Chris' Technicolour Dream Couch!

Well it's taken a few months and over a hundred (yes a hundred) of meters of stitching, but my dream couch is finally finished. It was already my the best sofa I've ever had - and now it's the best one of all time!

Royal Weddings. Gang patches. The perfect couple.

I have a bit of a Diana, Queen of our Hearts fixation. The whole thing is just so kitsch and weird. Anyway, one of the places that led me was a denim jacket with a Princess Diana gang patch sewn on the back. One night when I wore it out, I was told by a strange it was the best jacket they'd ever seen. Another time, I was called a twat. So there you go. But when the Royal Wedding rolled around, it was time for a round two!

It caused quite a splash. You can now find me on Getty. 

AND in Paris Match. The fame!

Who wants to club a fur seal!?!

My friend Helen invited us round for a 'Mexican' dinner the other day, and never one to shy from a challenge - I saw her tacos and raised her a pinata! A baby fur seal pinata! We clubbed it like maniacs, then (to keep with the Mexican theme) when it split open, salt sachets, lemons and baby bottles of tequila fell out. Ole!

Christmas banquet

Last Christmas we hosted the most fun party we've ever had. And perhaps the one I've enjoyed the most of all. And that's saying something. I built a tent inside our (somewhat tiny) flat with a banqueting table down the centre. Then we invited 30 people round for a night of food, revelry, indoor fireworks and dancing that annoyed the neighbours until the early hours (sorry number 42!). Oh, and I made a giant Christmas cracker that we burst open with a tug of war before dinner. Gifts and jokes sprayed out and it was officially party time.

The Peoples' Pitch

I love Andreas from publicworks. I love him (and his work) to pieces. So when the LLDC and muf got some money together and asked us to do a project with it, I jumped at the chance. The location for it was Mabley Green; a park near the Olympic Park that had been overrun by football pitches that were moved there when the stadiums were built. After a couple of years, local people were not happy.

So we asked them to draw what they really wanted on the park instead. Then borrowed the very same equipment that painted the pitch lines on the park in the first place and drew their wishes in epic scale. It made a bold statement, and started a load of interesting questions about the park's future use. And now, it's set to become the largest edible park in the world!

Sewing mega-project.

For the last few months, 'hobby hour' has been relentlessly filled with a MEGA sewing project I've been working on. I don't want to give the game away completely, but I will say this is, without a doubt, the biggest thing I've ever sown. More details soon...

Screen printing week 3

Word on the street was that we'd be doing four-colour separations this week. So I asked my photographer friend at work aka 'the amazing Carole; aka 'CXE78' if she had any images she'd like me to print up. I had a snoop around her flickr and this pic of a Yayoi Kusama sculpture from her trip to Japan last year. Love it!

But then when I got to the class, it turned out there wasn't time to print our own personal four-colour separations (booo). But we did learn do half-tones, so I printed it as one of those. I was REALLY happy with how it turned out.



And Carole really like it too. I gave her one of the prints, and she didn't even do that thing where you say 'ooooooh', then put it under your bed for seven years. No! She took it straight to the framers, and look at it now! What an awesome, humbling compliment.

Oh, and we did do a four-colour separation in the end. But we didn't get to choose our own images. And as it turns out, they look reeeeeeally tacky. So I didn't take one home.