Peep Peep! The making of a Very Useful Engine

 Hello lovelies! It was Thomas the Tank Engine Day at work today. Many people have asked how I made the costume so I will try to give you a little story of how I did it.

This was one not primarily sourced from charity shops. I had to custom sew it to get the effects I wanted. 

Things I bought or sourced from my fabric stash for the shirt and wheels:

·         A long sleeve blue shirt (I love these Fruit of the Loom shirts. I have lots in various colours. They are a decent price, come in lots of colours and I know what size I need)

·         A silver table runner I bought for £1 at the YMCA

·         Some red poly cotton fabric

·         Black, white, royal blue and yellow felt

I also used lots and lots and lots of Bonda-Web. If you don’t know what this miracle stuff is, it is double sided iron on interfacing. You iron it on the back of your fabric, cut out the shape you want, peel off the paper, then iron your design onto the other bit of fabric (in my case the shirt), then stitch over it. In my experience, Bonda-Web needs top stitching because it will eventually unpeel but is great for holding fiddly designs down without pins so they don’t shift as you try to sew.

I just made stencils for every part of the design then Bonda-Webbed them to the shirt (both front and back)

Then I either machine sewed (the red stripe, the silver stripe, Thomas’s head and body and the number in the box on the back) or hand sewed (the yellow window circles, his eyes, mouth and eyebrows, his accessories at the bottom) them to the shirt. To make his nose 3D I made a circle, sewed around it with a gathered stitch and pulled the circle shut after stuffing it with polyfill fluff. Then I thought my nose was too small so I did it again with a slightly larger circle and stuffed it with fluff as well as the previous too small nose. Then I sewed it by hand to the shirt.

I drew his smile lines with a sharpie. What colour sharpie, you ask? Well, that’s up for debate. I had a grey and a silver. I used the silver on one side, then stopped to make something for my tea, came back and picked up the grey one by accident and then, oh no! The smile lines did not match! After a moment of panic, I carefully traced over the grey line with the silver and then carefully traced over the silver line with grey. Phew! Crisis averted!

I didn’t make the red and silver stripes go all the way to the side seams. I would like to tell you this was because I had anticipated that attaching a non-stretch fabric to a stretchy one would necessitate making a little slit on each side for ease of movement but really I am just crap at measuring and made them a bit too short then couldn’t get it over my hips so had to cut a slit and was thankful I had made a measuring mistake so all’s well that ends well.

To make the ankle wheels I cut out a wheel template in blue and hand stitched it to a black circle while watching Horrible Histories. Then I made some wrapping straps which I sewed to another black circle. Then I pinned and re-pinned on my leg to get a cuff that fit my leg.

Then I sewed Velcro on and made some adjustments—I needed a little dart on one side and a corner clipped but now they fit my leg perfectly.

Then I hand sewed the circle on the leg band to the wheel circle and inserted a slightly smaller circle of cardboard (gold carboard in this case as it is what I had used to spray paint my Medusa crown).

View from the top:

Then on to the hat. The steam coming out has impressed a lot of folks so how did I do it?

I bought:

A stovepipe hat (taller than a top hat) and some invisible hairnets like a dinner lady might wear.

Then I carefully stuffed polyfill fluff into a hairnet and sewed it closed then attached it to a piece of felt. Then I hot glued the felt to the top of the hat. I kept filling hairnets with fluff and using hot glue and tiny stitches to hold them together.

I am very pleased with how it came out. The only slight drawback is I don’t think the shirt cannot be washed. But having spent time in the theatre I know you can just spray it with a bit of Dettol or Lysol and call it square.

What will I make next? Stay tuned!

It Takes a Village...

...to raise a Spidergrrl.

Hello lovelies! What an adventure I have had. Anyone who has read my book The Wanting Comes in Waves will know that the last good thing the Amazing Spiderman did for me before he got sick and died was take me to get a mammogram in Pensarn. Well, it is that time again because it has been a little over two years.

