the joy is in the planning: star block baby quilt

I'd not made a quilt for quite some time (over two years ago in fact!) and stitching this one reminded me of how much I enjoy it, the sewing and quilting yes, but actually it's the planning I love the most - figuring out which blocks to stitch, how many I might need, what fabrics to use, how big the quilts needs to be - it's all very satisfying.

I gave this latest quilt to its teeny recipient on Saturday as a christening present, I hope they liked it :)  I made a similar star block quilt for his sister three years ago and I thought it'd be cool to replicate the design albeit in different colours.

It took about 4 months to complete, but I really did take my time with it, and, like I say, I probably went a bit over board in my planning stages.

There's not much else to say really, it was great fun to sew and because it's a baby quilt it was very manageable under the machine and not unwieldy to quilt by hand. Another friend is having a baby in about two weeks so I'm tempted to start another one but I might need to replenish my fabric stash, any excuse for fabric shopping :)

Me Made May

For the last three of years I've seen lots of sewing bloggers partake in Me Made May, which, for those who don't know, is when people wear an item of clothing made by their own fair hands everyday in May and post it (yay!) on instagram, twitter, blogs etc inspiring and encouraging more people to do the same. This year (and it might be every year) it was also linked in with #whomademyclothes creating awareness about where your clothes come from and the conditions in which they are manufactured. This year I was dead set on taking part but quickly discovered that 1. I didn't fit into most of the dresses I had made myself. 2. I just didn't have enough 'everyday'/work appropriate stuff I could wear. So, not to be defeated, I set myself my own challenge: wear 3 me made items every week...

Week one: knitted jumper, 2 x zippy tops (sans zips)

Week two: zippy top, pastille dress

Week three: self drafted summery top, zippy top, pj bottoms (I stopped taking crappy mirror pics at this point because, let's be honest, they're not great are they?)

Week four: pj bottoms, scout tee, self drafted jersey tee

As you can see, I didn't quite manage it BUT it has taught me that if I want to participate in next year's Me Made May (and I do!) I gotta up my game. I need more casual items of clothing.  I need to try more patterns (my Me Made May would've fallen apart without the zippy tee). And lastly, I need some skirts and dresses! Compared to the beginning of the year when I had about two handmade tees, I've now got quite a selection but only one work appropriate work dress; it's time to get sewing and I've got my eye on the Fen Dress :)

Four days in Helsinki

My sis and I try to vacate the country every year for a few days but thanks to four months of unemployment (and a couple of getaways closer to home) we didn't quite manage it last year. We sort of, kind of, take it in turns to pick the next destination and for 2016 my sis chose Helsinki!

The Finnish capital is a fairly small city some of which is walkable but we mostly made use of their excellent tram network. The locals we met were a mixed bunch, mostly very friendly and helpful, others less so. Practically everyone spoke English and near on perfect at that. When we got back from Finland and people asked me "how was it?", three things came to the forefront: 1. It's a cool city - it's full of cute cafes & bars, two out of three people seem to own dogs (as dog lovers we thought this was awesome) and it's got islands and Moomins (need I say more?). 2. Our airbnb was perfection, a cosy scandi appartment (perfect for two) in a great location. 3. Finland is hella expensive. Stupidly I thought it would be similar to London prices (aka expensive but just about manageable) but no, it turned out to be pricier than Iceland!

