Flip-flop socks

Last year, while rummaging through the bargain bin that is The Book Warehouse, I stumbled across a book called "Learn to Knit Socks" and snapped it up. It's where I got the pattern for the socks I made for my granddad last year. Anyway, one of the weirder patterns in that book was one for flip-flop socks.

Yeah, flip-flop socks. Socks with a separate toe that you can wear with flip-flops. As one of my closest friends is moving further north, to Belfast, and has a habit of wearing flip-flops in December, I just had to have a go at making them. I also just fancied a challenge, and had some yarn to use up. It was salvaged from a cream jumper that was horrendously unflattering.

The cast-on was a weird technique called Turkish cast on which I only got right after watching this video repeatedly. But by far the hardest bit for me was attaching the big toe to the main section after knitting them separately. For both socks, I somehow knitted them on upside down.

Uh-oh. And even when I reattached the toe on the second sock, I purled or knitted wrong and ended up with a weird bumpy bit. But I didn't care and kept going.

The great thing about toe-up socks is that you can try them on as you go along. And the great thing about flip-flop socks is that you can put them on your hands and woop like Dr Zoidberg.

And here they are finally, ready to be sent off. I don't have any action shots of them with flip-flops because at the time of making my pair were under a snake's tank in Aberystwyth (they still are, but now I have another pair).

I wrapped them in sheets of newspaper supplement with naked feminists on, added a note instructing that my friend dye them, and popped them in the post. And that was the last I saw of them, although I did get a text along the lines of "OHMYGOD I love them!", which is the exact response I was hoping for.

And that's that. Flip-flop socks.

Just a quick update...

I actually have a fair few things to show you, including the wonder that is flip-flop socks but right now my internet access is restricted as I have been forced to move home again.


At very short notice. Again.


I'm starting to think that there's a part of me that just wants to make trouble and be nomadic. It's the part that reached out and slapped my landlord's brother.

Have a Heart

Right now our final project for second year (ohmygodwheredidthetimego) is to do whatever the hell you want. Well, I wanted to practice throwing, but we only have 1 shimpo wheel (being used by a 3rd year all the time) and I hate throwing on the others because you can't brace your arms on your thighs. I tried and I failed miserably.

So then I thought about making a juggling set. A juggling set comprised of a brain (head), a heart (heart, duh), and some intestines (gut feeling). And then I just thought about making a heart, a lovely detailed heart that would be a great jumping off point for figurine design next year. Et voilà.

Hand sculpted in solid clay. It was about 12cm across and felt very good in the hand. I worked from a photocopy from an anatomy book and tried to include all the important bits, but the photos just showed from the front and back, not the top so it was hard to position all the veins.

Hazel pointed out that the veins looked a bit like the face of a really weird bug:

It reminds me of the Ohmu from the Ghibli film/manga "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", haha. Watch that film if you get the chance, it's really good (the books are even better).

Anyway the idea was that you could use the heart as a bud vase, with the aorta as the opening, sort of like this incredibly bad MSPaint mock up shows:

Screw you, that's totally a flower. It's an allium.

It's hard to mould from clay because it's so delicate and easier warped/cracked/damaged, so I had to make a waste mould and make a plaster copy (which involved cutting everything in half with a band saw, a heart wrenching moment). Here's the result, all cleaned up and finished:

And here's my hand for size comparison:

So it's actually a little bit bigger than my heart (the one in my chest). Everyone says that the human heart is about the size of your fist. I don't know whether it's because I have small hands, but I've always thought that the heart seemed so very small in comparison to what it's powering. But then I guess if I think about the size of my ribcage and everything that's got to cram in there, it wouldn't fit very well if it was much bigger.

Anatomy tangents aside, I'm really happy with this. This week I managed to mould it. It was a SEVEN PART MOULD. I've never done anything so technically difficult in my life. For some comparison, a teapot mould generally has 5 parts. Most objects are 2 or 3 part moulds. 

I'll post the casts when I make my first one. The mould has to dry out first. What a week- yesterday I got into the studio around 10:30 and left at 21:00. That was after a night spent chatting to a Canadian friend and getting into bed at 4:30am. Never have I embraced a weekend so happily!

City Growing

One of the reasons I went for this flat was the small terrace we have. It's west facing and catches the afternoon sun wonderfully. Well, me being me, I wanted to see whether it was even possible to grow food with just a small container garden, so I stole some flowerpots from my mum, bought some compost and seeds, and got planting. And here's where I am now.

1 seed tray with tiny leek seedlings on the left and sugarsnap peas on the right. Obviously with the leeks I'm not going to get massive broom-handle thick white stems, but I think it might be possible to harvest some slim pencil leeks at the end of summer.

Today I moved some of my larger pea plants to a hanging basket. I'm a bit worried because the basket is tiny, so it will dry out really fast if summer ever gets in gear and actually arrives (we've had week after week of much needed, but vaguely apocalyptic, rain). I'm also not sure if the plants will trail down over the sides, or climb up the chains.

