...four years later

The end of March marks the fourth anniversary of this blog, started as a way of tracking my creative endeavours. Although there are always a few things that get made and given away before I have time (remember) to take a photo, I still feel a sense of achievement when I look back over what I've done in the past year: mask-making (literally hundreds), knitting (hats, scarves, mitts, a jumper and a baby blanket), needle-felting (brooches and a Snork-maiden), doll-making, doll's-house furnishing, fabric-painting (lavender sachets and #the100dayproject), sewing (6 tops, 2 mastectomy cushions, a brooch and a rope bag), pebble-painting, and underpinning it all, loads of photography. Not bad for a spare-time dabbler! 

The end of March 2021 also marks a new milestone/beginning for me. I'm now retired (at least temporarily, to see how it goes) and will hopefully have a lot more time for making (along with all the other things that used to get squished into weekends and annual leave). I'm hoping that this time next year I might have found a focus - that there might be something that bubbles to the top of the idea soup in my brain and gives me a real sense of direction - but then again, maybe I'll just continue enjoying all of the things and dabble on a full-time basis! Watch this space...

 

...reaching goals

Today is Day 49 of the 100 day project I started at the end of January, and I still can't quite believe I've managed to complete a square every single day since then! Some days I really, really have to drag myself to my workdesk, and some days I don't even like the finished square, but one of my rules is that it's ok not to like it, I just have to do it!

I do quite like the fact that I now have a growing stack of fabric squares that can be used for other projects - whether as a small-scale experiment in technique/effect or as a source material for something else. I scanned  the (middle right) roses and the (bottom left) daffodils in the top photo to make cards for my Mum and my mother-in-law on Mother's Day, and I'm thinking of framing 'Buddy' the blackbird (middle bottom, bottom photo) and hanging him on the wall!

I'm not so happy about the utter carnage on my workdesk. I haven't tidied it in weeks, mainly because my retirement date is nearly here and I'm planning to have a massive Spring Clean and De-clutter when it arrives! Next week is my last full week at work, and then there will be just three more days to go until I reach the start of the rest of my life! I'm working long hours every day to make sure nothing is left for others to deal with when I'm gone, so by the time I sit down to do a square I'm too tired to worry about the chaos around me and just focus in on the tiny area in front of me. Thank goodness I chose to work on only 2.5 inch squares!

...#twopointfiveinchsquares and two triangular square hats

Yesterday was Day 27 of The 100 Day Project - the Instagram-based creative challenge I set myself nearly 4 weeks ago. I'm surprised and proud to report that I've actually managed to sit down every single day and come up with 'something' to fill a 2.5 inch square of cotton fabric with. I like some squares better than others, and it bothers me a bit that there's such a mish-mash of styles rather than a coherent 'signature' look, but I'm telling myself that it doesn't matter, I'm only a quarter of the way through the project, and who knows where I'll be with it all when I get to Day 100. The important thing is that I have lots of little green shoots of ideas poking their way through the top-soil of my imagination, which is what I hoped would happen, because I'm going to be a retired person in four and a half weeks, and I will need plenty of projects to keep me busy!

In between winding down at work (starting to tie up loose ends before I leave) and doing my daily squares I've also been knitting voraciously, most recently making a couple of 'Blunk The Hat' hats, ingeniously designed by Martina Behm. I can't begin to comprehend how she came up with this pattern - it makes my brain hurt to even try to imagine -  but suffice it to say that it's amazing how one big knitted triangle, one big knitted square and two little knitted squares can come together seamlessly to make a one-of-a-kind custom-fitted hat. This pattern works for any sized head (newborn to adult), using any kind of yarn. The two below were made from 4-ply sock yarn (top) and DK yarn (bottom), and I absolutely love them both. [Thanks to my daughter for agreeing to model the DK version on one of our daily park walks - so much easier than trying to take a selfie of the top of my own head!] 

 

...the 100 day project

A third lockdown is wearing on

Another snowfall has been and gone

Daylight lasts longer every day

Hooray! 

I was catching up with Ann Wood's wonderful blog a couple of weeks ago. In her most recent post she recommended the online (Instagram) 100 Day Project as a potential way of getting into the habit of daily creative practice. Since I'm early-retiring at the end of March*, I thought this might be a good way to start (now) as I mean to go on (then). 

I really enjoyed painting the fabric for my patchwork lavender sachets before Christmas, so after a fair bit of pondering about what my project should be, I ended up ordering a little stack of pre-cut 2.5" cotton fabric squares, with the idea that I would embellish one per day in whatever medium (sewing, embroidery, fabric paint/pens/crayons) took my fancy.

I signed up to the project (it's completely free to join in, but you can also opt to subscribe to newsletters and daily prompts for a small fee) and created an individual hashtag for myself (#twopointfiveinchsquares) on Instagram. The project offically started on January 31st, but I think it's the type of personal challenge one can set oneself at any point - the main idea is to do a little something every day for 100 days.

