Crafts at Christmas

On Christmas Day, I continue with my funky multi-ringed lampshade with hundreds of self-cut oval chips made out of plastic 2-litre soft drink bottles. The chips have a hole drilled at the top and the bottom and are threaded together with thin wire loops. I work in the “Poolhouse” where the chandelier is hanging from a rope strung across the ceiling. It is cold but the gas heater does its job very well. I have been working on this for months but am nearly done now. I've probably cut enough chips but will need to do a bit more drilling. I've only got the last ring to do and then the central contraption that will end up hanging from the cable.

I also got back into printerwire weaving. This is a hobby I've picked up more or less by accident when I was about to throw out some IT detritus. I'd already made rings out of keyboard letters (preferred keys: “Pause/Break”, “Ctrl”, “Home”, and, for the more risqué Saturday night out: “Enter”) and out of sawn-out bits of motherboard. But I could never imagine what to do with leftover printer cabling until I cut off the ends one day to see whether I could use them as an alternative for bag clasps. And I discovered the most amazing rainbow-coloured bouquet of coated wires inside the boring grey rubber.

I've made a few coasters, and today I made a rectangular mat thing on my hand frame loom. Most of it got done while we minded next-door's giant rabbits:

It's not big enough for a plate and cutlery but enough for a mug and a spoon.

In the evening, I teach myself how to create a very basic computer game. I download a games development programme called GameMaker. There's a full version for a fee but for now the free practice one will do. I've got a couple of games ideas but can't code to save my life. I like to think I could learn – it can't be that difficult – but I don't have the time or patience, and if there's a simpler

way, I'll take it.

I follow GameMaker's excellent tutorial on how to put together a simple click-on-perpetually-bouncing-items-to-score game and add a few bouncing grenades into the mix. Halfway through the tutorial, I go totally off the reservation -- think Tackleberry on the shooting range -- when I find out that I can use my own image and sound files. I'll stick with the bouncing fruit salad of apples, bananas and cherries for now but I am replacing the tutorial-supplied ditty with a MIDI of ABBA's 'Waterloo' that now plays throughout the game. I also find an extensive wav file library online and every time I now click on any of my fruit, I am greeted with yowls of “Eek!”, “Oow!” and “Yeah!”. The apples get a hearty belch wav.

This has great potential.