... the 5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique

I recently came across the '5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique for Anxiety' (I think an ad popped up somewhere for someone selling charm bracelets that you could use as a reminder of the things on the list). It's basically a sensory awareness grounding exercise that can help to shift your focus to the 'here and now' and away from anxious thoughts. You do it by stopping to acknowledge...

• FIVE things you see around you.

• FOUR things you can touch around you. 

• THREE things you hear. 

• TWO things you can smell. 

• ONE thing you can taste.

I haven't yet remembered to use this in the moments when I'm feeling really panicky (usually after the weekly shopping trip or late at night after reading too many newspaper articles), but thought it might be fun to try and cement it into my brain in this catch-up post for April into May...

Five things I've seen:

A sea of bluebells in the woods during a sunny lunch-time walk.

Dandelion clocks in the front garden. I know this is a weed-fest waiting to happen, but they looked absolutely beautiful in that moment.

Like mother, like son - my eldest's cheerfully overgrown front garden when we dropped off some home-baked banana muffins and choc-chip cookies for him last week. I had a little cry in the car on the way home because I really wanted to hug him, but couldn't.

A perfect peaches and cream tulip in a flower-bed along the road.

The serendipitous juxtaposition of a pretty pansy amid the forget-me-nots that have self seeded into a big blue ceramic pot.

Four things I've touched:

Well, hand-made actually! A little felted dragonfly brooch for my sister's birthday.

Masks, masks, and more masks. For friends, family and colleagues. I made three for my sister's best friend, who does shelf-stacking in a supermarket and has been having panic attacks due to lack of PPE provision by his employer and the thoughtless behaviour of customers shoving past him. He's been wearing scarves tied round his face and feeling really self-conscious, so these washable cotton masks are a lot more practical and comfortable for him.  He sent me a text saying that they had made his life "a 100 times better" - which made me cry again.

A painted pebble (picked up from the beach at Seahouses, so extra special) with a portrait of the semi-tame blackbird - "Charlie" - who lives in my Mum and Dad's garden.

A denim feather brooch. Middle-of-the-night-Pinterest-browsing (also recommended for keeping anxious thoughts at bay) led me down the rabbit-hole of recycled denim - bags, rugs, aprons, pot-holders, storage baskets, tassels...and feathers...are among the many things you can make from a pair of worn out jeans. So top right below a photo of some of the feathers I made (including a tiny "budgie" feather from some spotted cotton - it works with any woven fabric)...and a couple of photos of the brooch I subsequently made after thinking, "Okay, so I've made some feathers, now what?" I whiled away several happy hours yesterday, and re-purposed at least 2 square inches of denim in the process. Waste not, want not!

Three things I've heard:

Birdsong - from dawn til dusk. Here are a couple of robins chirping and chatting over a bit of suet-cake in my Mum and Dad's garden...

...and here's Charlie and his mate gathering mealworms a little while later. Blackbirds are so expressive and melodic in their singing.

I've had this CD on non-stop repeat whilst I've been making and sewing in my craft-room. I really love everything I've ever heard by these silver-tongued sisters! 

I don't have a photo for it, but I've also been listening to the free-to-use version of Spotify (just so I don't wear out the First Aid Kit CD collection through over-use). I have a playlist of about 100 favourite songs which I shuffle-play through my phone - the intermittent ads don't bother me too much and it's nice to lose myself in a few "blasts from the past".

Two things I've smelled:

Both in bloom at the moment, and my favourite scents out of any/all perfumes - lilac and lily-of-the-valley. I don't like picking flowers, but I couldn't resist picking a couple of sprigs for this little bud vase on my workdesk. Absolutely heavenly.

One thing I've tasted:

(This could also count as a smell). My daughter's baking. Since we've been in lockdown she's been trying out a few different recipes (favourites being banana muffins and chocolate-chip cookies), so we now have a supply of home-baked treats available throughout the week. She has started keeping the cookie dough in the fridge and making batches of just three cookies at a time so that we can always enjoy them "fresh out of the oven" and yet still have a chance of fitting back into our non-lockdown clothes one day.