Food & drink
So both these were expensive, I'm talking  8 euros for a half litre of beer or a single vodka and coke, sandwiches costing between 6-9 euros and you'd be looking at 18-22 euros for a main course at a mid-priced resturant. But, we found ways round it, such as the most excellent Bar 9 (try their Kill Bill - one of the best things I ate the entire holiday), delicious falafel at Fafa's, traditional Finnish brunch at Bergga (Helsinki are very into brunch) which incidentally was directly below our Airbnb and lastly, the Old Market Hall for a range of foods and price ranges (the building itself is also a stunner). In terms of nights out, we discovered (on our first night after ordering the 8 euro beers) that this wasn't going to be a boozy holiday. Instead we stuck to one or two small beers (equivalent to half pints I guess) with food and only went out twice. Firstly to the awesome Library Pub which is exactly what it sounds like: a bar with books! And secondly to Navy Jerry's a cocktail place that played rockabilly tunes (my kind of place). We did buy a couple of beers at the supermarket and a v.chatty member of staff explained to us that we only had until 9pm to buy alcohol as they stop serving it then (and that we wouldn't be able to buy any on Sunday either!). He told us that Helsinki residents hop on the ferry to Tallin to buy their booze in the-much-less taxed Estonia (kinda how we brits do booze cruises to Calais). We found A LOT of coffee places which pleased my sis and they all had an excellent selection of tea which was perfect for me. (I may have brought back moomin tea...)

Architecture & Art
The buildings in Helsinki were incredible - lots of turrets and spires, a bit gothic in a way and just generally interesting looking, from the cathedrals and market halls, to the train station and people's brightly coloured clapperboard houses. We didn't get around to the architecture museum (or a couple of the other museums for that matter) as everything was basically closed on Mondays (poor planning on our part really). We did pop into HAM though, Helsinki Art Museum, to see the mini exhibition they had on moomin creator, Tove Jansson.

The island
Helsinki has around about 330 islands, varying in size and accessibility. On our first day we caught the ferry to Suomenlinna to see the marine fortress built the 1700s. Visiting the island was easily one of the highlights for me. We were free to wander through the town (people actually live on it now too) and explore the network of tunnels and spaces used to store ammunition for the cannons which are still in place today!

Tampere & Moomins
On the Saturday we took a two hour train north to Tampere, home of the Moomin museum which housed some of Tove's original drawings as well as a number of moomin sculptures, made by her partner, depicting scenes from the Moomin adventures. Although the exhibition was good, it and the Moomin shop were very small, we actually ended up buying the bulk of our moomin goodies back in Helsinki! With some time to kill before our train, we wandered over to the edge of the huge lake (which actually looked like the sea) at Tampere to take in some views. On reflection, I really liked Helsinki as a city but I think if I ever went back to Finland I'd want to spend my time in the countryside. We saw bits of it on the train to and from Tampere - lakes, so many lakes, and pine forests - and it looked beautiful.

So there you have it, a little break down of Helsinki. Now that I've finally got around to writing this post, I reeeeeeally want another holiday...but somewhere a bit cheaper I think!

Makes of late

I've not made much time for my creative outlets during these first few months of 2016 (something that reading Big Magic is sure to change, don't you worry!). One thing I did finish making however was this little deer.

Rather than dwell on the fact that I started her back in June last year (I was asked to do some hand modelling for a crochet shoot and I felt a little out of practice so I picked up this pattern to get me back into the swing of things), what's important is that I finally completed her and she's cute (I'll also ignore the fact that Mitch was like: cool, what do we do with her though? We don't know any small children right now so duh, she's for display).

A second thing I made (and in one afternoon no less) was another Zippy tee with the fabric I picked up in Brighton. I have four zippies now :)

Next on my making list: a baby quilt for a friend's little one (progress is currently slow but there's a sneaky peek below) and dresses! Although the weather in London is all over the shop (snow on Tuesday!) spring/summer will arrive at some point in the capital and I have a distinct lack of dresses. I've seen a couple of patterns I'd like to try and it's pay day on Friday so watch this space! What are you making at the moment?

Reading & Seeing 28

Fatale - Jean-patrick Manchette (1977)
An excellent noir novella which follows the exploits of a killer, Aimee, as she arrives in a small seaside town and ingratiates herself into the inner circle of its corrupted prominent inhabitants. Our central character is, perhaps at the time it was written anyway, shockingly cold and calculating (less so in this day and age what with the likes of Amy Dunne etc around). It's a lean little book, about 90 pages long, and none of those are wasted filler, it's suspenseful, atmospheric and dramatic.  Unsurprisingly, I finished it within a day and if you enjoy a bit crime noir you probably will too.

