Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane?

SuperKatie Beastie by CrawCrafts Beasties

No, it’s SuperKatie Beastie!

SuperKatie Beastie was commissioned as a gift for a girl called Katie who is super-into superheroes. Since I couldn’t choose just one superhero to Beastify for her (and because I have a mortal fear of copyright infringement), I thought it would be fun to make her own personal hero. And here she is!
SuperKatie Beastie Close-up - CrawCrafts Beasties
Like all good superheroes, SuperKatie Beastie has a mask to keep her real identity a secret! And I had great fun designing a logo for her superhero costume, too…
SuperKatie Beastie Logo and Utility Belt - CrawCrafts Beasties

As you can see, she also has a utility belt aaaaaand…
SuperKatie Beastie's Cape - CrawCrafts Beasties
… a classy satin cape to help her fly!

Katie and SuperKatie Beastie met for the first time on Saturday. Since then, I have learned that this talented little monster is demonstrating an uncanny range of superpowers, including telekenesis! She also has a cover name (which I can’t reveal in case the forces of darkness are monitoring this blog) and has taken a day job as a vet. Oh, and her superhuman (or should that be superbeastie?) abilities came about after she took a school trip to a nuclear power plant and it was struck by lightning. That’s some origin story!

Hopefully Katie and SuperKatie Beastie will keep us up to date with their crime-fighting adventures… bad guys beware!

Ooops! Or, Liebster Award – Part 2

Oh dear. I knew there was something a little off about my post yesterday, and it’s taken me until this morning to realise what it is… I somehow managed to leave one of my favourite blogs out of my Liebster nominees list! So please, drop everything you’re doing and go and visit Stitch Boom Bang! immediately. I’m a big fan of Heather’s work, and her witty, interesting posts always make me smile. You can also pick up some of her pieces for yourself at her Etsy shop!

Now that’s fixed I can go to work with a clear conscience! Have a great day, everybody 🙂

Oh Looky! A Liebster Award!

About two weeks ago, the very lovely Roma at Craft Odyssey nominated me and the Beasties for a Liebster Award. While we were all supremely grateful – her adventures in cottage renovation, crafting and keeping a neurotic cat and exuberant puppy in check never fail to make us chuckle – time to consider her questions and pick out some fellow bloggers to nominate always seemed to elude me. Until now! Well, better late than never…

Now, bring on the questions!

1 Tea or coffee ?
TEA. With a capital T-E-A.

2 What was the first book you remember reading ?
Possibly “The Nickle Nackle Tree” by Lynley Dodd. A few years ago, I was working in a bookshop and a new edition came in. Before putting it on the shelf, I opened it and had a flick through… it was like meeting an old friend again!

3 What is your favourite pastime ?
Hanging out with Boyfriend, watching horror films and knitting monsters. Yes, I can do all three at once!

4  What one item would you buy if money was no object ?
I wouldn’t buy a thing… but I would take A LOT more holidays.

5 Name an ambition you harbour
I’d love to have my own craft studio. Although I suspect it would end up looking like this:

(Image of Francis Bacon’s studio sneakily borrowed from http://www.francis-bacon.com)

6 Describe your perfect day
Cold and rainy outside, warm and cosy inside and no reason to leave the house! Extra bonus perfect day points would be awarded for the inclusion of copious amounts of tea, home-made tasties and craft beers. Oh, and if I were to try out a whole lot of new ideas for Beasties and have them all work out exactly as I imagined on the first attempt that would be AMAZING.

7 Describe yourself in 3 words
I couldn’t possibly.

8 What can you see from your sitting room window?
For now, more houses. But when the trees get their leaves back in a couple of months, it’ll be a jungle out there!

9 What made you start a blog?
I just wanted a place to showcase and archive pictures of my Beasties. I never imagined for a second that I’d end up as part of this great online community!

10 How did you come up with your blog’s title?
I stole it from the name of my little crafting business!

11 Where will you go next time you leave the house?
It looks like it’s going to be the supermarket. I lobbed everything in the kitchen into an improvised stew last night, so the cupboards are officially bare. Oh, the glamour!

Next up – the random facts!