...WOYWW - The One With The Masks

Choosing photos for this blog post, I realise that time has gone all peculiar lately. There are moments of clarity and periods of productivity, but mostly it feels like the days are blurring and melting into one another - probably not helped by the fact that I'm literally living* in the big pair of dungarees I bought during an otherwise stressful and never-to-be-repeated shopping trip to Sainsburys two weekends ago. (*If I wash them towards the end of one day and hang them on the airer overnight they are dry enough to go back on the next, and they are so comfortable I don't want to wear anything else ever again! To be honest, what with the DIY hair-cutting and the perma-dungarees, it's looking increasingly unlikely that I will ever be able to integrate back into polite society when the Lockdown ends)

Tiptoeing in at the very tail end of Julia's weekly workdesk tour, the photo below shows the current state of mine. This is its daytime appearance during the working week when its companion desk is occupied by laptop, files, notebook, post-its and phones. But before examining the contents of the workdesk more closely, I do just need to capture a few of those moments of clarity and periods of productivity that have happened over the past few weeks.

The Easter weekend was spent in the garden, weeding and tidying, sifting through the compost heap and generally enjoying the great outdoors. Even though I could hardly move for arthritic stiffness by the end of each day, it felt lovely to be outside for hours and to doze on the settee in front of the telly in the evening. 

When I finally picked up my knitting needles again it was to finish the baby blanket for my friend. I was in such a hurry to get it in the post to her that I forgot to take a normal photo of it as a recognisable object, so these rather abstract shots taken while it was gently blocking on the bedroom floor will have to suffice! I didn't entirely like the way the random colour combinations played out, but it was bright and jolly and soft and squishy, which is all that really matters to a baby.

Felting is still very high on my agenda (evidenced by the blue foam felting block and the blue tin containing felting needles and a growing collection of other felting-related accoutrements on the left of the workdesk). It was one of my colleagues' birthday last weekend, so I spent a couple of evenings after work making a little forget-me-not brooch for her. Forget-me-nots are everywhere in the garden at the moment, and I'd been taking lots of photos of them, so it was fun to make a little "wool-painting" of them - plus it seemed rather apt now we're all working from home and only seeing each other over Skype.

Gratuitous photo of a speckled wood butterfly on a mint leaf...just because it's such a lovely thing. I literally dropped everything I was doing to get this picture!

...and finally, the reason why there is a sewing machine and thread and paperclips and pliers on the workdesk: Masks!

Last weekend my elderly (in their 80s) parents called by my garden gate on their way home from an illicit shopping expedition, my Dad in an ancient-looking medical mask and my mum with a scarf round her face. Despite my best efforts to convince them to stay at home and let me bring them whatever they need, they simply refuse to give in. So I decided to look for a face mask pattern I could use to make them something more substantial and safe to wear when they inevitably go out again. This is the one I settled on - the  "Better Fit Face Mask" by Pretty Handy Girl. 

After a lot of difficulties getting the printer to print the pattern at the right scale (fifteen-sixteenths of an inch square is NOT "as near as damnit" to an inch square - trust me, you do not want to discover this fact after sewing an entire mask that turns out to be two sizes too small) and extensive experimentation with nose piece materials (jumbo plastic-coated paper clip cut in half with ends bent over worked best for me) I managed to make several pretty and practical washable masks for my parents to use on their excursions.

As soon as my sister heard what I was doing she asked if I could make her one or two, and then her friend (who works in a supermarket and is terrified of being coughed and sneeezed on) asked if I could make him one too (I'm planning to make him several). Various friends have asked if they can have one,  and when my husband told his colleagues about them I got a couple more requests from them too! Luckily I already had quite a few fabric remnants I could use, and Aldi had some fun fat quarter bundles on sale at the weekend, so I've only had to buy paper clips, beads and elastic (to go over the ears). Given how difficult finding the latter has proved to be, I think elastic might possibly be the new loo roll -  everyone is getting into the DIY mask-making business!

Although they are not virus proof, and act more as a visual reminder to maintain social distancing, there is some evidence to suggest that close fitting fabric masks (these have three layers of fabric) can block at least some of the larger air-borne droplets created by coughs and sneezes. I'm enjoying helping friends/family (and anyone else who needs one) to feel a little bit safer.