This has thrown up lots of issues for me:

• Grief over the fact that I have to do it alone this time (and the memory of what came after the last time)
• Anxiety of all the related things that go with it like how to get there by bus (which bus do I have to get, where does it pick up? How much does it cost? How will i know where to get off?)
• Once I am there the worry that they will find something because many women in my family have had breast cancer
• Then the journey home: where does the bus pick you up to take you home because it is never the same place it dropped you off

The last time all I had to worry about was the actual worry that I might get a diagnosis of breast cancer because Spiderman found the bus times, got us on the bus, got me to the mobile unit in the Morrisons car park and got us on the right bus to come home. 

I just kept thinking, How can I do this alone? 

Several people said  Oh, you can walk to Morrisons! it takes about 15 minutes. it's easy! you just have to do things like:

go OVER a bridge

go UNDER an underpass

go THROUGH a tunnel

and then it just became a list of prepositions and that was even worse than trying to figure out the bus. I think these people have seriously underestimated just how lost I can get. The bus is stressful, but walking it blindly through Preposition Land is terrifying. maybe if i had  time to do a practice walk with a friend like Spiderman used to do with me, but not without having a go a few times before the actual day. I will take my chances with the bus. 

I know it seems silly. I am a grown-ass woman. I should be able to do this. But i really struggle with reading a bus timetable. How can I figure out what bus i need if the timetable looks like this? 

Seriously. It might as well be written in Chinese because I cannot make heads of tails of it. 

I have just been talking and talking to Spiderman asking for his help from beyond the grave to help me figure out how in the hell I can do this without him. 

And he came through. He sent me ALL THE ANGELS.  I mean, seriously. There were angels every step of the way. 

First, I had no idea what bus to catch. How do you find that out if you can't read the bus timetable? 

FIRST TWO ANGELS: My colleague Paul at work remembered that one of our regular customers Chas takes the bus that passes Morrisons. He emailed Chas for me and asked what bus he took. Chas confirmed that i need the X11. He told me where he catches the bus and it was outside my favourite YMCA charity shop. Chas came by the shop the next day and talked me through it in person as he knew i was anxious about transport issues. 

ANGEL NUMBER THREE: I now knew my bus number and where to catch the bus, but how would I know the bus times? My dear friend and neighbour Sian and I went out for a cuppa before work and I mentioned my predicament. She told me all about the TRAVELINE CYMRU app which lets you plug in where you are, where you want to go, and the time and date you are going and POW! it tells very clearly all the information you need and more! Isn't this so much easier to read???

So, today I had to completely rearrange my schedule. My Angel colleague Paul swapped shifts with me so i could get to my 3:20pm appointment. We also swapped book clubs. I did his book club today from 1-2pm and he will do mine next week on Tuesday night. 

After book club i changed into leggings and a t-shirt to make getting my boobs out a bit easier then I went down to the YMCA. I decided  I was in plenty of time to catch the 14:13 bus (2:13 to my American peeps) and I could just mooch around Morrisons supermarket for an hour as the bus ride was about ten minutes.   

There was still that worry about how will I know where to get off the bus. Several people said it would be OBVIOUS but they have not counted on how crap I am at spotting (or rather missing) landmarks.

Enter ANGEL NUMBER FOUR: The lovely Christine from book club which had disbanded a mere 10 minutes ago came over and said, "Oh are you taking this bus as well?" I confirmed I was. I explained that I was nervous about where to get off and she offered to DING the button for me at my stop. What a relief. And it really was a relief. I was staring with my X-Ray vision out the window looking for the obvious sign that said MORRISONS in big ole letters when i heard the bell go DING and Christine shout, "This is your stop!" I am eternally grateful as all I could see was this hugh-jass hedge so i would have never known it because i was looking in the wrong direction. 

ANGEL NUMBER FIVE: the bus driver. He was incredibly patient with me and told me where to pick up the bus on the way back. It involved crossing the very busy road and he told he me to use the crosswalk to get across. I hadn't even seen the crosswalk as i was too busy imagining myself as a real life FROGGER tried to hop across the road to the alligators on logs (well, the return bus shelter.)

