Handmade Claudia

Most people who know me agree that two of my major passions in life are food and making things. I love handmade things and wherever possible will make things myself or buy handmade things from sellers local to the place I am in. Most of my money gets spent on things to make, such as material, yarn, equipment, magazines and patterns, and things that generally inspire me.

Yesterday, a very exciting thing happened. Birmingham's first city centre Handmade Market was launched by the very brilliant Creative Open Workshops hosting a number of brilliant artists and crafters. The Handmade Market provides a valid city centre forum for local artists and sellers which appeared to benefit from a huge amount of footfall in the area, and hopefully with a weekly changing offering of products and art, will be a lasting addition to the existing Birmingham markets. I'm even in discussions with a milliner and a papercrafter that I met at the Market yesterday to host a stall together in the coming months.

It finally feels that Birmingham is beginning to recognise the crafting talent that it is home to right in the city, along with the success of Created in Birmingham earlier this year, and the linked project This is Birmingham, which I understand is due to open this year. It really is inspiring, and a long time coming behind the success that pockets of London, Bristol and Glasgow have been enjoying for a long time. Also, the nice people at Created in Birmingham ran a competition to win tickets to Moseley Folk Festival for Sunday 5 September, and I won!!

Now, on to my handmade interests... I am starting to make Christmas presents. I have 8 birthdays coming up before Christmas, but they can fit in amongst the Christmas presents. I actually cast on for my first Christmas present yesterday which I can't go into because the person it is for may read this blog! So here are some photos of things that I have made relatively recently...

A shawl I made for my Mom's birthday back in May.
A coffee cup holder I use ALL THE TIME at work (we have those silly paper cups, no kettle and no sink).

A stitch holder I made with memory wire and beads.

A mini scarf complete with buttons, ready for autumn. Just seen: Knitting for Dummies - my bible.

A huge pashmina knitted in a gorgeous gorgeous Manos yarn I bought from a store in San Francisco.
A cute little purse I whipped up one Sunday afternoon as a birthday present for my cousin, which she still hasn't received, despite her birthday being at the start of the month... Oops.

Edinburgh

So, Ben and I took a mini trip to Edinburgh and we saw some lovely things. I have been to Edinburgh before but never really appreciated how beautiful it is, and what an impressive history!

What we noticed, and liked so much, was how vertiginous parts of the city is. The street in the photo above led to George VI Bridge, which had an abundance of good places to eat, and The Royal Mile, which was as marvellous as everyone says it is. I'd love to visit in festival time.

Anyway, similar to my experiences in San Francisco, it was a city that I could really see myself living in - their approach to food, drink and arts really sat well with me. Edinburgh has an amazing cafe culture, with countless independent cafes in and around the city that turn into great bars in the evening. I yearn for these things in Birmingham - great unique shops and cafe bars. We do have some excellent pubs and some innovative people in the city that want to make some exciting things happen, but everything's just pretty generic...

Of course, what helped was an excellent knitting store - K1 Yarns stocks some amazing gorgeous yarns, looks beautiful and they have freshly baked brownies for you to sample! Although tempted by a sock package, I was very restrained and bought some yarn to make some fingerless gloves... perfect timing now it's Spring!

Knit knit knit knit knit

Following on from my previous post, the knitting bug has come back in full force and as such I attended the iKnit Weekender at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London last weekend, really by chance but I am immensely pleased that I did go. So. Much. Yarn. And so many other lovely things and lovely people! It gave me huge amounts of inspiration and I set about completing my first ever knitted soft toy.

Behold... Harris.


Ok, he's a bit wonky, and he does have visible ear seams. But I like him. Super quick and easy to make up, and really the mistakes I made were down to losing attention and although I repaired a potentially huge mistake, the little errors didn't seem so important. I think his wonkiness adds charm.

The best part about the Weekender? Only one of my favourite pastimes, the shopping! So. Much. Yarn...! Beautiful beutiful things but I had a budget, which I blew anyhow, but I did try and remain fairly sensible... a pattern book, yarn for specific projects, wooltops, buttons and a new needle set were my vices. The photo below is of my goodies, and a few other recent acquisitions.


Now I feel like I have enough to get started on Christmas presents...!