I've completed my first six squares (below), just experimenting with different combinations of fabric inks, paints, pens and crayons, to get a feel for how they behave on the cotton. I already know that my ironing board cover is going to be ruined by the end of the 100 days, as I'm keeping the iron handy to 'set' things as I go and the inks have a tendency to run! I've been using photos I've taken/things I've noticed during the day as source of inspiration for my little doodles. Observations so far:

• Daily practice is a real struggle for me! Maybe because I'm still working full-time during the day and I'm tired by evening, which is when I've been doing my squares. By day four I was having to force myself to go and sit at my workdesk rather than just slumping in front of the TV. 100 days is going to be a real mountain to climb!
• Self-imposed rules are necessary to combat perfectionism (only one square of fabric allowed per day, regardless of whether or not I'm happy with the result).
• I enjoy thinking about what the day's image will be, and 'nature' is the recurring theme!

When I haven't been doodling I've been knitting - yet another Antler Toque - for myself this time. It's been sooooo cold lately, I felt I needed a really warm, chunky hat, and this pattern definitely delivers that! The background fabric is a duvet cover I bought in the Asda sale for dressmaking purposes. A single duvet cover provides around 4 metres of fabric - an absolute  bargain for just £7!

*Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

...winter knitting

Things got decidedly wintery around here during the past week or so. There were fabulous crystalline frost formations on the grass at the park...

...my Dad requested a new woolly hat because his old one was no longer snug enough to keep the wind from whistling round his ears, so another Antler Toque flew off my needles...

...the sunrise turned the steam from the old mill building chimney-vent a beautiful shade of peach against the soft blue sky...

... I knitted myself a Miss Marple Scarf, which I've worn indoors and out like a constant, cosy hug around my neck...

...then the temperature rose a few degrees and the snow was gone, almost overnight, as quickly and silently as it had arrived.

 

...a hand-made Christmas round-up

• Lavender sachets - pieced together using hand-painted fabric panels and remnants. My only expenditure was on the dried lavender, a bottle of lavender essential oil for extra oomph, and a little pot of gold fabric paint; everything else came from the craft hoard. I highly recommend making lavender sachets for Christmas presents. Even if you find yourself racing to get them finished in time, it's impossible to feel anything but serene when labouring under a fragrant, lavender-scented cloud. 

 

• My new favourite go-to/quick-knit gift pattern - the Miss Marple scarf. Fits snugly round the neck, looks neat and tidy, and knits up in an evening or two - what's not to like?

• Solveig wristlets - bought in kit form earlier in the year to support a local yarn shop, with vague ideas of Christmas gifting in mind. They are a little less garish in real life (the red is more of a deep cherry than a scarlet), and the circular fair-isle was fun to do, but having made them I couldn't think of anyone who might actually want them. What is the point of wristlets? Are cold wrists even a thing? Lovely as these wristlets are, what possible use could anyone have for them, other than as the finishing touch for an elf costume perhaps? So many questions...

• ...and one obvious solution to the wristlet conundrum - add a thumb, keep going a little further, and turn them into fingerless mittens! Some might say these are equally pointless garments, since they leave the extremities exposed, but for a camera-phone-fiddling, shell/pebble picker-upper like myself, they are wardrobe essentials. Such an elegant design, too.

• A nail-biting, right-up-to-the-wire, cast-off-25-minutes-before-a-socially-distant-gift-swap, classic Antler Toque for my brother. Photo courtesy of my sister-in-law when they got home! Variegated sock wool held double with some navy DK from the craft hoard.

...the birthday Snork Maiden

The good thing about close friends is that they accept you as you are, with all your little quirks and foibles, and sometimes these are even the things they cherish about you. So my closest friends know all about my (work in progress) doll's house...

...and Blanche, the little needle-felted mouse, who lives in it...

...and the little 'wrought iron' bed I made for her following Ann Wood's fab instructions...

...and the little patchwork quilt I made from the tiniest left-over mask-making fabric scraps...

...and when they need a special birthday present - perhaps for a Moomin-loving older sister who likes all things tiny too - then they know just who to come to to get the job done.

As I'm still waiting (increasingly impatiently) to find out if my application for early retirement  is being accepted, I'm desperate to distract myself from the hamster-wheel worries that are constantly filling my brain. So for the past week, and most of last weekend, every spare moment has been given over to the creation of a little needle-felted Snork Maiden (about the height of my thumb) complete with a rose tucked behind her ear and her signature gold ankle bracelet, sitting up in her very own 'wrought iron' bed, propped against the pillows on a lace-trimmed patchwork quilt, busily knitting with her cocktail-stick needles. 

 

💓 So.Much.Fun.💓