I had an hour to potter around Morrisons so i found a few treats on special offer like this crazy delicious palm oil free chocolate spread. I bought two but after tasting it, wish i had bought the lot. YUM.

Then it was time for the ole mammogram which Spiderman described as a boob sandwich between two panes of glass. They let me in at 3:15pm for my 3:20 appointment. It took literally five minutes which included going over my details twice, taking off my bra, getting squished two different ways and getting dressed again. 

Before I went in I wished I had gone for a wee but when I came out i didn't need to go anymore so it must have been just nerves. 

I looked at the Traveline app and it looked like i would need to wait until 15:54 (3:54 for my American peeps) to return to Carmarthen so i went over to the crossing, pushed the button, stopped the cars and crossed over. I was resigned to wait for 30 minutes when lo-and-behold an X11 bus was trundling our way. The mammogram had happened so quickly I had managed to catch the 15:24 (3:24) back to town. And just like that I was back on familiar ground by 3:38. 

I am so insanely proud of myself for figuring it out without crying that I feel like I have climbed Mt Everest. It feels stupid because taking the bus should be a life skill, but it is not one I acquired because Spiderman was the great navigator. But now i know I can do it though I could not have done it without all the ANGELS. 

Thanks Best Beloved. 

The Hiss-tory of Medusa

 Hello lovelies! 

I have been wanting to make a Medusa costume for years. Even though she can turn people to stone by looking into their eyes I believe she is a tragic figure. I mean, she didn’t start off all snaky, did she? No. She was raped by Poseidon in the temple of Athena and Athena punished her by making her hideous and so that no man could ever love her. Victim blaming much?

To start this costume, I needed some snakes. I started going around to charity shops to see if there were any rubber snakes about. Carmarthen Free Books gave me one they had been hiding around the shop to scare each other (which made me laugh as that was one of the many games that Spiderman and I played). A few friends posted me some rubber snakes they found in their house. A lovely customer came by with a few (and then a few days later a few more). I bought a packet of small ones from Amazon. Now we were set!

Most of the tutorials I found had them attached to a hair band. I was worried that would be unsteady and slide off every time I looked down. I planned to wear it at work and hopefully to Swansea Comic Con so it needed to be comfortable and stable.

I decided to build a bespoke crown to the shape of my head with support straps over the top. I bought 2 dog leads from Poundland (£2 each—when did Poundland stop selling everything for a £1??) and created a base.

Then I used some tiara bits I got at Poundland for £1 and used hot glue and wire to attach to the sides to give the snakes some scaffolding to hold onto.

front

Then I started draping the snakes and using hot glue and wire to keep them in place.

back

Next I had to wait until it stopped raining to go outside and spray paint them gold! My friendly customer also gave me a huge heavy snake which works perfect as a necklace.

I am really pleased with the results. My only issue is that it is a bit heavier than I intended. It weighs about 500g (a little over a lb/pound!) but luckily it sits very well balanced on my head. I added strips of black felt in the inside so any wires wouldn’t poke my head. I also decided to wear the black chiffon scarf under it to give the illusion of long hair but also be able to hide any padding I might hide under the crown.

VERDICT: I *love* the way it looks but it was very heavy. I don't think it will suitable for Comic Con but it definitely works for one Saturday a year dressing up at work. I think I just got carried away adding snakes, but I am very proud of how it turned out. 

I made a Thing

 Hello lovelies! My life has been really busy at the moment with some good and some bad things, but one of the good things is that I have been able to make some incredible crafts for various costumes for work. 

I am working on a Wednesday Addams costume to wear to work on our dress up Saturdays. I managed to find all the clothing  at local charity shops and then I ordered a wig from EBAY. But I really wanted a Thing hand to use as a prop in the photo shoot. However looking online they were hella-expensive. Like between £30 and £60 and I was NOT gonna pay that just for a quick prop.

So what is a crafty Spidergrrl to do but make one herself.

Is it perfect? No. But is it pretty good? yeah. 

So how did I make it? 

First I bought a pair of tan PU leather (meaning not from animals) gloves from EBAY for £2.99.

