Another Blog Post

One of the most frequent blogging tips that I’ve read about is that you should blog on a regular schedule. That kind of went out of the window for me this year, along with a whole lot of other things, ha.

I used to write a lot for fun. That’s also been difficult. The fun is still there but, the worries can make it tough to focus on it. Last month I completely forgot about blogging during the second week of the month like I usually would. Sometimes I struggle to come up with anything although I try up until the last minute but, this was the first time I’d flat-out forgotten. So, I decided to take a break for the entire month of November.

Which brings me to now. The second week of December. I haven’t really got any new writing news this month but, I took a quick look back through my blog and saw a brief list in my post titled 2019 Round Up about what I wanted to do in 2020 so I thought I’d give a quick update based on that.

To my surprise I did actually manage to kind of succeed at completing those goals.

1. In May 2020 I finished my business apprenticeship with an overall score of 95% which still makes me grin. I did good. It’s nice to remember that when work is frustrating me, haha.
2. I certainly read more books. I’ve got stacks everywhere (annoying to everyone else in the house probably) and between some amazing birthday presents this year and some chunky gift cards which I have put to use I’ve ended up with even less space on my shelves (and everywhere else). Maybe sorting and donating should go on my list of goals for next year, haha.
3. I’ve had a lot of fun with arts and crafts this year. I’ve done needle felting, lots of cross stitching, needlework and some card making among other things. I’ve also got some new art bits and pieces that I’m looking forward to trying out.
4. I also managed to visit somewhere new. The Lake District is beautiful and I loved getting to stay in a different part of the area. Even with social distancing and bubbles, etc. spending time with my best friend was awesome.

As for writing, well I’m definitely appreciating peotry a lot more this year. There’s also a lot more that I’d like to do with that at the moment.

So, hopefully I’ll keep posting and I hope that you’re as safe and well as you can be this December. xxx

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A Brief Catch-Up

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts. I’m sure it’s no surprise that this year has been an obviously weird one.

Anyway, if you don’t know me personally then you might not know that I have a practical job. I work my full-time hours and I work hard while I’m there. In my spare time I try to be as creative as possible.

Both of these things can be affected by whatever is going on in my personal life at the time.  Sometimes my anxiety tries to get the best of me and sometimes practical stuff happens that affects the creative things that I enjoy. Sometimes I have to remind myself that being a creative person who has a practical job is OK.

So, what have I been up to creatively in the past few months?

I helped in the set up of Cornerstone Arts and spent some time volunteering on the opening weekend of the new art’s centre. It’s been such an exciting project to be part of and having a new art’s centre, even in these uncertain times, has proved to be a really positive venture for people who are creative and the area in general. There are so many things going on at Cornerstone Arts right now and we’re excited about the plans for the future as well.

I’ve also been writing more poetry and I’m toying with the idea of of seriously building up a couple of collections based on some particular themes. I don’t know if it’s just because I just want to try it or if it’s because I’m looking for a different way of telling stories but, some idle ideas are really starting to come together and I’d like to have fun with that while I can. National Novel Writing month is also coming up in November so, although I don’t have any solid plans for it yet I’d like to work on something that’s going to make me feel positive. We’ll wait and see how it goes when it begins.

Thanks to a friend who knows me so well (she’s awesome) I got a new cross stitch kit for my birthday to work on. I find it’s a great craft for when I’m chilling out and relaxing in front of the tv. This weekend I made myself a small needle case which turned out to be pretty and practical. It was a fun craft to try out and now I have somewhere to put my dozens of cross stitch needles. Ending up with tons of them comes with the territory when you buy cross stitch kits.

Something I am super excited about though is my other craft-related birthday gift. I got a basic pyrography kit. This is a craft that I’ve been interested in for a while and I’m really looking forward to trying it out. I have no idea if I’ll be any good at it but, it’s definitely something different and I love trying out new crafts when I get the chance.

