You card for a fantastic British company, based not far from where I live, called Pedlars. Entering the competition gives me and The Prof a chance to see one of our designs alongside the work of more established surface designers which, frankly, is exciting enough to begin with. And maybe, just (breathy) maybe, with your help we could see our work in print without having to plunder my child benefit or his old-age pension.     

 

Click here to vote for our flatterned man design

So, I’m looking at you with my biggest shiniest eyes (you know like when Puss-in Boots turns on the soppy in the Shrek movies) and imploring you, if you have a couple of minutes please take a look at the competition page and, if you think it has any merit at all, vote for the ‘Flatterned Man’ card by Robin and Camilla.

The voting is open until 29 May 2013. So here goes: social network sustenance matrix activated.

Thank you beautiful creatures; your support means the world to this nerdy girl and that arty Grandpa. I think, with your help, there's an outside chance we might just do it...

colour lovers

Some people have just got it. The colours of their lives are tasteful, elegant, conscious decisions. I do not have it. As a family we either leave the house looking like a wet weekend or a pride of Liberace's peacocks. (Did he have peacocks? I imagine so.)

All this graphic design studying I am doing only confirms my utterly hopeless lack of colour sense. When faced with a set of electronic colour swatches (or worse, a whole spectrum wheel with sliders... run for the hills with tongue lolling and arms flapping) I get completely paralysed by choice. And then proceed to make exactly the wrong choice almost every time. Ditto in a wool shop faced with a wall of rainbow yarn.

So you can imagine what a pleasure it is to have that choice removed. I have been bought some wool to make a shawl; to be a gift from one lady to another. I guess you could call it a commission! I've never been indulgent enough to treat myself to this lovely kind of wool, and certainly wouldn't have had the good taste to choose these colours. So, without further ado; Madelinetosh I'd like to introduce you to Varjo.

Making these colour swatches of photos is quick, easy and hopefully a good way to work on my sense of colour.

A few other projects I have just finished got the colour treatment as well. Oh, and the first luridly fluorescent forced rhubarb of the season from my garden. It was crumble 30 minutes after this shot was taken (and after 45 minutes, it was history).

Where reading is concerned, I realised that as well as being a colour cretin, I am also a font fool, so I'm geeking up on this Type book. Which I adore.

If anyone has advice on choosing colours for their projects I'd certainly love to hear it. Some of you just get it right every time (looking at you Greer, Lori and Ginny!)

mr & mrs macnoodle-bloggs :: win a YEAR OF CLASSES!

As I looked back over my homework assignments for the past couple of months I realised - the big day has arrived! The MacNoodle-Bloggs nuptials! Gah, I wish I was there.

copyright 2013 little macaroon

Which gives me as good an excuse as any to share a few few things with you. Firstly, Nicole's Classes are having the mother and father of all competitions; to win A WHOLE YEAR worth of classes! Just head over to their blog to enter. This is such an amazing opportunity, I would sell a body part for less...

So here are some of the assignments I've been working on lately, mostly colour palette work, and drawing practice (with a little logo for an imaginary shop there that I'm super pleased with!). I actually just did my first little piece of "work" for a friend, just a logo and a form, for which I was paid in a pretty posy of British spring blooms from here. Happy days!

So if any of you lovely friends have a little electronic or print job you need designed and think I could practice on, please leave me a message with your details. I'm a fervent novice, so I'm desperate for reasons to keep plugging away in the software to cement my skills and create some sort of recognisable style. I'm more than happy to be reimbursed in virtual tea and cake (for a limited time only!).

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

copyright 2013 little macaroon

because there's always baking...

Easter holidays loom and it's STILL SNOWING. 

If you're trying to figure out how to entertain the children during the break, here's something that should resist the lure of the telly for an hour or so at least. My six year old can get on with this pretty much unassisted while I tape padding to the most accessible walls.