The Secret Place - Tana French (2014)
Work's (first) book club choice and a fat old read at that. Set in a girls' boarding school a year after a student from the nearby boys' school is found murdered in the grounds, the story is told from multiple perspectives including the rookie cop attempting to solve the murder and the four teenage girls at the centre of the story. This book was incredibly dense - 5 pages to get a across a paragraph of story progression - which some might find enjoyably descriptive, I did not. I found it really hard going, the girls' narratives quite grating and cringey, and it wasn't until the last 100 pages or that the story picked up any kind of pace or suspense. Just not my cup of tea really.

After the Crash - Michel Bussi (2015)
A plane crashes in the French alps, two babies are amongst the passengers on board - one from a wealthy family and one from a significantly less well-off one - everyone on the plane perishes, except for one baby, but which baby is she? The story is largely set 18 years after the crash where both families and a private detective are trying to solve the mystery once and for all. The premise of this book sounded great but the delivery didn't really live up to it - meandering all over the place with fairly long irrelevant sections - and the 'reveal' at the end was pretty predictable (which says a lot, I NEVER figure out whodunit).

The Circle - Dave Eggers (2013)
Everyone wants to work for The Circle, the company is full of bright young minds, desinging and producing innovative ideas that'll change the world. But it's big thing is social media. Employees are encouraged to comment, like, connect with and record everything, and as the power and reach of The Circle expands, the company's actions and values take a sinister turn. It's pretty easy to see the comparison between our own social media obsessed society and the world described in the book (The Circle itself made me think of Google or Facebook).  I thoroughly enjoyed it - the writing style, the tech ideas, the symbolism, even the ending that left a bad taste in my mouth. I do like unsettling SF which makes me think though...

I've not watched a lot of films at the cinema in the last four months, I basically missed the entire Oscars season which I'm gutted about, there was so much I wanted to see! Mitch and I saw Trumbo on my birthday and it was excellent. I knew nothing about the Black List which ruined so many careers not to mention the lives of those who worked in the entertainment industry. Who knew John Wayne was such an asshole! Bryan Cranston was on top form in the lead role and the styling and costumes were perfection. Sticking with a v.similar theme (communism in Hollywood), we went to see Hail Caesar! last month. It's packed full of excellent set pieces (Channing Tatum's sailor routine, Scarlet Johansson's mermaid, ALL the bits with cowboy actor Tobey) but overall the storyline didn't quite bring it together for me. Too much time was spent on George Clooney hanging out with the communists, although Clooney's speech towards the end is ace (along with his amazing 'reaction to the christ' acting).

The best film I've seen at the cinema so far this year? Zootropolis. It's cute, it's hilarious, the animation is beautiful, it honestly couldn't have been better. Fun fact for you: mitch and I have a fancy dress party to go to next month and I whole-heartedly think we should be Judy and Nick... Staying with animation, albeit a v.different type of animation, we recently saw Anomalisa, Charlie Kauffman's stop motion animated film with puppets! I confess I spent quite sometime wondering how they made the film - how big were the puppets, what were they made from etc - but that's largely because it gets off to a pretty slow start. But don't worry it ramps up the drama and there's some rather creepy and unsettling scenes in the second half (and I'm not talking about puppet sex).

illustrated packing list: Helsinki

Another illustrated packing list. Yup, I'm off again, this time to Finland for a four day trip with my sis. Just as it's warming up here in London, we're trading it in for some cooler temperatures two hours into the future. Jumpers, scarf and mittens have all been packed. We're hoping to visit some of the little islands around Helsinki as well take a day trip to Tampere to see the Moomin museum aaand I've identified a bunch of cafes and bars to try too. Needless to say, I cannot wait!