Having had some free time after the busy start to the New Year, I managed to make it down to my brother’s office at GameSpot.co.uk after work one night last week for some good old fashion co-op Rock Band. So we stepped it up a notch and recorded some videos in glorious HD whilst strumming out some tunes in their amazing, tech filled games testing rooms. They have about ten guitar/controllers in racks on the walls. So here are some of the truly epic performances.*

*First time I’ve ever played Rock Band and I never realised quite how useless I am at tapping out two beats. Give me a guitar any day. I’m sure it’s very clear which videos I’m playing the drum and which one’s Guy is.

I’m sure a you might of noticed a couple of problems/accidental postings to my blog (especially if you’re viewing it via the RSS feed). Hopefully this is now sorted. It’s all part of a new plugin to show you what I’ve been posting to FormFiftyFive.com – another blog I write for – and testing out some new themes which I hope to go live in the next couple of weeks.

Bare with me and hopefully it’s all sorted for now.

Today’s been an interesting one and apart from being flattered and asked to submit some more work for a feature on another website I got a little surprise when browsing through the YCN blog today.

The latest copy of our annual publication has been sent off to the printers. The production this time has been a massive team effort, and a big thank you to all those involved – not least all those who took the time to make a tree to be planted in the World of YCN. The book will be available online from the middle of next month.

Although I can hardly contain myself at that news, more importantly some of the knitted tree’s that I submitted for the book look like they made it onto the image they’re using on the blog. Can’t wait to see how they got used in the book. In case you can’t see them amongst all the others, I’ve been extremely vain and highlighted them very subtly below. Oh and a couple of shots in the production process (at my former messy desk in Edinburgh) before they were posted off.

I got sent a promo video for Edinburgh College of Art’s up and coming exhibition Open Here. Though the video isn’t mind blowing and never quite seems to get going it did bring back a bit of nostalgia for me, especially the bits I’m in. No wait, I’m barfing at that shameless self promotion. Unfortunately I’m not gonna make it to the exhibition but there’s some of the work on the Open Here site which I can only presume was designed by Curious Group in Glasgow who redid their existing academic website and their award winning prospectus, which is leaps and bounds above eca’s previous efforts — one thing that’s always perplexed me about art institutions, just how bad they can be at communication and design internally. This may have just been the case for eca but at least their adoption of Curious Group for their branding is a step in the right direction.

The exhibition is on 4-12th October at eca, Edinburgh. It’s worth going just to see the print workshop alone.

Well, I’d have never guessed it but I guess I’m an underachiever. The nice folks at Representing the underachiever got in contact with me and featured some of my work on their website. It’s always nice to get a little publicity and it’s another one to add to the roster. Thanks again for the support folks and go check out their site/blog.

Even though I’ve not been too busy today this little guy’s been busy tapping out his memoirs on the typewriter. Actually I’m lying, Yeti’s can’t use typewriters — they just don’t have the concentration. As always I took some photos of them before they left today and added them to the Flickr Yeti set.

I actually finished of another set of them and they’re available in Edinburgh at the OWL & LION. If I have time there might be a few more new ones this week as well.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend.

I mentioned a couple of days ago I was going to be putting some of my yetis on Etsy. I’ve finished it all off and put a couple of items up for sale (pictured). Have a look at it at The Mighty Forest. At the moment I’m just going to be selling yetis that I have in stock but you can still order specific yetis by getting in contact with me and they are still available in Edinburgh at OWL & LION. In addition to the three different sizes I’ve been advertising, I’ve added two even bigger sizes an extra large version and a huge version — it really is massive, like the size of a cushion. Even better I’m now shipping them worldwide after a number of requests.

If you’ve got any comments or questions about the new shop or any of the products you can contact me at shop@sansgil.com or leave them in the comments of this post.

I’ve also added these yetis to the growing, Yeti Flickr set. Anyone who purchases any of my yetis I’d love to find out where they are going and perhaps, if you’re feeling adventurous, taking some photos of them in their new habitat and sending them into me. The best ones might get posted up on this blog or be made into a book. Finally there’s an RSS feed for the in stock items on my Etsy shop.

One last announcement, but just as important, I’ve made a very minor change to the collective name of my knitted monsters. Previously called Yehtis, with a ‘h’ in the middle, they’re now called yetis. Not much of a change I know but based on what people were searching for it seems the latter is the more common spelling so hopefully people will find them a little easier.

Go snap one up before they all go!

I’ve been busy knitting over the last week and have come up with some more original Yehtis. As well as knitting the size I’m used to making I’ve also created some huge one pictured (top) and I’ve branched out — bare with the bad pun — and created some felt trees (bottom). There’s also an image to gauge just how big the new Yehtis are.

A collection of the Yehtis I’ve made recently will be going up online at Etsy for sale very soon. Keep checking back as I’ll be posting up when they are available to buy. In the meantime though I’m still accepting requests for Yehtis if your interested in buying one to order. Alternatively you, the OWL & LION in Edinburgh stocks them — if there are any left .

One last thing, I’ve created a Yehti flickr set to keep track of all the Yehtis I’ve made which I’m going to try and fill with all the photos of them over the next couple of days.

I’m just down at D&AD New Blood which is being held at Earl’s Court in London. There’s a lot of fresh graduate talent down here this year and last night was the big opening night and award announcements. Unfortunately no New Blood rosettes were sat waiting for me on my folio but I did get a feature on Creative Review (CR Blog) yesterday on their pick of the best work/designers exhibiting at this years show.

Have a look at it on CR Blog and at some of the best work on show according to their team. If I get time I’m gonna try and do a little feature of some of the best work I’ve seen over the last couple of days so check back here and FFF for some more info when it’s up.

Cool poster design for manystuff.org up and coming exhibition.