Because if it stays this cold she'll be bouncing off the walls and I'll be hitting my head off them. Repeatedly.

So, y'know, Happy Easter and all that. I shall be celebrating by printing off engineering vacancies in Singapore and using them as my husband's table mats.

no time to say "hello, goodbye"

Did I ever mention how wonderful Nicole's Classes are?
What?
I did? A hundred times already?

Well I'm going to tell you again, because they have monopolised ALL my spare moments so far this year.

Like the white rabbit, I'm late, late, late for everything these days, always trying to squeeze just one more tutorial into my already hectic schedule. I've listened to tutorials while changing nappies, while pasta boils, while The Boss does her homework. You name it, I've got half an ear tuned to my tutor Alma's dulcet tones.

Here's just a small sample of what she has enabled me to make this week. I'm not getting any kick back for telling you that I highly commend Nicole's online school to any and all of you who want to learn something new.

I'm hooked.

[I suspect Alma would point out that other fonts are available, and there is more than one way to set a block of text, but I'm having a fully-justified Amatic moment. It'll pass.]

* copyright little macaroon. 2013, all rights reserved.

* copyright little macaroon. 2013, all rights reserved.

* copyright little macaroon. 2013, all rights reserved.

* copyright little macaroon. 2013, all rights reserved.

saucy knitting and a family memoir

Turns out that lovely wool I bought a couple of weeks ago isn't right for the Varjo shawl I had in mind. Too masculine in colour for the intended recipient. But it was perfect for the very mannish Earth & Sky by Stephen West, a pattern I've been wanting to make for a while.

Apparently it was a mystery knit-along a couple of years ago, marketed using the only remotely saucy knitting photo I've ever seen. (Relax and take a look, it's PG, honest.)

While I think the finished product will be beautiful, I'm not in love with the actual pattern so far. Just the first couple of inches resulted in eleven ends to weave in. Surely it could have been more elegantly constructed to try and avoid that? It means that the reverse isn't going to be bonny, and neither are the edges, and I'm obsessed about edges. For me the finished product is ALL about perfect edges. Indeed, the other weekend (at quite the strangest Chinese New Year clan gathering of ang mohs on the wrong side of the world) I overheard my Mother-in-law and my Granny comparing the Different Lines shawls I made for each of them, and the praise was all in favour of how nice the edges are. That's a warm fuzzy feeling.

During that same weekend, I got a hold of a manuscript that I've been itching to read. The personal account of a journey my Great Uncle and Aunt made in 1949, driving overland all the way from the Middle East to the UK. I'm reading it very slowly and carefully, photocopying the crumbly, yellowing typewriter pages along the way and frantically gleaning all I can from my InDesign class, so that I can have it printed as a proper book really soon. (Seriously, they teach you how to design and create an actual proper book, isn't that amazing?)

Linking in with Yarn Along, the global community of bookworms and wool twiddlers.

the next phase?

How is it possible that I reached the grand old age of (ahem... twenty seven?) without learning about Adobe Illustrator? I've spent the last month forgetting to eat lunch and being late for school pick-up because I'm so absorbed in trying to figure out how to draw this or that.

A massive thanks to Alma from Nicole's Classes - I can't wait to enrol in Illustrator 102 in March!

an unfinished drawing of Mr Breadwinner

our family got a new dragon baby last week!

an exercise in drawing a blog header

a work in progress for December perhaps?

all opinions are my own

It's a cruel paradox that the excesses of Christmas has us all financially tightening our belts, and yet those same excesses mean we can't physically do our belts up at all. That's January for you. It's a bugger. If you're feeling the January slump this week, may I recommend signing up to learn something new? I can highly recommend it.

I  am enduring the holy trinity of January + wet snow + mastitis (again), but the homework feedback for my online Illustrator course is enough to put a smile on my face. Really, praise from an awesome new teacher is a miracle cure for the blues.

