Well I guess I am. Although this year marks an all time low in terms of posts it actually reflects a high amount of activity and a bit of diversification.
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| even moving away from fabric, yarn and fibre |
But first a question... I have not blogged since 18th May and until recently my weekly hit stats were going down week by week. Generally when I am a busy blogger they are at about 300-500 a week but quite understandably the numbers were heading into single figures by mid July. Then. WHAM. suddenly they began to climb until today, as I write they are at 1,016! How can that be? The focus of attention seems to be
this post about knitting buttons into a cardigan as you go. The post was featured in the
Knitty blog soon after but otherwise I can see no reason why it should be so popular. I have scrutinised my stats, the hits seem to come from the East. This happened once before, at that time a scurrilous tabloid columnist with a similar name to me was hitting the headlines but this time??? I have no idea. Do any of you (particularly if you use the Blogger platform) have an idea?
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| Still Knitting, this is the Reyna shawl, knitted entirely from stash (yarn chicken was played) |
SO! To the real business, getting back to blogging and some diversification. When I retired I believed that it would enable me to spend more time with all things crafty. More sewing, more spinning and above all more knitting. Then I got a bit stuck, too much stash acquisition for a start. My attempts last year to buy less yarn were only replaced with buying books, equipment relating to knitting and building up my fabric stash. Epic fail.
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| Far less stash acquisition this year but this is a recent purchase to finish a very old WIP (see below) |
Then there was that sudden realisation that I no longer felt I had a role in society. My life, by spending more and more time on my fairly solitary hobbies, had moved to the margins, away from the mainstream
It was time to get a grip. So I took on a couple of volunteering things, one at our local
Citizens Advice and the occasional day helping out in a local school.
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| Cleaning sinks in the art department can be creative when you spot hints of Jackson Pollock |
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| When you can't photograph a class in action you can still take an after shot (featuring Teacher's Pet) |
And there has been some diversification in my crafting too. It's true I have always sewn some of my own clothes as well as knitted but these past few months I've not only made clothes for myself
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| Detail of my standard shift dress (heavily modified Simplicity pattern) |
but embarked on a big patchwork project
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| Mostly hand sewn quilt but I always enjoy hand hemming the binding (am I odd?) |
Then something totally new - watercolour painting. I have played with it for some time but last year my friend
Vandy encouraged me to take a short course with her (it's on again this year and I going again) and I was off! Even producing some fairly pleasing results
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| Watery Greek Island olive tree |
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| Passion flowers in my garden |
Finally I picked up a crochet project that I began over five years ago (I'm aiming to get this finished this August)
And all (or nearly all) of this makery is from materials I have in stock. Yes indeed I am making great inroads into the multiple stashes <<smug face>>
xx
c
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| All this activity, it's all so exhausting |