So, whether you’re stitching/drawing/sculpting/writing or trying out art in any shape or form, keep going.

Learning New Skills

I’m going to deviate a little bit on this post today because… I haven’t done any creative writing since the beginning of April.

Yikes.

Okay, yes I have been busy for the past couple of weeks (everything’s calmed down again now) but I really, really have not felt the urge to pick up a pen/sit down at the keyboard.

Instead, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and trying different creative projects.

For example, today I learned how to make a Hooky Rug.

It has a funny name but, it’s surprisingly easy and fun once you learn how to do it. Louise saw it demonstrated on the BBC program MAKE! Craft Britain a few weeks ago and after trying it herself she encouraged all of us to give it a go. Using the technique, here is a picture of a completed seat cushion that was made by Louise (really surprisingly comfy):

I love going to the Darlington Arts Community Café that is run by Louise because it’s nice to do something creative when you’re surrounded by like-minded people but, I also love our occasional sessions where I get to learn a brand new skill.

For our hooky rugs we used some old t-shirts that we cut into strips (this is the part where you really need to use patience) and once we had our hessian and a hook we just pushed the hook through one of the gaps in the hessian, grabbed the t-shirt material and pulled a small piece of it through to the front.

Of course we started with a small test piece and as you can see from this next photo Louise was more practised. She had much smaller gaps between her material than I did, haha (you can see the hooks we were using in the photo as well):

Then we moved onto drawing our designs and this photo was my initial design:

Then it was just a case of following the pattern and adding the t-shirt material. I started with two shades of green. It’s not completely finished yet but I’m pretty happy about everything I did while I was sitting in the café at the local bookshop.

It was great to spend an afternoon learning a new skill and I was constantly seeing the results as I was working on it.

I got a little bit stuck once I’d finished the outline that I wanted because I changed my mind about the colours I was going to use in the rest of the space. After a few suggestions, I like the idea of adding some bright colours and turning it into some sort of abstract garden so I’m looking forward to finishing it.

 

Another Hobby Of Mine

Writing and reading aren’t my only hobbies but, they are the two pastimes I indulge in the most because I enjoy it.

However, I’m sharing a little bit about a different interest this week. Another of my hobbies is cross stitching and this weekend I finished a project I’ve been slowly working on over the summer.

My sleepy lion cub was a pattern and kit I bought last year via Hobbycraft from the company DMC, they call the pattern ‘Mischief / Le lionceau assoupi’, and it’s the largest cross stitch pattern I’ve finished so far. I think that the kits can be great if you’re looking for a particular picture or if you want a good guide (but they can sometimes get a little expensive so, if you want to stitch you should look out for that).

I’m not sure exactly how long this particular project took me to finish because I worked on small sections of it here and there. It wasn’t until I was reaching the end of the project during the last week or so that I was working on it more or less every day. Then there were only the small back stitch details (a.k.a. the whiskers, etc.) to do. Normally I’m not a fan of stitching the fiddly outline or details, it’s just not my favourite part if the process, but on this project it wasn’t so bad and I’m very happy with the final image. It looks pretty good.

My previous cross stitch have been smaller (Confession: I have a big winter scene that I started last year and haven’t finished yet. I’m hoping to finish it by Christmas this year but, that’s also what I said last year. It’s a big scene) but the small projects can also be a lot of fun and they don’t take as much time to finish. I’ve found that small kits can cost anything from £1 and up.

This kitten cross stitch is framed because it was one of my first projects but, framing all of them doesn’t really work because I only have so much space so, I find that photo albums are great to keep all of the smaller projects together.

I like that they can be really colourful and I’ve been saying lately that I’d love to have a go at designing my own (I have a really shiny silver thread that I bought on a whim and nothing to do with it at the moment). Cross stitching isn’t the same kind of mind set for me as writing and reading is because I find myself more aware of what is going on around me as I’m counting stitches but I find that it can be really satisfying once you have a finished picture.