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.

Screen printing week 2

After a week of the basics, we moved swiftly on to two colour prints. Which is waaay more fun. I really like mine too. It started as a fluoro-green print of the animal silhouettes. Then I scratched into the original acetate to make the details and printed a black layer of the top. Bit difficult to photograph, but really satisfying.

Screen printing Week 1

After much screen printing assisting, I decided to take control of squeegie and start printing things myself. Problem is, I don't really know how to do it. So I've enrolled in a three week course at a place up the road.

Here's what we did on week one: stencils. Probably not going to make it to the wall of fame, but quite fun to do!

Then we coated screens and fooled around with one-colour printing. Again, pretty basic. But again, fun!

And the winner is....

After a whole year of being totally amazing and awesome, Pig Pen had their annual awards ceremony in December. So my good friend Ben (who runs the night) asked me to make one of the trophies.

Thinking about it, I noticed that whenever men win something, they get big, shiny (but ugly) permanent memorials - like trophies and cups. But if women win something, they get a bunch of flowers - which (although beautiful) are ephemeral and disposable. **Cue outrage at gender politics**

So I wanted to make a traditional trophy, but mix things up a little by creating it out of flowers. The process was fantastically epic, but the final result wasn't exactly how I was expecting. So let me take you back through the mists of time...

...to the very beginning.

After I did the boring glueing and drilling bits to get the frame sorted, I started carving the Oasis (which is florists foam). If you've never done that before, go out and get some immediately. It's so satisfying, and a sharp knife goes through it like butter. Actually, it's easier than butter. It's so therapeutic. I could go on all day about it. Honestly. But....

Pretty soon, I had the main shape - minus the handles (which were super-70s floral ones from eBay).

I kind of ran out of time, so I had to put the handles on at the club. Which I did. And I was getting really excited about how it would look with the flowers on it.

The flowers go on - still looking good.

Oh.

When it was covered in blooms, it kind of turned into a shapeless, slightly creepy beast. Ha! I like that it seems quite alive though. So that's good (if unexpected).

Learning for next time: make the shape much skinnier. Or make the object much bigger. It's a really nice effect though, so I'd definitely be up for doing something like this again. Perhaps as props or wearable accessories for a photoshoot. Anyone want to commission me?

Nice pair.

After a posting drought, I've got a flurry of projects I've been saving up for this VERY MOMENT. Actually, I'll come clean. I've just been a bit lazy. But I digress!

So, two Christmases ago, I took on the challenge of re-upholstering a chair we had knocking around. I'd never upholstered anything before, so it was a very steep learning curve (translation = I had a tantrum, and swore I'd never attempt it again). But a year later, I'd forgotten all that and got stuck in reupholstering its twin over the Christmas break. And the super-depressing fabric that was on there before looked like rejected prop from Abigail's Party, so I really had no choice.


I began by rigging up a mad-professor/carpenter fetish rig to fix the frame and make it sturdy again.


Then I made the cover and started nailing it on. Last time I did this, I hammered in the nails all the way. And then the other half of the cover didn't fit properly (hence, the tantrum). Thankfully, I remembered to NEVER DO THAT EVER AGAIN, so it was fine this time.


I didn't want to enter the OCD nightmare of trying to get the two chairs to match exactly, so instead they're kind of the positive and negative of each other. Which looks great I think!

Posh googly eyes.

I noticed the other day that the top right-hand corner of the eBay homepage has a ticker counting down the days to Christmas (41, btw). Which means Christmas is nearly upon us...kind of. But for me, the Christmas shopping panic starts a little earlier than for most people. The reason being that my Dad's birthday is at the start of December, so it makes sense to buy all the presents and send them all in one swoop. Ie, RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!

Anyway, when I was in New York I bought one of my favourite things ever - an eyeball stamp. I love it! So for this year's presents, I rolled out the lining paper and got stamping. Which was hugely satisfying for the pedantic/neurotic side of my personality. Anyway, without further ado - here are some nice pictures.

Plus, for added neurosis, I cunningly concealed the name labels among the pattern.

Awww.

Ice Cube! (As in the rapper. And actual ice cubes. Does that count as a pun?)

New York is HOT in September. Clammy, shirt-sticking-to-your-back, unattractive damp armpits hot. And I love it! Which is why I decided to flee the creeping London autumn and spend a week sweating it out in NYC with my friend Paul (who is awesome).

Paul is one of my favourite collaborators EVER. And together, we devised some ice-jewellery to combat the Manhattan swelter.

(Moulding clay by Nearby Art Shop. Water by New York Tap. Fridge by Paulie and Andrew.)

Icy knuckle duster.

Iced out. Oh yeah!

I miss New York. I miss summer. Waaaaaah!

Cufflink EMERGENCY!!!!!!

Not a common emergency. And debatably, not an actual emergency in normal life. But when you're in rural Poland for a wedding, and half an hour before the ceremony your other half realises the left their cufflinks at home, and their shirt won't actually work without them,the situation can quickly turn ugly.

Anyway, after unsuccessfully scouring the hotel for a spare pair. I scoured our room for something that might work. Luckily, I was wearing a vintage blazer, and the previous owner had left some black and white ribbon in the pocket, which instantly transformed me into a bridal MacGuyver.

The original ribbon. Without any scissors or sharp objects of any kind in our luggage (thanks, Ryan Air), I used a cigarette lighter to burn the long bit in the middle and make two pieces.

Carefully knot one end....

And then knot the other (with varying degrees of success - it's quite a bit harder than it looks!).

And crisis averted!

This particular drama was actually swiftly followed by the classic pre-wedding 'I-can't-get-my-bowtie-to-work-how-come-it-worked-before!?!?!?-emergency'. But let's not get into that one.