Hat Block Buying

My latest addiction is adding to my collection of hat blocks.  I originally only had two that I bought from Guy Morse-Brown, a fabulous block maker where I would happily spend every penny I have. Their website is http://www.hatblocks.co.uk/ if you want to take a look. However, I now have four hat blocks... I have discovered that I can combine my love of Ebay and feed my addiction to hat making... Not good for my wallet-especially as I am in the process of buying a house with Mr EB so am already feeling very poor!  At least on Ebay I can stick to my do not spend more that £40 a time rule. I've always had this rule with Ebay, as I don't want to spend loads of money on something then find out that it's a fake or have it not turn up etc etc. I've only ever been totally shafted on Ebay once when trying to buy a pair of spotty tights that never arrived-I never got my money back but hey, at least it was only £5.  So I never spend more than £40 on Ebay because that is the most I am prepared to loose on one item. 

So far I've got two off Ebay and I've just been trying out the first one to arrive.  It is a fairly basic but very useful shape; I've seen them called button blocks for the obvious reason that it looks a bit like a big button-

So it was out with the black sinamay and feathers I've had hanging around for ages and off we go! Blocking sinamay is so much pleasanter than buckram, because the sizing is no way near as sticky and the fabric is no where near as tough and is much kinder on your hands.  The finished shape did take a bit of levering off the block but once off it's a lovely rounded shape and I am rather pleased with the finished decorated article-

Close up of the decoration

I hate veiling!

The problem with veiling is that it is very springy.... Just when you think that you've got it all beautifully pinned just where you want it it springs away and usually wraps itself around every tool that is within reach and ties itself in a big knot! So after much swearing and cussing I finally got the veiling secured on this hat as a nice little birdcage veil that does not look like a total balloon!

The ribbon roses before being attahced to the hat base.

National Transplant Week!

Today is the start of National Transplant week, and as this is a very important issue to me I thought that I would follow the example of several of my friends and do a blog post about it.  One day I may well need a double lung transplant due to my CF so I am always keen to raise awareness of the shortness of donor organs. To start with here are a few facts about organ donation:

• You are more likely to need a transplant than become a donor.
• You can donate kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, pancreas and small bowel - saving up to 9 lives
• Corneal tissue can give someone eyesight
• You can choose not to donate particular organs/tissues
• 94% people agree with donations, 96% would accept an organ - but only 28% are on the register
• 8000 people in the UK are waiting for transplants but less than 3000 are carried out each year

I've always found the figures about transplant rather depressing.  I know that so many people when asked say "yes I would donate my organs"  -so why are they not on the list???? I really get annoyed when people make daft excuses, like they've not got round to it yet...Well why not???? It is so easy to register and takes just a few seconds to register online. Here is a link if you have not already registered-

http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/

You could also consider donating blood, without which many operations, including transplants, would not be able to take place.  I have several friends who have received transplants and when you see just how much difference a new organ can make to someones life then you would not hesitate to join the register. Even tho some of my organs can't be used for transplant (for obvious reasons!) I'm still on the donor register as someone who needs them is welcome to the whichever of them can be used, when I've finished with them or course...

If you are wondering whether or not you should join the donor register then just ask yourself one question- Would you accept a transplant?  If the answer is yes, then you should join the register. It is not exactly ethical to accept someone else's gift if you are not prepared to be generous in return.

Roses are...

Silver in this instance!  As I have finished the latest wedding dress for my lovely friend Carley who gets married tomorrow I thought  I would get back to my adventures in hatting.  A couple of months ago I bought my first hat block from Guy Morse Brown, but sadly I've not yet have time to try blocking anything on it. So now I've got time what else could I do but make a new hat to go with my outfit for Carley's wedding! The block is a basic dome crown which is recommended as a first block as you can make lots of small disc shapes with it as well as pill boxe and a small cloche shapes.  I started by covering it in clingfilm to protect it from the sizing in the buckram I was using. Sizing is a sort of glue come stiffener which holds the buckram in the shape that it is blocked into.