Then I drew on them in red sharpie where I wanted the scars to be be. While the ink was wet I smudged it with my finger to make the lines blurry.

Then I used black embroidery floss to stitch it up. I had to cut the glove down the side to be able to reach all the places on the back of the hand, but that was fine. I just stitched up the side when I was done.

Next I added some wire into a disposable glove. I put wire in all the fingers and then taped it down at the wrist. Then I carefully inserted the wired glove into the Thing glove. This was so Thing's fingers could bend. I taped a few wires on the other side of the glove to help the wrist be able to move a bit more when it was done.

Then I filled the wired glove inside the Thing glove with uncooked rice. This was to weigh it down and make it heavy but also keep it flexible. It took ages as I could only do a few spoonfuls at a time and had to use a pencil to push rice all the way into each finger. 

Next I hot glued a circle of cardboard with little fold up flaps to stick it to the sides of the glove to keep the rice from falling out and keep the wrist from collapsing. I forgot to take a photo of this so you will just have to use your imagination.

Lastly I used the Thing to trace a circle the same size as the open top from the other glove, cut it out and sewed it to the open top to close off the wrist. I decided it needed fingernails so I used a brown sharpie to draw some dirty nails and then smudged the wet ink.

And voila!

It doesn't have a huge amount of flexibility, but it has enough to do what I wanted. The fingers bend down, the wrist bends up. It looks quite good and  I spent about £3 and two hours to make it which sure beats £30-£60. 

I plan to wear the Wednesday Addams costume sometime in May when the weather is warmer as it isn't the sort of costume that can fit a lot of layers underneath. Watch this space! 

Quick Curried Potatoes with Roasted Broccoli

Hello lovelies. I mentioned on Facebook that my friend had gotten us both a Spice Advent Calendar and so I was looking back at recipes that might be good with certain spices. Lots of these spice combinations definitely have a curry sort of feel to them, so there will be lots of curry variations in the near future which is a-okay with me.

I remembered this recipe as one that Spiderman and I ate often. It involved boiled potatoes which were then cooked in a variety of things like spices, ginger and garlic, peanuts, sesame seeds and desiccated coconut, plus a tin of chickpeas to make it a meal. I realised I hadn’t eaten it since Spiderman died because I wasn’t sure if the potatoes would hold up with a reheating. I somehow had it in my head they would be mushy on day two, but they were not. A teency bit softer perhaps, but not turning into mash. And they were a doddle to reheat in the 5 minutes it took the broccoli to crisp up in the air fryer.

The beauty of doing this recipe with a friend is we both just used what we had—so I had little new potatoes which do hold their shape a bit better, but she had larger old crop potatoes which were a bit softer, but still good. I used chickpeas but she used butterbeans as that is what she had in her cupboard. She also realised that she was out of both coconut and sesame seeds at the last minute, but she reported that it was still delicious. So if you don’t have it, don’t sweat it.

If you want to read the original recipe go {HERE}

The spice that we used was basically about a Tablespoon of curry power which contained things like turmeric, ginger, cumin, coriander etc so feel free to do it like the original recipe or just use curry powder.

Quick Curried Potatoes with Roasted Broccoli

You need:

400 grams new potatoes, diced

Boil these in a pot of water until they can be pierced with a knife. It won’t take long. Meanwhile get your other ingredients in place.  Don’t roll your eyes at the thought of lots of little containers. It will make the next step go so much easier if you can just dump and go.

The other ingredients:

1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Container 1:

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp chili flakes if your curry powder is mild

1 TB finely chopped ginger-root

Container 2:

3-4 cloves garlic, crushed

Container 3:

1 TB curry powder (or the spices from THIS recipe)

¼ cup roasted salted peanuts

1 TB sesame seeds

1 tsp sea salt (if your curry powder doesn’t contain it)

Lots of black pepper to taste

To do:

When the potatoes are nearly done heat 1 TB oil in a different large pan. Drain the potatoes and reserve them over to the side.