  1. I can’t drive a car.
  2. I speak a little bit of Japanese.
  3. I lived in France for a year when I was a student.
  4. I wasn’t won over to the merits of beer until I was in my early twenties.
  5. I walk everywhere. Well, within reason.
  6. I grew up in Northern Ireland, but I’ve spent pretty much my entire adult life in Dublin.
  7. I once worked in an office for a year. That was enough.
  8. I’m a real wimp when it comes to spicy foods, but I LOVE mustard and wasabi.
  9. My one big indulgence is holidays.
  10. I’ve seen the Northern Lights.
  11. I still have real difficulty making lists of random facts about myself.

Thanks for reading! Now, the important bit – the nominations! I choose…

The Snail of Happiness – A blog about all the things that are good… handcrafts, living sustainably and, most recently, cheesemaking!

Funky Air Bear – For divine hand-knits, homebakes and life in Canada.

Make+Do – Lovely handcrafts and savvy business advice.

A Rottweiler at The Cottage on the Green – Okay, this one is a VERY new arrival… but I have a feeling Oscar the Rottweiler has a great blogging future ahead of him!

I’d also like to give honorable mentions to Tatie’s World and Beak Up Crafts – Roma already nominated them, so I’m sure they don’t want to have to come up with another 11 interesting facts about themselves just yet, but if you haven’t checked these blogs out already, you really should!

Nominees, your questions aaaaare…

1) Christmas or Hallowe’en?

2) Trip to the cinema or night on the town?

3) City break or sun holiday?

4) E-book or paper book?

5) Ghost stories or fairy tales?

6) What’s your favourite treat?

7) What’s the first thing you ever made?

8) What do you like most about where you live?

9) What’s the most interesting (or weirdest) job you’ve ever had?

10) What’s your favourite childhood memory?

11) What, for you, is the best part of writing a blog?

Should you accept this award, you’ll need to know the rules, which are:

1: Acknowledge and accept the Liebster Award by leaving a comment on the blog where you were nominated.
2: Copy and paste the Liebster logo onto your own blog.
3: Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
4: Answer the 11 questions put to you by the person who nominated you.
5: List 11 random facts about yourself.
6: Nominate and link to 3—11 other blogs you enjoy that have less than 3000 followers
7: List 11 questions for your Liebster Award nominees on your blog.
8: Inform your nominees by leaving a comment on their blog.

And that’s it… looking forward to hearing from you all! Have a monster week…

Taking Care of Beastie Business!

Winter Beastie by CrawCrafts Beasties

Ah, January! Cold, dark days, nights that begin at 4.30 in the afternoon and the Christmas lights in the streets haven’t been taken down yet, but they aren’t being switched on any more either… Well, that’s what’s happening in Dublin, anyway. So, what better time for me to tackle one of my New Year’s resolutions head-on, and get the Beasties’ Etsy shop going again?

Etsy Shop Window

Ta-daaaaaah! My first three listings went live this morning, and I’ll be adding more over the next few days. If you have a spare second, please pop over and visit the Beasties in their new online home… Etsy’s such a massive place these days, I’m worried they’ll get lost in there! I’d also love to hear any feedback you might have about the shop, or your own experiences of buying or selling online… tell me all about it in the comments!

Happy Friday everybody, hope you all have a monster weekend!

Oh, I almost forgot!

Artist Girl Beastie, by CrawCrafts Beasties

Christmas is a strange time – a veritable Bermuda triangle for thoughts, ideas and good intentions. In all the madness of present-buying, meeting up with friends who were home from overseas, card-making and holding down a job in retail, it seemed that I had hardly any spare minutes to sit down and share my Beastie news. Then it all got lost in a fug of turkey and brandy butter, and further buried as I started formulating all kinds of madcap monster schemes for the new year ahead.

But today, I took some time to go through the photos in my camera and I found these pictures. I realised that I’d never had a chance to introduce you all to Artist Girl Beastie, because she was commissioned as a gift and I didn’t want to accidentally spoil someone’s Christmas morning! So, without further ado… here she is!

Like my other Artist Beasties, she has a felt beret, artist’s palette…
Artist Girl Beastie's Palette, by CrawCrafts Beasties

… a paintbrush, and a paint-spattered smock!
Artist Girl Beastie's Paintbrush, by CrawCrafts BeastiesBut I also thought I would give her a mop of blonde hair (complete with artsy bohemian braids)…
Artist Girl Beastie's Hair, by CrawCrafts Beasties
… And a fun polka-dot top to relax in at the end of a hard day’s painting!
Artist Girl Beastie takes some time off, by CrawCrafts Beasties

In the last couple of days, I’ve delivered two more made-to-order Beasties to their new homes… pictures to follow soon! And in other news, thanks to Roma at Craft Odyssey for nominating me for a Liebster Award – I’ll be sure to answer all her questions and introduce you to some of my favourite blogs in an upcoming post!