Carrot seedings! These need thinning out, obviously. I'm going to try and transplant a few to a rectangular container too. Hopefully I'll end up with a fist-full of baby carrots, but who knows? I've never been able to grow carrots, so this would be a first.

Mixed salad leaves, ready to be harvested (which is a good thing because I'm out of food and cash this weekend). I'm looking forward to munching on this and seeing if my first city harvest is a success.


I don't know what's happening at the end of summer. Next year is my final year and I don't think I could write a dissertation living in a flat with a band. On the other hand, I don't really care about my degree grade, and I'm just starting to really like my flatmates and feel accepted by them, plus this place is really cheap and now I've got a garden going...


Not to mention my little garden helper:

My first book

So this week I had my first adventure in book making. I drafted up a small leather book to use as a visual aid for a client project, using leather offcuts from Spittalfields market and thick handmade paper I bought from my college shop.

There's an ugly seam on the back because I has to sacrifice leather size for colour. The guy I bought the leather from has a full sized shopping trolley of offcuts to dig through (all just £1 each!) but only boring colours- grey, black, brown- came in larger sizes.

The paper is thick and luxurious, with a lovely raw edge. I had to trim down the pages to fit within the leather so instead of using scissors and ruining the edge, I laid a ruler down one size and tore the pages down to size.

The pages were sewn in down the centre line and the outer pages carefully glued down to cover the edge of the leather. Then, as an afterthought, I made a bookmark out of embroidery floss and had to pry the glued pages back so I could shove it in place.

The final touch was using Letraset rub-on transfers to title the book. Turns out rub-on transfers are hard to rub on leather that's not properly stretched!

I think I'm definitely going to have a crack at making books again in the future, maybe as presents for friends with made up stories or quotes in them. If I make another blank one, I'll document my working process properly and make a tutorial post on it. It would be cool to combine this with other hobbies I want to take up- how about a lino-block printed book with a cover decorated with pyrography?

Throwing with Svend Bayer

When people ask you what you study, and you reply with "ceramic design", first you get this blank look of vague, ignorant terror. Then, if the person asking recognised the word "ceramic", you might be lucky enough to get the return question "so like pottery, on the wheel?"


Then you hang your head and mutter "I don't know how to throw" and wander off because trying to explain slip casting to strangers gets boring very fast. So, because I want to be ridiculously well rounded and able to do everything, I booked myself onto a throwing course at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, run by Svend Bayer- a potter who specialises wood firing. He also appears to be some kind of mud magician who can spin dirt into pots about the same size as me. Observe.

He starts out by spiral kneading about 18kg of clay, then bashing it into a cake shape with a paddle on the wheel before beginning to pat out the hollow. Then he gets things moving and goes up...

and up....

and up a bit more...

...before flaring it out.

At this point he tinkers with the shape using a potter's rib before leaving it overnight to harden up a little more. The next day, he begins by rolling out coils and attaching them with a pinching motion.

then attaches some more...

smoothing them out with a metal kidney as he goes. Then it's time to get the top wet and moving to help put more form in.

And then Svend smooths things off,

before cracking out the old flammenwerfer (fire! Exciting!)

And that's how he starts off a big, big pot. As usual, my attention span was not behaving, so I don't have any other photos of the pot in production, but you can see it in this photo as Svend begins to throw the lid. It's over 1m tall.

So what did I make? Well, uh, wonky stuff. But I made good progress. On the first day I couldn't even centre and by Friday I felt I'd really got somewhere. I could have gotten further if I'd actually pushed myself but at the moment I'm having tremendous trouble staying focused (literally I have been writing this post for about 15 hours on and off) and the beautiful weather meant I just wanted to go and chill out on the beach instead.


Here's what I churned out:

Bud vase/carafe wonky thing

really wonky I don't even know what the hell this is thing

mug so heavy you could kill someone with it

big bowl which got squished as I took it off the wheel...

... so ended up squared off.

vase, which collapsed at the shoulder

wonky bowl

wide wonky bowl which ended up with a tear in the rim

trio of jugs

And that's it. Very unimpressive, I know. But it's a step in the right direction, and I picked up some good tips and techniques that I just want to get into the studio and practice. Unfortunately, this stupid little thing called "university" stops me going and doing what I want because they want me to do what they want. Boo.

Mini

Okay, so this doesn't make up for a lack of updates (there will be a BIG one in a short while, I went on a throwing course so I have lots of lumps of misshapen clay to show you), but last night I found out you can make mini versions of Japanese style sponge cakes.

Super adorable. Just pour the mixture into a greased bun pan (I used the Cooking with Dog recipe again), and cook for 15 minutes instead of 25. They will turn light brown on the edges. Then shove a couple of strawberry slices on top and a dusting of icing sugar, and you're done. They are really lovely when they're still warm.