Ninja Gallery

Some of my Ninjas complained that they had been in the photo shoot, doing their most heroic and dramatic poses and then not got picked for the blog. So to avoid a Ninja-Mutiny, here are the pictures.

 

They kind of look like they need speech bubbles or thought bubbles.

Ninjas!

In my Socklet-makng world I have always been defeated by ankle socks and trainer socks. Usually the creatures I make need an equal proportion of sock fabric above and below the heel so I never knew what to do with the shorter socks.

But now...I have formulated a perfect plan for... NINJAS!!

They all have Ninja stars and long sticks and I have made an entire rainbow of face colours.

This was the first batch and I am now on to fluorescent ones and may even progress to arming some with swords in due time!

Bad Hair Day

Did you know it's not just people that suffer from a bad hair day?

Check this out!

I know how it feels.

GUARDS!!!

Is that REALLY how it's spelt? Now I come to write it, and especially in capital letters, it looks really odd.

Anyway, these are the two guards I have made so far but there will be more to come, ready for my online shop if I ever get it started, 'cos I have 3 more shields... so there will be three more guards.

There is something about the dark blue and the

stripy socks that just lend themselves to being soldiers, which is odd because I'm not aware of any country with a stripy soldier uniform...except Sockletania of course.

The Clangers - an ATC

Hands up if you are old enough to remember The Clangers?

They were little knitted pink figures from outer space that were big in the 1970's and all speech noises were made with a swannee whistle. They fished for space junk, ate soup from the soup dragon and lived in tunnels under dustbin lids.

A while ago I found a set of Clangers ink stamps and made this ATC using it.

Apparently all the dialogue was scripted, even though it was spoken on a swannee whistle. The narration was by the incomparable Oliver Postgate: THE voice of the 70's for a generation of children, myself included. In fact I believe he was the creator of ALL the Clanger-y stuff. Genius!

Sample and get hooked at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCcD0aqUgCo

Pepper's Ghost

Many years ago, my husband designed the logo and worked for a company called Pepper's Ghost doing digital artwork and computer games (they were the eventual creators of Bing and Bong Tiny Planets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaiH1jw4KT0).

The company was named after a real person and his artistic feats (see Wikipedia quote below):

"Pepper's ghost is an illusionary technique used in theatre, haunted house, dark rides and in some magic tricks. Using plate glass and special lighting techniques, it can make objects seem to appear or disappear, to become transparent, or to make one object morph into another. It is named after John Henry Pepper, who popularised the effect."

This is the thin and rather creepy model/ doll I made for him of Mr Pepper.

By taking the photo in sepia setting it rather looks like it could have been an authentic picture from the time of a rather fusty strange old gentleman.

The name was sometimes misheard and people have been known to phone up and ask for Peppered Goats!

Wimbledon 2013 - or Anyone for Dennis?

There are those who play tennis to win: the driven, the motivated, the up and coming, the desperate. There are those who play tennis for fun: small kids, good friends, the 'keep-fit' brigade. 

 Dennis and his partner Doris met on the tennis court when they were in their early twenties, became a pair, made many jokes about courting and eventually formed a love match! (Groan - How many puns and cliches can you get in one sentence? Answer: quite a few, we're British!!).

And if you're wondering why Doris is holding a badminton shuttlecock...that'll be because it's Monday. They always give themselves a break from tennis on a Monday and play badminton instead. 

Sometimes they play mixed doubles with their friends Irene and Terry , the winning hairdressers from the Hairdresser of the Year Award and yes, THEY are very competitive. (Blog April 30th)

Dr Who: Words of Wisdom from the Fridge

Our fridge is totally covered in fridge magnets which, as it needed a good clean the other day, had to be picked off one by one until the surface of the door could be accessed. That's when you regret having put entire alphabets on, because it takes ages to get the multitudes of multiplied letters off.

So the newly cleaned fridge door is stripped of its letters, and pride of place has been restored to its Dr Who fridge magnets, which have largely been skulking round the side, holding up out of date school reminders from 2 years ago!

