The Redundant Pouch

Even excluding present company, all the best birthdays fall in the last week of August... my Dad, my best friend from university, the object of my obsession, and Friend Sarah.

After the success of last year's capacious make-up pouches, a request was put in for a smaller model. Ostensibly, it's for her handbag; rationally, it's because she doesn't need that much makeup.

Using my body as inspiration, this pouch has a flat bottom. Also like me, it's able to stand up by itself.

I have it on good authority (Friend Sarah texted me) that it has already been trialled and deemed sufficient. I have very stringent quality control though, and have secured a night out tonight to confirm.

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Hiring: Geek required

When you go sightseeing does it look like this?


Or.... When you peruse your snack options does it look like this?


If so, I might be looking for you.

Due to lack of time / mental block, I'm looking to hire someone to do some coding for my shop. It shouldn't be more than a couple of hours of work but html/css knowledge is required. If you're interested, send me an email at amanda@kitschycoo.co.uk with details of your rates and why you are more awesome than other people. Special consideration will be given to those who can make a CSS joke as Google doesn't have a single one.

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The Reverse Engineer

I was contacted by a customer recently about making some custom sheets to fit her Stokke crib. I really wish I could see her nursery because the cruise-ship fabric she provided is ace!

It took some doing to get the pattern right because the Stokke mattress is oblong rather than rectangular... thankfully she provided another sheet for a template as my geometry skillz are not quite up to the task of determining the volume of a oval mattress and transferring that into a paper pattern.

According to the customer, the sheets she could find were either bland, prohibitively expensive (or both), so if anyone is interested in custom Stokke sheets, send me an email.

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The Death Roll: now with less alligators

Remember when I said 'if you geek me I will geek you back'? I should have added a caveat that I might take so long you'd be tempted to hate me.

Approximately sixteen years ago, Louiz sent me some lovely fingerless gloves that she knitted after I bleated on and on about my Raynaud's disease and consequential non-functional purple lobster hands. Although I had every intention of returning my affection in a timely fashion, I hemmed and hawwed for ages on what to make her. As far as I am aware, she doesn't have silly schoolgirl crushes like me and Apryl so Viking Vampires couldn't be involved in my gift. She is a respectable woman.

Finally, I felt so terrible that I hadn't gifted her back that I decided to make her a needle roll in her favourite colour purple. Knowing nothing about knitting (as evidenced by my illustrative use of paint brushes in the pictures above), I perused lots of tutorials to see what sort of features should be included. Dimensions that will accommodate needles? Check. A variety of different sized pockets? Check. Rollable? Check. Tie-able? Check.

Being a innovator, I decided to add some vinyl pockets at the bottom for these mysterious things called 'stitch markers' and whatever smaller knitting notions one might have. I was impressed with myself for thinking of such a handy feature. It turns out that there's a good reason why other people don't add vinyl pockets to their needle rolls: because it's evil to sew. But not as evil as me for leaving Louiz hanging so long.

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In which I Exercise Restrait

You know how I normally come back from the States with a bajillion new fabrics to torment everyone with? Not so this year, I exercised restraint. Bet you didn't think I had it in me. To be honest, restraint really didn't come into it; I've been alluding to Top Secret Going-Ons in Kitschy Coo Towers for the last six months or so, things are changing soon and bringing back heaps of fabric from the States is not part of the master plan. I did bring back a bit though, restocking my ever-popular geek stash:


And adding to my organics collection. If you can't remember things that happened yesterday (like me), here's the Monaluna Fox print:


And a bit of Monaluna Soar:


A dash of this Birch bicycle print:


And the Monuluna Scooters in Teal that I missed out on last summer:


It looks like I have a thing for blue this year. And the one new-to-me, non-organic fabric? The only grey fabric in my stash!


I really love the whole Sherbet Pips collection, but I admit to being irritated that the scooter prints have kids with winter clothes on as I think that really limits their use. Does anyone else get annoyed by 'seasonal' prints?

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The Foxy Foxes

By virtue of also having a birthday this week, Friend Sarah joined Club Kindle and quickly commissioned a cover from me. With only a tiny bit of persuasion required, I steered her in the direction of one of my Stateside fabric acquisitions.

If I was a bigger person and didn't care about people judging me, I'd totally french kiss this fabric.

I also found out from the woman I bought it from that this was the last bolt ever of this fabric. Guess who immediately doubled her order?

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Situation Vacant

This really isn't the first picture of Jamie and Robbie, just the first on this current computer. They're two.

Another one bites the dust, guys. I've mentioned before that I appear to trigger a diaspora within my (admittedly small) circle of super-close friends, forcing them to move outwith my immediate clutches. First BFF back to Australia, second to Northern Ireland, and tomorrow the first very close friend I made post-children is moving to the very south coast. Liz and I met in antenatal group when we were pregnant with our boys and we've spent somewhere between 1500 and 2500 hours since then eating biscuits, walking like it's our full-time jobs, and swapping tales of horror and schadenfreude. We had our boys, we had our girls, and the (two- four-) six of us have been a constant feature for the last six years. I can't even verbalise how much I'll miss her, my first mum friend. When we said goodbye this week Maia and I cried our faces off (Jamie alternated between playing his DS and offering us platitudes of comfort). But our loss is your gain: I have a situation vacant within my cosy coterie.

Female, 31, seeks similar for friendship and possibly more (and by more I mean intense friendship). Must enjoy lamenting fate, self-deprecation, being a dork, and coffee. Interests include Vikings, fabric porn, obscure films, travel*, and books.

And here's the bonus: TRAVEL. Steven is currently in Spain visiting his parents (post-accident, they are still there). Four full days. And he has taken all of his holidays so I will spend my birthday next week by myself / with the kids. Ergo- I deserve a holiday of my own.

Those in the UK, I await volunteers for travel companions. Those in Europe, fight amongst yourselves as to who will host us. I am at least 73% serious.

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