...three years later

So another year has passed, notable on a personal level for my hip replacement surgery, and on a global level for the start of the Covid-19 pandemic! During this year plenty of knitting has taken place - mostly scarves and hats, but also a pair of fingerless mitts and the first wearable jumper I've made in forever. Some projects were gifts for other people, and some were keepers, made just for myself...

There has also been a fair bit of whimsical craftiness, including knitwear for assorted dolls, teeny-tiny painted footballers, oven-baked glass and pebble painting, doll's house miniatures, wet-felted embroidered pebbles, wreath-making, peg-doll-making and needle-felted creatures...

I'm looking forward to another year of crafting and blogging, and of living to tell the tale. I have plenty of materials to keep me going in Lockdown - even before the pandemic I had already arrived at SABLE - Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy - so in terms of running out of things to do I have literally nothing to fear!

...WOYWW - The One With The Felting Explosion

I'm scurrying in late (again) to the tail-end of Julia's weekly workdesk tour, even though the photo below was taken with the best intentions first thing this morning! 

Taking centre stage today is the stripey blanket I've been working on for my friend, who is due to have her first baby in a couple of months. I'm looking forward to getting into the upcoming green and yellow/orange sections of the skeins, as I seem to have been stuck in a rather dull blue/purple zone for a while now! This has been a great project to work on in the evening while watching telly as it's just plain stocking stitch with a little 5 stitch moss stitch border at either side, so requires minimal concentration.

Also on show (RHS) is a multicoloured bag of wool roving and (LHS) a couple of felting mats - a sponge block and a newly acquired brush-style mat. Having never done any kind of felting up until 3 weeks ago (other than shrinking every pure wool garment I have ever possessed, no matter how carefully I try to hand wash them) I have to admit that needle-felting  has snowballed rather rapidly into a full-blown obsession. 

  

Last Saturday found me beavering away all day on a couple of needle-felted brooch  designs - one loosely based on Van Gogh's Starry Night, the other a simple floral image, embellished with basic embroidery (french knots and running stitch). I stitched the brooch pins onto circular fabric scraps stiffened with interfacing, and then appliqued them carefully to the back of the felt discs, turning the raw edges in as I went. These were then bestowed upon my mother-in-law and my Mum the following day - in wipe-clean plastic bags through their respective letterboxes!

After wishing them both a "Happy Mother's Day!" from the regulation two metres distance, I went home and immediately started work on another project, which turned out to be a little old lady mouse with a wet-felted cape and a neatly coiled tail. I don't know where she sprang from - probably a Beatrix-Potter-based childhood memory - I just made her up as I went along. This is such an addictive craft - it's just like painting/sculpting with wool. You can simply go where your imagination takes you, and forget all about the (currently rather scary) outside world for a while.

Although I'm sticking very closely to the lockdown "rules", I am trying to make sure I spend a bit of time every day outside, away from my laptop and phone, either in the back garden or on brief excursions to the park with my daughter and the XXSCat Dog (who is absolutely loving the fact that her humans are home all day with her). So here are a couple of the photos I took this week whilst feeling thankful for the beautiful blue sky above my head and the carpet of glowing yellow celandines at my feet. Enjoy!

...WOYWW - The One With The Peg Doll

Yesterday at work my whole team got sent home with our laptops, and instructions to cancel all our upcoming meetings and home visits (we work with children and families). As our service is classed as 'non-essential', it's possible that we will be called upon to to provide support for other statutory/essential services at some point, but currently we're all adjusting to this strange new world of social distancing and isolation and (like the majority of the population) feeling a bit shocked and dismayed at the speed with which it's all happened. 

So I've popped in to Julia's virtual workdesk tour (no hand-sanitiser required!) to share some of the stuff that will be keeping me occupied this week and find out what other people are getting up to too.