When the oil is hot, add container one and cook for a minute stirring constantly. Then add container 2 and cook the garlic for another minute stirring constantly. Then add the potatoes and chickpeas and container 3 and cook for another few minutes stirring constantly until everything is hot and the potatoes are coated with the spice mix. If it starts to stick, then add a tiny splash of water.

Serve with something green on the side. I used broccoli I roasted 5 minutes at 200C/400F in the air fryer and my friend used steamed frozen broccoli. Do what you have. A handful or frozen peas into the boiling potato water would also work.

Today and tomorrow

This was delicious both days and quick to make and quick to reheat. I will definitely eat it again and I cannot believe I waited nearly two years (because it has been nearly two years since I lost my Best Beloved) to eat it again.

Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along Cream Sauce Paste with Roasted Broccoli and optional falafel

Hello lovelies! Last week I shared a recipe that used half a tin of cannellini beans. Which then makes a person think, “Now what do I do with other half of the tin?” When you live alone there is quite a lot of coming up with something to do with other half of a tin of beans. Should I just eat the same thing that I did the night before? Well, I could but I had already frozen the rest of the olive tapenade. Plus, I was out of both kale and sun-dried tomatoes. I did want to eat pasta because that is what I had (all potatoes had been used up earlier in the week) so I had to put on my thinking cap.

I stopped by M&S on the way home and grabbed a broccoli (cheapest place to get broccoli without plastic packaging) and planned a recipe in my head on the walk home from the shop.

In the end I made a sort of lemony cream sauce which was delicious, but it made much more than I was expecting so my pasta was a bit on the saucy side. Next time I will make a full batch using a whole tin of beans and freeze half and eat the other half over 2 nights. I can just vary the herbs (Za’atar instead of mixed herbs) or change up the vegetables or do one night over pasta and one night over potatoes.

Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along Cream Sauce Paste with Roasted Broccoli and optional falafel

The veg I used were:

1 onion

Handful of chopped red pepper (I chop a pepper at the start of the week and keep it in a container in the fridge to just throw in however much I want into meals that week)

A bit of carrot (I was slicing a carrot to feed the Bronte Snails and I just cut some of it into matchsticks.)

Cook this in a large pan with either a splash of water or oil

Make your sauce then let it simmer with your veg:

Half a tin white beans

¾ cup unsweetened non-dairy milk (I used soya milk)

1 TB tahini

Juice of one lemon

3 TB nutritional yeast flakes

Whiz all that in a blender until smooth then throw into your veg pot to simmer.

Do your pasta:

Measure out your pasta (I used 1 cup GF pasta) and put your water on to boil in a second pot. When the water starts to boil add your pasta and cook as the package recommends.

Optional sides:

I was lucky enough to be gifted with an air fryer, so I just threw in some broccoli misted with oil and sprinkled with garlic powder in at 200C/400F for five minutes, stopping after two minutes to toss in a few falafel that I had in the fridge that needed to be eaten. If you are not lucky enough to have this wonderous contraption, then start with this first. Preheat your oven to 200C/400F and roast broccoli for 20 minutes until lightly charred. While it is roasting, cook your veg, make your sauce and boil your pasta.

The air fryer is genius because it cooks so quickly and you don’t have to turn on the oven just for one person so it really helps with cooking for one. Save up for one because they are totally worth it.

When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the hot sauce. Top with your broccoli and falafel if you have some.  Like I said, I think this could have used double the amount of pasta in there and still felt saucy. So, if you are cooking for two this still would work. If you don’t have any broccoli or don’t want to turn on your oven throw a handful or 2 of frozen peas in the boiling pasta water so you get something green in you.

Goodbye Frida Kahlo

 

Sadness has come to our house once again. Frida Kahlo our beautiful Mexican Flame Knee  tarantula has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the big web in the sky. She was approximately twelve years old, which is a good life. Not as long as some, but longer than others.