Having dampened the buckram I placed it over the block and started pulling it down and pinning it to eliminate as many creases as possible.  Once the buckram is wet the sizing gets incredibly sticky and when I next do some blocking I am definitely wearing rubber gloves as it took forever to clean the stuff of my hands afterwards! I managed to smooth the creases out over the top of the block, the sides were still a bit creased but as I was only planning on using the top I did not worry too much!

Once the buckram had dried completely (with the help of a hair dryer) I removed it from the block. This was quite a struggle as it was pretty solid once dry and once the pins were removed I had to insert a thin spiral bone between the block and the buckram and lever it off! Having decided beforehand that I wanted a small circular perching hat I cut out a circle or abour 10cm diameter from the top of the blocked buckram. Like my other hats I then wired the edge and mulled the buckram with interfacing to soften the form. I then covered it with silver silk dupion to match my jacket and dress.

So having finished the form all that was left was to decorate it.  This is always the most fun part and I thought that the selection of grey and silver ribbons I'd got to match the outfit would make nice roses for a fairly vintagey kind of look.  I'd finally found a way of making roses that actually look rather like roses rather than squashed cabbages! In fact, I think they have a rather Rennie Mackintosh Rose look to them and am rather pleased with my first attempts at blocking.

Bloody lungs!!!

Literally, sadly... I really do not get my stupid lungs.  I finished the IVs about three weeks ago and was feeling much better-hurray! Then last weekend I go and have a bleed. It was not a big one and I can at least understand why it happened-vaguely... I had been working quite hard and maybe I'd gone a little nuts in the cleaning of Mr EB's house and had probably overdone in general and so my lungs reacted.  So, I took my usual action, iced water (helps clot the heamorrhage) tranixamic acid (a coagulant) and onto the Ciprofloxavioin pills just in case the bleed is a sign of underlying infection.  Now in this instance, I don't think I had got an infection; I wasn't showing any of the symptoms (increased sputum, temperature, achy joints etc.), so I really thought the antibiotics were just precautionary. However, this evening pop, lung goes again! This time I really don't get it, I've had a bit of a cough but frankly what's new! I've not been feeling ill and I've been being remarkably sensible and not overdoing it, so clearly my lungs are just trying to ruin my weekend and stop me having a life. Grrrr!!!! Thankfully the bleeding has subsided now, so on Monday I shall be ringing up Papworth and demanding explanations...

Back on the Big Drugs

Well, it was inevitable that at some point I was going to end up back on the strong IV drugs, but I had been hoping to last longer than three and a half months.  Once again it's back to the good old rather too tried and tested Colomycin and Ceftazadime three times a day for at least two weeks. I make no apology for mis-spelling any of the drug names in this post as to be honest they all seem to be deliberately complicated!  Being back on IV's is very annoying and dull, but it has to be done as the oral Ciprofloxacilin was just not working and I've been in a lot of pain from my damn lungs not to mention coughing up gunk that resmbles toxic waste-nice! 

One slightly worrying thing is the rather large number of drugs that I can't take intra-veinously as I am allergic to them. I can't take Astreonam or Fossfomycin cos they make me projectile vomit, Meropenum affects my white blood count, Tobramycin IV affects my hearing and balance, etc etc etc.... I'm really down to these two I am on now plus Tazocin, if I want to do the drugs at home.  If I were to try Imipenum then I would probably have to be admitted as it can make you very sick and they like to monitor you whilst you are on it.  Now I am not the kind of person who likes being admitted for 2 weeks, to be honest I don't like have to spend the best part of a day at Papwroth just for a checkup... so I am not keen on this option. Another option is to get a port fitted (ie permanent access) which would mean I might tolerate some of the drugs better, particularly the Cipro as the main problem I have with that is that it inflames my veins and then they stop working. Although I am not keen on having a permanent reminder of my CF and I don't really have IV's enough to justify it yet.  However, by having a port the drug would be injected into a much bigger vessel so get diluted much more quickly and hopefully not irritate my veins.  In fact, this did work quite well when I had  PICC line (peripherally inserted central cannula-I think!) which like a port goes in a much bigger vessel but is only temporary like a line.  Thing is the only time I had one of those it sodding hurt to have it inserted so this is not a pleasing idea either!  In any case, I am just hoping that some clever doctor comes up with a new wonder drug that has no side effects and makes me feel loads better really quickly... fingers crossed I suppose!

