That's right, no new disasters to report, hurrah! The maintenance man attended and fixed the broken toilet but sucked his teeth a bit over the leaking radiator which apparently needs special allen keys to tighten up or something, so he's coming back in a few weeks for that. I chased up the roofer, who is not interested in our leak as he has more work on his plate than he can handle, so tomorrow's job is to find an alternative roofer. The basement is feeling much drier, and the weather has suddenly turned quite warm so I've been lured back out to the garden where we have tackled some tidying up jobs.
On Wednesday I had a 90 minute all-office Teams call to tell us about a bunch of moves and recruitment coming up, so I got in a nice bout of bobbin lacemaking during that as well as cleaning out my email. I was pleased to hear them explicitly confirming that they are not thinking of having us back into the office apart from a few essential staff. I have amazed myself by putting my name forward for a temporary national virtual team they are pulling together for a few months to look at new ways of working virtually. Normally I never volunteer for anything. I think it's a combination of not particularly liking my current team, and being conscious that my professionalism is spirally downwards through tedium and the aimlessness of being at home. If I get selected then it will be something different and give me a bit of purpose hopefully. I guess it depends how many people put their names forward as there are many colleagues with over 20 years of experience compared to my less than 6 years.
I spent some time this week altering a Halloween dress I've had for a few years to make it more flattering. It was a vintage swing-style cut with a big circle skirt which was too long and heavy on me. I've cut the skirt down and shortened it, then yesterday I trawled the local charity shops looking for something I could cut up to make a witches hat. I also went to the haberdashery for some black lace to decorate it with. The best I could get from the charity shops was a black stretch velvet t-shirt, our little town doesn't run to real velvet, but hopefully it will work. I came away with more lace than I need but it will go in the stash for some future project. I had to queue to go into a few charity shops where they are limiting numbers for social distancing, but otherwise I was amazed at how busy the town was, full of shoppers, which meant lots of dodging for me as I tried to avoid people.
I've had a go at a few of the Kumihimo braids from my new book. The 8-thread braid was pretty easy, but with the 16-thread braids I found it easy to get confused. You can change the emerging pattern on the cord by varying the number and position of coloured threads that you start with.
My crafting time has been severely cut into this week by the discovery that the new Craftsy platform is running all their courses as free access while they port the videos to the new platform. I don't know if it is free to anyone or just free to existing members. I didn't have a paid subscription so I'm a bit surprised I can watch them for free. So I've skimmed through a couple of dressmaking classes on facings and linings, two classes on heirloom sewing techniques using the sewing machine, and a tutorial for sewing a vintage dress. There are a number of fitting videos I want to watch next while the access lasts, and after that perhaps some knitting and quilting videos.
I feel a bit sad when I think how passionate I was about knitting 6 or 10 years ago. I still knit, but it isn't an all consuming main interest the way it was. It's funny how some people like me go through phases with different hobbies, perhaps coming back to them much later on, whereas other people pick one hobby or just a few that they stick with all their lives. For me, my longest-term hobby has been sewing which I've done since I was a child; followed by dollshouses . Knitting came later, along with things like cross-stitch and other dabbling, then quilting about 30 years ago, then a shorter but passionate fling with machine knitting followed by learning properly how to hand-knit, and much more recently bobbin lace. And each interest leaves behind a sort of 'craft hangover' in the form of the massive stash I seem to manage to accumulate for each interest, as well as a guilt list of projects I meant to get to. Although it's paid off during lockdown, I certainly haven't been short of things to do.
What's your crafting journey been like? Do you stick with one or two interests, or do you dabble like me?
2 comments:
Gosh...my craft history.... I learned to sew when I was young. I even sewed in home ec. I also learned to crochet and dabbled in other things like weaving and painting with fabric paint pens. I even did some needle punch embroidery. When I went away to college I didn’t touch any of it. I got engaged in 1984 and helped my mother sew my wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses although the help wasn’t much hands on sewing. I lived in NY for a year after graduating college Still not crafting much. I moved to Texas and was introduced to cross stitch. I did a lot of that but once I was bitten by the quilting bug in 1988 or 89 I was hooked. I mostly quilt but dabble in crochet and knitting here and there. I think that’s mainly it. I’m sure I’ll remember more!
I’m glad life has settled down. Our weather is becoming more bearable now. I hope to get out more. I’m still relegated to a boot for a few more weeks but only outside. I go barefooted at home and will be practicing wearing shoes soon! Have to monitor my stability too!
I definitely go through phases, my blog charts them, haha! For me it's machine knitting and weaving when the weather's inclement, sewing when I've a passion to make some quick clothing. My partner is currently WFH in my knitting room so that's seriously curtailed my mk ability this summer as he rarely leaves the room before 6pm :( I've compensated by making facemasks but after 8 weeks of it, it's starting to irk me! Loving the kumihimo, I've got a braid on the go somewhere but have forgotten which one I was following. I was lucky enough to buy a small wooden stand and bobbins on Ebay, it works very well - you could probably make something with an old CD and a bit of DIY though! :D It's a very soothing activity. COVID means for hand-working I only want fairly simple projects BUT if they're too simple they don't appeal. Consequently, hand-work has gone out of the window this year. Pah.
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