After almost two months with no rain, and multiple heatwaves, it finally started raining where we are this week. Our garden was desperately in need of it - the lawn was very dead, and even several of the bigger shrubs were starting to crisp and brown. DH managed to keep pots alive and the roses, by hauling up to 50 cans of water every few days while I was in Norway (there is a hosepipe ban so we can't use the hose). So very pleased to finally be getting rain although I expect it will be quite a while before the reservoirs fill up sufficiently to use hoses again.
A bit of a milestone this week, DH's elderly mother has at long last moved into a flat near to DH's sister. It's been a rocky road for a few years as both the in-laws became increasingly infirm and unable to live independently, frequent medical appointments, and having to have carers in, and his father ultimately having to go into a home, then several failed attempts to get a flat - although DH's sister took the brunt of most of the arrangements. So now their house will be able to get sorted and put on the market, to help pay for the care home fees and the flat rent. This has resulted in a lot of their clutter ending up at our house, and having to get sorted and taken to the dump, or to the charity shops. I've been doing a lot of decluttering this week and de-construction of glory holes and longstanding piles, because we have a younger relative coming to visit in a few weeks and I don't want her to think we live like we do, lol. It's amazing how long things can stay put - you put them aside 'temporarily' to deal with later, and two years later they are still in their little pile and have become part of the wallpaper. Our basement is now tidier and cleaner than it has been for years. The accretion of various projects and craft supplies around my chair in the living room has been cleared out and I even hoovered my sewing room!
I said last week I had finished my Norwegian hat, here it is. The true colour is somewhere between the two photos in value.
I came across a free tutorial sewalong by a studio called Molly and Mama to make a Pentagon Bowl using English paper piecing, so I had a go at that using some of my Tilda fabrics. Basically you sew two covered pentagons back to back, leaving the cardstock inside them, after assembling each layer into a bowl shape. So it's fairly sturdy.
I also sewed myself a waist bag for travelling, using a free tutorial by Miko Craft. I wanted something very lightweight so I used a single layer of ripstop nylon, with no stabiliser. The whole thing rolls up and fits into a stuff sack the size of an egg. So I can carry it in my daypack in case I need it - if I am sightseeing all day without jacket pockets because it's too warm, then I need somewhere to put items I am using constantly like hat, sunglasses, camera, maps etc. I did take photos but then accidentally deleted them, sorry.
When I was in Norway, I saw several examples of the traditional craft of bandweaving the colourful narrow braids used on their traditional costumes. They are woven on a backstrap loom using a small heddle. You could buy a beginners weaving kit for £50 at some of the shops in Trondheim and Tromso, but I looked at it and thought I could probably 3D print the components. Sure enough, someone on Makerworld has created a file for various sized heddles and shuttles. So I printed off a heddle and shuttle this week to have a go at weaving a simple band. I've started threading the heddle but am not yet ready to weave yet. I also found a file on Makerworld for a plate of sushi so I printed off a few plates of that for my Japanese dollshouse.
I've been trying to do some handstitching every day, working on my Norway cross stitch and my cross-stitch monogram. I saw an interesting video today called "The real purpose of making art that no-one sees" by Margarete Miller which addresses the issue of makers constantly being told "you could sell that!", or "What are you going to do with it?" or "Don't you have enough X yet?" etc. Our cultural bias is that something is only valuable if it can be sold, or if it has a beneficial use/purpose. I've been doing a lot more crafts since I retired, which has increased my struggle with this tension between making and purpose. I enjoy making things. It's good for my mental health to make things. I now have the time (and money) to make the things I've been wanting to make for years. However, most of the things I make are not things I need - and at a time of life when I am trying to declutter. They may be things that nobody needs. The UK mindset is that handicrafts have little value so it's very difficult to sell creations for anything like what they cost to make - and I want to be making things, not running an online shop. Only certain types of items are suitable for donation - to be used or to be sold by a charity for funds. I don't know the answer. I do know that I feel deterred now from making things that I used to really want to make - like large dollshouses, large quilts, knitted jumpers (don't wear them), bobbin lace (no purpose to it) and so on. Especially after the huge amount of time we have spent on decluttering the in-laws house, and our own house.
I am gradually going through my Norway photos, and have deleted maybe 400 so far. It's difficult to make decisions when you have 40 photos of the fjord but they are all beautiful in their own way, and they are digital so there is no longer the cost of printing. I've also printed out some details of my itinerary, to make up a little travel journal as a record of the holiday.
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