Gargoyle Hunting in Oxford

Mr EB and I just spent a wonderful weekend in Oxford pottering around the city and colleges and hunting for gargoyles. We stayed at a totally fabulous small hotel called The Old Parsonage dating from 1660 and I can't recommend it enough! Not only was the whole hotel beautifully furnished but their attention to detail was just lovely.  From the gorgeous toiletries and lovely rooms to the amazing breakfasts I could not fault it.  Clearly, as an English person the tea and coffee making facilities are naturally the most important criteria for judging hotels and even here the Old Parsonage triumphs!  The selection of hot beverages was excellent and you just had to call the reception and fresh milk arrived in the twinkling of an eye-so no horrible UHT milk to ruin your tea! The walled garden where you can take afternoon tea is also lovely and the building itself retains all its period charm, I'm starting to sound like a glossy mag now so I will stop wittering on and let this picture show the lovely flowers and elegant mini hedges-

Anyway back to the gargoyles! I've always had rather a soft spot for gargoyles and grotesques and any sort of architectural witticisms, and Oxford is a goldmine of them. Technically gargoyles incorporated a waterspout to drain water off the building to prevent damage to the stone, and a grotesque is purely decorative and clearly there was a vogue for both during the period they built many of the colleges, as the place is covered with them! They come in all shapes, sizes and forms from fish to human and bizarre amalgams of creatures, often pulling faces...

One of my absolute favorite finds was this restored grotesque of Tweedledum and Tweedledee that is on the Bodleian library next to this very fetching wild boar. 

This rather more modern and daft grotesque was found above the entrance to Brasenose Chapel and I sincerely hope that it is someones idea of a joke and not a serious addition to the grotesques and gargoyles of the college!

I rather like this pigeon who clearly thinks that he is a gargoyle on Brasenose College!

And finally a rather more modern interpretation of gargoyleness by Anthony Gormley on top of Blackwell's Art and Print shop-

A Dress for Liz

I've worked with Miss Elizabeth Fleming on several CHOG (Cambridge Handel Opera Group, for those not in the know!) over the past decade or so. I've even dressed her in a couple, once as a Grecian maiden and once as an 18th Century man... So the chance to actually make her a concert dress made a welcome change!  As Liz has never been one for big sparkly over the top clothes it was always going to be a simple and elegant design-so no feathers/beads/clashing colours/sequins/large bows etc etc! So curbing my natural shiny thing enthusiasm, I came up with a simple empire line design in this gorgeous shot blue/green taffeta.  The fabric is from John Lewis and is just gorgeous, from different angles and in different lights it can look any colour from dark green, through purple to dark blue with occasional hints of grey. Sadly my photos of the dress on the stand in my messy workroom doesn't really do it justice... but I do think that the result is rather lovely even if the photos are rather dull-

Liz wore it for the first of a series of concerts she is performing in with fellow singer Christina Sampson at Emmanuel Reform Church in Cambridge on April 16th, which I went to.  It was a truly lovely concert including some of my favorite aria's and duets from Le Nozze di Figaro, some Benjamin Britten songs and a  couple of new Rossini arias that I'd never heard before and will be attempting to locate on itunes! In fact you can still get to one of these concerts if you happen to be in Bristol on Saturday the 1st of May, and I thoroughly recommend that you do. They will be performing at Henleaze Reform Church at 7.30pm.  There is even a Facebook event-
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103901172984956

Sewing by candlelight...