So here is a sample of the Dr Who Words of Wisdom from the Fridge:

More to follow...
If you want to see other Whovian posts I've done, check these out
      http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/tardisor-just-mad-woman-with-box.html
and http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/melody-malone-amelia-williams-et-al.html
and http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/dr-who-shoes-ormissing-you-already.html
and http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/dr-who-50-daleks-and-cakes.html

A Windy day at the Beach

If you saw the Great British Beach Babe yesterday, you'll be wondering who she went to the beach with. Well it was a special day out with her best mate who recently had a socklet-grub (baby)! They thought they'd give the newborn a sample of a typical day at a British Seaside...

...so dress code was scarves, jumpers and hats, entertainment was seagulls pinching their chips followed by a brisk walk in the bracing wind before sheltering in a cafe for the rest of the day.

We intend to try it soon!

The Great British Beach Babe

I know size zero has been all the rage for a while in weird parts of the world where bits of some people are made of plastic not flesh, but deep in our heart of hearts we know most of us will never be it, don't want to be it and above all, like a bit of a curve to our figures. We like to see a bit of a bulge in others to reassure ourselves.

Personally I have never worn a bikini and never will but this young lady socklet has no embarrassment about going about in her favourite beach attire, sporting her Great British Tan, or lack of it.

You go girl!

Bear in a Box

Now that I make Socklets and other creatures, I find I see faces all around me in things that aren't meant to have them. I expect we've all done it with a tree that looks like the face of an old beardy man, some people do it by finding the face of someone famous in their toast.

But look at this cute little teddy bear face on the side of a cardboard box.

That's one of the least weird places I find faces...

...and on another occasion, I will reveal the secrets of the faces on the loo floor (yes I did just say that...sorry).

Foxes in the Garden

A couple of years ago we had foxes nesting in the garden next-door-but-one while no one was using it, and the adult ones used to come into our garden to sunbathe, even if we were out there too. This year, no sign of them but there have been sightings of these foxes instead.

Really handsome fellows, not afraid to get their smart togs muddy while lounging about in the spring grass.

The patterns are from the Sew Me Love Me book I talked about ages ago when I posted Dr Death and the Frog Prince

 http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dr-death.html...

...and the fabrics from the scrap box in my local fabric store where you can fill a small bag for £1.00.

Camden

Camden is a favourite area of London for our family to visit...some for the shopping,

 some for the food in the street markets,

 some for the nitro-ice cream in Chin Chin labs http://www.chinchinlabs.com/

and for me...its the places to photograph.

Friend of Gandalf

Lots of Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stuff going on all around so I thought I'd do it Gandalf-style and make a wizardy sock-bloke.

Not sure he has the wisdom of Gandalf... more a well intentioned, if puzzled role in the wizarding world, with a side order of 'slightly worried'.

And for those of you who want to watch it Gandalf-style, check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTimM15aFs

Japanese Fairies

These fairies are made from felt, tights, pressed cotton balls, wool, stuffing, ribbon and wire. The first is the grand lady fairy...

...and the others are flighty little teen fairies made for my niece.

Made For Me

You know by now that I like to make loads of stuff, and sometimes its just for the fun of it, or to see if I can, and some of it is made for someone else...

but every so often I'm going to feature something made by someone FOR ME!!! Presents!!! Yay!!!

So today it's my daughter's turn to be featured. She has watched me sew since she was young and has never had any fear about tackling a piece of fabric with scissors, needle and cotton and, in the early days, even sellotape!!

This is from the VERY early days and is, of course, a jewelled elephant...

but then you could see that at a glance, I know.

Since then creations have got more polished and detailed until recently this:

They always have a great sense of character and energy and are quirky and one of a kind... actually, that pretty much sums her up too! She can be found at http://ninjasaurusroar.blogspot.co.uk/ 
or currently as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Compton Little Theatre http://www.comptonlittletheatre.org.uk/

Nice Hat

Quite a few of my Socklets have the same shaped head: a large, long dome reaching majestically, no doubt containing a clever brain of great proprtions. However, the ingenious use of a circle of felt with a smaller circle cut out in the centre (like a thick letter o) pushed partway down this cranium, suddenly transforms the head into a rather nice hat. See?