Normally adult tarantulas moult (shed their skin) about once a year. This act has made me anxious without the Amazing Spiderman. If someone is late, should I worry? I have no one to discuss these fears with. I don’t worry about Christina Rossetti because she hasn’t moulted since 2017 and seems to be OK with that. But Frida and Pippi used to be like clockwork, perhaps because they are so similar. Spiderman used to say they were cousins because Pippi is a Mexican Fireleg ( Brachypelma Boehmei) and Frida was a Mexican Flame Knee (Brachypelma Auratam). They used to both moult within a month of each other (usually in the summer.) After Spiderman died, they both missed their summer moult which left me in a state of panic. Had I done something wrong? But eventually they both moulted in the autumn of 2021. Pippi moulted again in October of last year, but Frida never did. I had been trying to watch her for signs, but she was not showing any.

One of the characteristics of Frida was she seemed to love to play hide and seek and scare her Mummy to pieces. Her favourite spot was crouching small in the back right corner of the tank by the heat mat, half buried in substrate behind her hidey cup. A quick glance into the tank would make you think she had some how escaped. But moving her tank out into the light caused her to leap out and flick her itchy hairs at you as if to say “Stop shaking the tank, I was fine until you bumbled in and started moving everything!” She was like Pippi in that regard. Pip has always been an irritated hair flicker.

Friday, I noticed that she had moved away from her favourite spot in the back corner and was out in the open. I was able to get a good look at her with the torch. Her skin was dull and her joints scabby. This is a very clear sign that a moult is imminent. I noticed she hadn’t eaten the crickets I had put in on Wednesday and so I carefully removed them (a necessary act because a moulting spider is incredible vulnerable—they are helpless and their new skin is soft. A cricket can easily nibble on them in their weakened state and they will bleed to death.) This job always makes me cry with frustration as I need Spiderman to help with this. Looking after the Spiderbabes is a two-person job. It really helps to have one person doing the job and the other as a lookout, so the spider doesn’t escape. But she was surprisingly chilled out. This might have been a clue that she was unwell, but I was so relieved she didn’t try to run up the side to the open lid like she did one other time, I just breathed a sigh of relief. Spiders who are about to moult are often very quiet and still and “not their usual lively selves” before a moult as they are conserving energy for the big day, so I wasn’t too worried. In hindsight, maybe I should have been.

I checked on her again Saturday and she was still out front and centre. There was no sign of laying down a soft blanket of a web to moult on, but if she was going to do it, she was in the correct place to do so as it had plenty of room. I still wasn’t worried, but I increased the moisture in the tank as higher humidity helps with a moult.

On Sunday, I looked in and realised that she was in the same position as she had been both Friday and Saturday. Not just “near the same place” but in EXACTLY the same place. Uh oh. I did the test of jostling her tank. Nothing. I poured water near her. Nothing. I poured water on her (an act previously which would have made her furious). No reaction. Normally you can tell a spider is dead because they go into the “death curl” with their legs tucked under their body. She really wasn’t curled up, no more than her favourite scrunched up position she used to do in the back of the tank.

By this time it was very late and there was nothing else I could do. I woke up early this morning and removed her from the tank and looked at her body for signs of disease, but I could see nothing. I went out to the garden before work and dug a little hole and buried her. She’s out there with Lily Rose, Blanche DuBois, Polychrome and Pirouette.

I am both saddened and relieved. Saddened because our mutual love of arachnids was one of the things that brought Spidergrrl and Spiderman together. Of the original eight of the Spiderbabes (Lily Rose, Blanche Dubois, Christina Rossetti, Pirouette, Polychrome, Tibia, Pippi Longstocking, and Frida Kahlo) only two remain. Pippi Longstocking who is approximately fourteen years old and Christina Rossetti who we have had for fifteen years and we believe was an adult when we rescued her so she might actually be eighteen or nineteen years old.  Relieved because I have struggled since I became a widow to care for them on my own. Spiderman was always the Captain and I was the lookout, now I have to be both Captain and lookout.

I have loved each and every Spiderbabe with all my heart, but I know when the last one leaves this earth, I will not seek replacements. As with everything in my life it is made more difficult having to do it all by myself, but like the rest of my life I will just continue to muddle on.

Rest in Peace my little eight-legger.