For some unknown reason we spent the whole of Sunday with no electricity. I know it was off from about 4 am as I woke up to one of my coughing fits to find myself in the pitch dark with no light coming in from the streetlights.  The power finally came back at about 4.30am this morning when its return set the burglar alarm off.... so after two nights of rubbish sleep I am feeling a bit rough around the edges. Luckily I do have a lot of beading to do on the current dress I am working on, which has to be done by hand so the lack of sewing machine was not too disruptive to my work plan. But MY GOD it is difficult sewing by candlelight! Even with about five candles, a plate of tea lights and a torch rigged up with gaffa tape, I still could barely distinguish the beads and stitches and I had to give up after my eyes started watering all over the place.

It is a bit worrying how reliant we all are on the old electricity.  Luckily whoever designed my nebuliser has obviously put a lot of thought into it and it comes with battery sockets to power it, a set of rechargeable batteries and a charger for them. Unfortunately, my tobramycin neb has to be kept refrigerated, so our very kind next door neighbor (who still had power) kept it cold for me, so the entire months supply of very expensive medication did not have to be chucked out. 

One nice thing about no power is using candles.  This is probably because I am a repressed pyromaniac at heart and can't help but play with them! I used to actually make candles (not very successfully!) and love playing with the wax and seeing how you can make it dribble in ever more fantastic shapes. If you can get the wax to run slowly down the sides of the candle you can get some rather lovely dribbly effects. By the time I'd finished with them I think these two would definitely be worthy of any vampires castle and any Igor would not be ashamed of using them for dramatic effect!

I rather like the two tone effect caused by melting red wax onto a white candle, but I think that the plain white one is definitely my favorite with a ridiculous amount of contrived dribbly wax!

Green thumbs...

I've always been very lucky to live in houses with large gardens, lovlingly cared for by my parents that I could play in to my hearts content and occasionally try a bit of green fingered helping of said parents.  Usually my helpful efforts amounted to pulling up the wrong plants or cutting things back so hard they promptly died; definitely more green thumbs than fingers!  I have got better since then and do try and help to keep our garden under control by doing exaclty what my parents tell me to do... However, I don't really have the physical strength these days to do much, but I do like to potter about and make helpful suggestions as well as drinking tea on the lawn! 

Mr EB's house in Cambridge has a very tiny garden, much more the kind of size a gardening weakling like me could try and be helpful with.  The garden is a classic shape found behind most Victorian terraced houses- a courtyard with a sort of corridor down the side of the kitchen extension. It faces east and is quite shady as a result and quite frankly it was a bit dull, even in this sunny picture that Mr EB took last year there is not much too it apart from paving, ivy and the ugly garage-

You can see the strawberry plants that Mr EB had great success with last year (at the back in the big pot and trough), but Mr EB knows even less about plants and gardening than I do, so having read some useful books of my Dad's we decided to improve things a bit.  Over the last few weekends we've done quite a lot, Mr EB has spent lots of time digging and planting whilst I directed and provided encouragement!  First thing to do was plant out all the strawberry runners that had spread themsleves all over the available soil and then get some nice new plants to put in the empty pots. I also managed to get a bargain strawberry pot for all the runners (one of those with all the little openings) which came with a free mini herb pot (at the front similar idea). So with a bit of work it now looks like this-

To try and cope with the shade we've gone for things like hostas (above), grasses, violas and some climbers that can cope with partial shade but that will cover the ugly grey fences. We've also got Mr EB an espaliered apple tree to add to the productive side of the graden. We've nicknamed  it 'Stu' as its a Discovery apple (sometimes the name is shortened to Disco, hence Disco Stu...you can guess who came up with the name!) 

It was an incredibly tight squeeze getting Stu in the back of my car, even with both the back seats down we had to remove the bamboo support to get him in, and then drive back with him poking over our shoulders! It was also a tight squeeze getting the tree into the hole we dug for him between the fence and the pavings stones, but we got him in eventually and hopefully with a bit of TLC he'll put out some flowers and maybe even some fruit later in the year.  As things progress I will try and update our success or failure... (All the pictures in this post were taken by Mr EB, hence the artistic angles of some and the better quality of all the images!)