A rather rustic, old fashioned look, but I like it. It just looks like he needs a crook and livestock of some description.

We Are The Champions!

It's time to celebrate the Socklet Cup!

Many teams of varying shapes, sizes, quantities of stuffing and skill have been battling it out to win the Socklet cup and here, at last is the result!

A resounding victory for Stripes over Spots this season!

The Referee, shown here, may appear biased, sporting stripes at the front, but he has spots in the shape of footballs all over his back in the name of fairness. Any comments about his eyesight are unjustified, as with glasses he can see better than most!

Taking a line for a walk...

Have you ever seen those drawings or animations where the entire picture is done with one single line, no taking the pen or pencil off and putting back somewhere else? They used to fascinate me to look at but I'd never tried them until recently.

This is my attempt at capturing the essence of Marmitey goodness in a single line.

In case you can't see the start and finish- one is on the left hand side of all the stripes in the lid and the other by the X for extra old. I started in the lid.

As Tim Minchin would say: It's not perfect... but it's mine   = )

More Historical Snails

These are the last three in the series on historical snails (see yesterday) and are from a more recent era of our history.

There is Queen Victoria snail, simply dressed in her widow's weeds (I originally intended to add a lace veil at the back of her head but ran out of time before giving them away), a NASA space snail with helmet and tubes and Abraham Lincoln snail, which I think I like the best.

I made these quite a long time ago and have not worked with Sculpey (polymer clay- like Fimo) for ages, but now think it would be quite fun to revisit this idea but use famous people and celebrities! What do you reckon?

Historical Snails

Have you ever wondered what snails have been like throughout different historical eras? Have they evolved? Have they stayed the same? What did they eat?
A while ago my nephew was studying Archaeology at university and one of his tutors made him do a project on gathering historical evidence through snail shells (WHAT???!!!) and so I made these for him for Christmas that year!

Obviously stone-age snails were tougher and more hairy than the ones we have today and usually carried a spear as well as a shell.

These snails are from periods of history where military strength was essential for ruling the land: Julius Caesar from Rome and Boudicca and Henry VIII from Britain. Poor Caesar snail suffered the same fate as his emperor namesake, there are backstabbers even in the snail world and his shell couldn't save him. I suspect a blackbird! A young fit Henry still has his early vigour but customary colour and beard, and Boudicca has knives coming out of the side of her shell to deter predators!

Giant Poppies

Have you seen the really giant poppies with their deep orangey-red flowers and dark centres? Their opened span is bigger than both my hands cupped together!
Years ago at a market I bought an un-prepossessing bag of cut white roots in a soil filled plastic bag that I was assured would grow into giant poppy flowers. Well they have been going strong ever since.

I have to be careful not to dig up the area in winter when there's nothing to show they are there, then in spring the leaves shoot up in a clump and then the stalks, they grow like mad until the flowers are about to burst. The unopened buds look like alien seed pods or worse but the flowers are spectacular. Here's a pic

The centre is black and the powdery covering is deep purple, as you can see from the purple bee flying away from gathering nectar. Its back is completely covered in purple dust! Late in the season they empty flower heads will start producing seeds, which I have collected but never sewn.

That also looks like some kind of alien landing pad! When they are dried the seed cases can be sprayed and used in flower arrangements, I'm told.

Playing with your food

Inspired by an episode of Rosie and Jim... here are a couple of examples of playing with food.
First a bread house (but seeing as my son is on a low sugar and yeast diet, it's a fahita) with cucumber tiles on the roof, a tomato door and chimney and broccoli trees in the garden.

And for pudding...

A Satsuma train with blueberry wheels, sugar-free jelly sweet people and yoghurt steam.

You wouldn't want to do it every day...but it was fun!