For me, it's basically rather a lot of knitting! I've made a start on my Frattali shawl - on the left in the picture. For any knitters who might be reading this and don't already know about it, do check out Judy's Magic Cast-on - it's an amazing technique which allows you to cast on completely invisibly when working in the round e.g. for seamless sock toes - or a Frattali shawl. On the right is a "making it up as I go along" stripey baby blanket I'm knitting for a friend who is expecting her first baby soon. I think the jolly rainbow colours will definitely help to keep me entertained. 

Sitting demurely at the back of the work desk is my finished DIY Sophie Tilley peg doll. I can't decide yet if she is a Louisa or a Lucinda (she looks like she should have an old-fashioned name)...but I'm very happy with how she has turned out, given that I just made things up as I went along with her too!

Finally, a photo of a gorgeous Peacock butterfly that fluttered through my garden yesterday, pausing briefly to sun itself on the fence. I raced to grab my phone and had time to get just one picture before it disappeared next door. Cheered me up no end! 

...WOYWW - The One With The Twice-Knitted Hat

Just a flying visit to Julia's weekly workdesk show and tell today - it's my fortnightly Wednesday day off, the sun is shining and the desk is calling. The peg doll is now sporting an experimental needle-felted wig, temporarily held in place with a jaunty blue bow, and I'm hoping to make some real progress with her today. Shoes, cardigan, shawl, petticoat, trimmings...she has plenty of titivating in store for her.

The only other activity on the creative front over the past week or so is this tweedy purple twice-knitted hat.

I was trying to use up some of my enormous yarn stash, and decided to take a gamble on a random remnant of pale purple DK yarn, combined with some variegated sock yarn, to make a second Quinn hat. Unfortunately I lost at the game of Yarn Chicken - getting to just seven rows from the cast-off before running out of the pale purple yarn. I tried finishing the hat with a slightly darker shade of purple, but really wasn't happy with the result -  a small, slightly darker purple, circular patch at the crown. 

As luck would have it, I'd added an extra five rows to the ribbing at the start, to make the hat slightly longer over my ears, so the perfectionist voice in my head whispered to me that if I unravelled it back and took out the five extra rows, I would almost certainly have enough yarn to complete the hat. Perfectionism is an irrational taskmaster - after all, who would notice a small, slightly darker purple, circular patch at the crown of the hat (on the top/back of my head)? Not even me when I was wearing it! The hat would function perfectly well as a head-warming garment, and unravelling it would mean basically starting again from scratch...

Yet unravel it I did, and re-knit it I did...and still managed to come up one and a half rows short from the cast off! So if you look very closely at the crown of the hat (being modelled by my long-suffering husband, below) you can just make out a teeny-tiny patch of slightly darker purple, which will serve as a visual reminder to me, every time I wear it, that perfectionism is a losing game!

...first steps in felting

My sister-in-law gave me a needle-felting kit for Christmas, containing all the necessary ingredients to make a needle-felted hare - some wool roving, a felting needle, a foam pad and some fairly rudimentary instructions. The kit sat in a 'projects to try' pile on my desk for a couple of months, until I happened upon some pictures of "felted pebbles" on Pinterest and then searched for some instructional videos on YouTube. 

Turns out that if you wrap a small pebble in some wool roving (perhaps stolen from a needle-felted hare kit you happen to have lying around) and add warm soapy water and some gentle friction, you end up with a completely impractical but wonderfully tactile "pebble in a shrunken woolly jumper" object that feels lovely sitting in the palm of your hand.

Once it is dry you can embellish it with embroidery, beading, whatever takes your fancy - it's basically a 3D felty blank canvas for needle-doodling on. Very easy, and So. Much. Fun. 

You just have to be prepared for your long-suffering nearest and dearest to look at you with an expression of utter confusion when you show them what you've been doing all afternoon. When they say "It's very nice - but why?", simply smile inscrutably and quote the immortal words of George Herbert Leigh Mallory - "Because it's there". 

Then disappear back into your work space, and emerge (like a magician) 24 hours later holding a needle-felted hare! Needle-felting is just as much fun as wet-felting - surprisingly quick and easy* to do.

*As long as you're prepared for the inevitable "ouchy" moments when your inexperience and over-enthusiatic felting technique leads you to stab yourself repeatedly in the finger with a very, very sharp needle...