Just to be clear, despite banging on about them all the time, I'm not being paid to promote Nicole's Classes. They're so good that I'll rave about them AND pay for the privilege (I completed Photoshop 101 this time last year, and then got a GREAT deal on a whole raft of 2013 classes on Cyber Monday).

As my husband can testify, anyone able to teach me something computer-y from a standing start (I have never opened Illustrator before) in a matter of days is a genius. You have simply no idea how many years it took for me to grasp the concept of email.

So here are the greetings card assignments I "turned in" (so American!) for week two of my course. I urge you to go and see what the Nicole and her lovely friends can teach you, it'll cheer up your January no end.

I'd love to know what any of you have decided to learn this new year...

reject the expert :: embrace the geek

So 2012 didn't turn out too shabby. During one short year I created a whole small person from a single cell. Perhaps I ought to say "we" created, but we all know who did the lion's share. And by the time the bells rang 2013 in, that single cell from one year before could giggle when he trumped like a carthorse. An important milestone I'm sure you'll agree.

So, despite not achieving any of my goals last year (largely - though not entirely - because of the small person) I do have a few for the next 12 months.

First up, I'm not going to live the way anyone else tells me (unless I actually know them, and then I might consider it). Because if you add all the advice up, all the layers of rules and checklists and intentions and schedules, you will spontaneously implode.

Fact.

A quick example; here's how an (edited) two-hour segment of Christmas day might have looked had I paid heed to Nigella Lawson's turkey dinner schedule and Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby regime. Let's call it the expert mash-up of doom-laiden stress.

10am

- Peel and cut potatoes, then leave in cold water. Take bacon-wrapped chipolatas out of the fridge.
- Baby must be fully awake regardless of how long he has slept. Encourage him to have a good kick under his playgym or take him on an outing. (Who wrapped the chipolatas? Do we have chipolatas? Bugger it. Take the baby for an outing - I don't CARE if you're still in your pyjamas, IT'S WHAT THE BOOK SAYS.)

10.30am

- Take turkey out of brine, sit it on a rack in the sink and leave to drip, drain and come to room temperature. Preheat 1st oven to 200*C. Trim Brussels sprouts and leave in colander. Take prepared stuffing out of the fridge. (On the day everyone's most scared of food poisoning, I can't wash my hands because there's a turkey in the sink. Hmm.)

10.40am

- Put chipolatas in oven, Infuse milk for bread sauce. Measure out ingredients for chocolate pudding and set aside. (Bread sauce? Chocolate pudding? I think not.)

11am

- He should be given a full breast-feed or full bottle-feed.
- Put prepared potatoes in pan on heat to parboil. (Hang on, I'm breastfeeding.)

11.10am

- Take chipolatas out of oven and leave wrapped in foil (still breastfeeding...)

11.20am

- Melt basting liquid for turkey (yup, still breastfeeding...)

11.30am

- Baste turkey with half the liquid and put in first oven. Potatoes should be parboiling so keep an eye on them, then drain, dredge and leave in pan. (Sod the tatties, I've fed him now so I'm allowed a glass of something dry and fizzy aren't I? Geez.)

11.50am

- Change his nappy, close curtains and settle drowsy baby, half swaddled in the dark with the door shut no later than 12 noon. (Chance would be a fine thing. Put him in a pram and pass me the cooking sherry.)

You see? I suggest paying scant attention to them, for that way madness lies. Even if you have two ovens and pre-prepared stuffing.

So, good on you Cami Walker you generous soul, glad you're teaching the world to grin Gretchen Rubin, and Kim John Payne I agree with all your parenting ideas. But this year I'm going to shuffle through under my own steam if it's all the same to you. Advice is good. But you can have too much of a good thing, and "shuffling through" worked for me on Christmas day.

There's another change afoot in 2013: I'm gently embracing my inner geek. I've realised that no simple or wholesome creative activity is complete without an app or a preparatory session in front of the computer screen.