Thanks for reading… have a monster week!

Beastie New Year!

Explorer Beastie by the Fire - CrawCrafts Beasties

Happy new year, everybody!

Well, nice as it’s been to put our feet/paws up and relax over the holidays, the Beasties and I are now ready to launch ourselves at 2015. Let’s see what delights it can offer to a lady and her ever-growing brood of woolly monsters!

But first, a quick overview of 2014 – looking back, it was a pretty eventful year! It saw Beasties venturing into uncharted waters…
Diver Beastie
… Catching up with old friends…
Explorer Beastie & Garcia Beastie
… Dabbling in the arts…
Artist Beastie
…And growing to new heights!
Beastie Group
Together, we’ve been to markets, pop up shops and high street stores, so we’ve learned a lot about the best places to introduce Beasties to new human friends. And as a result, my little monsters have headed off to homes in some far-flung places, including Germany, the USA and Norway! I’ve also had fun making some personalised Beasties to order… This is Colm Beastie, who, like his namesake, enjoys running marathons and the odd pint of Guinness. I LOVED doing his hair!
Colm Beastie - CrawCrafts BeastiesI also made a sister for Explorer Beastie. She hit the road almost as soon as she was off the knitting needles, and was last seen enjoying Christmas dinner in Argentina!
Explorer Girl Beastie - CrawCrafts Beasties
And of course, Explorer Beastie has been popping up all over the place!
AmpelmannCatching some rays, Beastie-style

Chatsworth HouseExplorer Beastie on the TubeI’m intrigued to see where his travels take him in 2015!

And that brings us neatly back to the whole point of this post – what are we going to get up to this year? I figure that if I share some of my plans with you all on the BeastieBlog, I’d be that little bit more likely to actually DO them. So, in 2015, the Beasties and I solemnly swear to…

  • Keep in touch more often, with more photos, blog posts and Facebook updates
  • Revive and revitalise our Etsy store
  • Hang out at markets more, because we always have a great time there
  • Learn some new skills – just to keep things interesting!

Stay tuned to see how we get on… and thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello during 2014. Hopefully you’ll stick around and follow us on more monster adventures! And we’d love to hear your plans for the coming year – how will you be spending 2015?

Beasties, Beans and Banners… My Market Day!

Market Stall with Banner

Yikes! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted something! I’ve been pouring all my days into preparing for my latest market, and it didn’t leave much time for anything else… between the knitting, stitching and coming up with some new ideas to freshen up my display, I’ve been somewhat reclusive these last few weeks!

But the madness is over, and now that I’ve taken a couple of days to catch my breath, tidy up the stray balls of wool and (GASP!) start my Christmas shopping, it’s really high time I sat down and shared all my news.

First of all, for any of you who haven’t stumbled upon the Beasties’ Facebook page yet, I’m proud to introduce my new Santa Beasties – freshly arrived from Lapland!
Santa Beasties!More Santa Beasties!

We’ve been experiencing some pretty polar-type weather here lately ourselves, so I’ve also been wrapping up some of my new Beasties in cosy hats and scarves…
Winter BeastieChristmas Gift Beastie

…And I couldn’t resist making a Christmas Fairy Beastie to sit at the top of my Christmas tree!
Christmas Fairy Beastie

But the surprise hit of the day was my new range of cuddly toy beans!
Beasties and Beans
I got the idea for these from my friends Stephen and Yayoi. Before they picked out a name for their baby girl, they called her “Mame-chan”, which means “little bean” in Japanese. I thought it would be fun to make a little toy edamame (soy) bean from some lime green fleece fabric I had in my stash, and I actually sold a couple of “Mame-chans” at my pop-up shop back in May! For this market, I decided to add a couple more characters – a sassy pink Jellybean and a Chilli (or, more correctly, chilly) Bean with a woolly beanie hat and a big chilled-out smile. And the kids loved them! I’ll definitely be making more of these… I’ve already got a few ideas for some more beany friends!