Not that I'm complaining, it's totally brilliant. I've planned the veg patch for this year, proven that I'm making progress with the post-baby weight loss, lost hours to Ravelry, and completed the first week of an Illustrator course (which I hope will lead to my being able to design things pretty enough to sell...).

Happy New Year one and all. Here's to a geeky one.

growVeg is a very cool tool to draw and plan your veg garden.
you tell it your location and it tells you when to do what
based on your frost dates.

my random recipe for January, chosen by random number generator,
was totally delicious. update coming soon.

pregnancy: plotted.
the NHS BMI Tracker app is so simple, and thoroughly motivational.
I'm getting there... gradually.

the fabulous Nicole's Classes (they of the dotty freebie pattern
you see in my background!) are going to keep me very
busy the first half of 2013, kicking off with a month of
Adobe Illustrator. Here's my first week's homework.

a new blanket idea is hatching - maybe I could use Illustrator to design a
gorgeous pattern sheet to sell on Ravelry? That's my resolution...

on enamel: not teeth but tins

I am positively averse to matchy matchy homewares. I don't really know why. I genuinely like (and often covet) other people's organised homes, where dishes are designed to stack together neatly and rooms are relaxingly tonal... I just can't bring myself to do it.

It's probably a failing borne of chronic indecision: if I'm expected to decide on one pattern for my dinner plates, or one style of furniture, or - heaven forbid - coordinating soft furnishings, then what about all those lovely things I'll have to opt out of, now and forever after? And what about all those random bits of old/homemade/inherited tat that will never match anything (but that I can't be parted from)? My husband knows that the day I utter "shall we just go for a nice three-piece suite Dear?" is the day I've lost my very essence.

This all works fine if charming idiosyncrasy is allowed time to develop naturally. But it's rather more of a challenge when a room gets so revoltingly decrepit that it needs to be renovated wholesale, in one painful and expensive burst. You may have gathered that we're having to replace our old kitchen: bits keep falling off and strange odours and creeping fungi are appearing. I fully expect to be replaced as soon as I meet that description (I'll probably be sitting on my three-piece suite). But it's very hard to avoid the scourge of the matchy matchy in a new kitchen.  Seriously, go and have a look around yours, lots of stuff matches doesn't it?

One material in particular seems to be gently pervading our new room; enamel. And it's a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

I've had a huge enamel bread bin (exactly like this one below) for about a decade, bought in a Conran shop warehouse sale for less than a pound. (Do they still have those sales? They were in some industrial estate in Wimbledon, and were brilliant.) It's the perfect size for keeping all the breadmaker ingredients and mice separate. Mine was already thoroughly beaten up by the time I bought it, so it has a kind of charm.

photo from lovely blog The White Approach, it's much more beautiful than any I took of mine!

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In April, I wrote of the nostalgia of pie, and of coveting these Falcon enamelware dishes (below). Well, I couldn't resist long, and have cooked with one of the five almost every single day since. They give me pleasure every time I use them. They're already losing their shine, and gaining a patina thanks to exposure to blackberries, rhubarb, balsamic vinegar and various other foodstuffs. But if you think this is a flaw, and somehow diminishes their beauty, you misunderstand their charisma completely. I'm definitely saving up for the bake set. I want to enjoy these for the rest of my days.

photo from www.falconenamelware.com

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Last month I mentioned finding some beautiful old blue enamel lampshades in an antique shop in Columbia Road in London. Three will hang in the new kitchen, in all their crumbly, crackled, rusty glory, dangling from fancy yellow cable flexes. They're either going to look wonderful, or very odd indeed, only time will tell. On that very same morning I saw these beautiful Rob Brandt cups in one of the galleries along Columbia Road. For less than a tenner, I had to have one. It's not enamel, it's ceramic, and I love it. Love love love love love it.

See what I mean? The lure of the matchy matchy, it's proving almost impossible to resist. Just please don't point it out to my husband.

photo from www.startspace.co.uk