While I was getting my team of Beasties and Beans ready to go, I started thinking about my display. A while back, a friend of mine suggested I make a banner to help make my stall more visible. I liked the idea, but hadn’t a clue what to put on the banner. Then finally, inspiration struck…
Banner Sketch
… and after an afternoon of literally watching paint dry in the freeeeeeezing underground car park of Beastie Towers, I came up with this!
Finished Beastie Banner

I’m still trying to convince Boyfriend that this masterpiece of monster art deserves a place on our living room wall…

Aaaaand finally, something else I’ve wanted to do for a while is to try my hand at making some Beastie t-shirts. What better opportunity than the flurry of activity/panic that comes with preparing for an upcoming market? Since my mum had very kindly agreed to help me on the day, and had said, “Yes, I’ll wear anything!” I went ahead and created these…
Beastie T-shirts
And here I am modelling mine on market day! This won’t be the last time I wear this shirt… I kinda love it!
Me and my Beasties
Thanks for stopping by… more Beastie adventures coming soon (I promise)!

 

Explorer Beastie in Autumn

On the road again...

A couple of weeks ago, Explorer Beastie and I had a chance to head out West and enjoy a little quiet time. Autumn is far and away my favourite season, and I’d argue that the Irish countryside looks its best at this time of year. We definitely got more than our fair share of “mists and mellow fruitfulness”, as you will see! Our first discovery was a toadstool among the fallen leaves in the garden…
Explorer Beastie with Toadstool

Then we headed out into the fields to see what natural goodies we could harvest!
Exploring the Fields

I was particularly keeping an eye out for sloes on this expedition, but I needn’t have worried. The blackthorn trees were weighed down with these super-bitter berries, which, like a lot of us, become a lot mellower and nicer to be around with the addition of a little gin. My sloe gin stocks have been sorely depleted after two consecutive bad years, so I was pleased (or relieved) to see such a bumper crop! Picking the sloes is usually an arduous task, involving multiple scrapes and jabs from the vicious thorns that give the trees their name, so it was good to have a little extra help this time around.
Explorer Beastie Picking Sloes

We were also on the lookout for more immediately edible treats – blackberries! We took these home and used them to make miniature apple and blackberry pies…
Explorer Beastie finds Blackberries
… Once Explorer Beastie had finished gadding about in the brambles.
Explorer Beastie's Bramble Trapeze

There were plenty of other natural treats to be found along the way… unfortunately, I lack the equipment and expertise to make these beautiful hedgerow fruits into something tasty! Maybe next year…
HawsRosehipsElderberries

After that, we had just enough time to say hello to the cows…
Explorer Beastie with Cows
… And take a few artsy shots of glistening mist-spangled spiderwebs…Spiderwebs in the Mist

…Before heading home to toast our toes by the fire!

How do you spend a perfect autumn day? Let me know in the comments!

My London Yarn Haul

Mirasol Sulka Yarn

By popular demand (well, one person asked… thank you, The Snail of Happiness, for this idea for a quick’n’easy blog post!) I thought it might be fun to share my recent yarny purchases – souvenirs from the trip Explorer Beastie and I took to London recently.

By the way, let’s keep these delectable fuzzy goodies a secret from the Beasties – I’m going to be using this yarn to make something for ME!

First up are a couple of skeins of oh-so-lovely Mirasol Sulka… a tasteful mix of merino wool, alpaca and silk. How could I leave THAT in the shop?
Orange and Black... YUM!

Try as I might, I couldn’t get the photos to show off the incredible glossiness of this yarn – but at least you can get a feel for the colours. I love the bright orange, and when I pair it with the super-classy raven’s-wing black it will really pop! That’s this autumn’s neckwear sorted, then.

Because funds and suitcase space were limited on this trip, I had to curb my (natural) impulse to buy one of everything in the store. After much deliberation, I chose this little beauty…
I Knit or Dye - Hand-Dyed Yarn

I Knit stock a range of their own hand-dyed yarns, which I wouldn’t be able to pick up at home, so that was all the incentive I needed to put a skein into my shopping basket. I picked this one because its cheerful yellow hues look like spun sunshine… perfect for getting me through the Irish winter!

Ready for the extreme close-up?
I Knit or Dye Hunky Dory

Lovely stuff!

If Explorer Beastie is very good, I might consider making him a scarf out of my leftovers… Here’s another photo of him with one of the dogs at I Knit, just to keep this post vaguely Beastie-related!

Explorer Beastie at I Knit

Has anyone else some classy yarns that I need to know about?