Category Archive

  Put you best foot forward and listen closely

 …for we try so very hard.  And sometimes it is hard to try and sometimes it is trying and sometimes it feels as though we are hardly trying.  Today my effort is  in getting these last two atc’s up on the blog  and I’ve done it.  I was stupidly wondering why the site wouldn’t download a word.doc as a picture last time!    But all’s well….

I am pleased with these cards as they are my first and I don’t think they look too bad - though I’ve had no objective feedback.  I now have to work out exactly what is meant to go on the back of them and send thm off.  I do hope the person who receives them likes them.

Today was a great day.  I managed to do a lot of things I had planned on the last blog - this time without trying.  I finished my ATC’s. Here they are:   Well.. here one is. I  don’t know why I can’t get the others up. Maybe another time.

Also…big news. My knitting loom arrived from Markman Looms  It took a long while to get here but I am so glad it did.  It’s beautiful.

And then… for the big suprise.  I am a winner! Truly!  I won one of Manda’s contests from Knitting Psychos . A beautiful skein of yarn is coming my way and I couldn’t be more excited.  We don’t get very much sock yarn here.  And what we do get is pretty limited.  I am thrilled.  It’s the first thing I’ve won since I was 7 years old  - I won a set of drinking glasses on a chocolate wheel at a school fete`.  My Mum liked the glasses. This was in the 70’s and they had a bold orange print of… oranges… on them.

So today I’ve got some free time to post.  Good news. Bad news - I’ve got nothing of substance in my brain to post about!  So I thought I’d just come up with a plan to poke and prod some substance in there. 

Firstly:  Do some exercise!  yep.. I’ve done it.  Bizzarely stretching and dancing in my living room until I broke a sweat.

Secondly: Make preserved lemons. Done.  Very easy.  Very nice to look forward to.

Third: Start posting.  Amazingly, in doing just those two things, I found myself with something to post about.  A thought cropped up as I wondered what to do.  In wondering what to write about I found that my task today was to wonder.  So the rest of the plan is as follows.

Fouth: Take a walk by the ocean. Imagine all the people across it.  You may even be across it. Look at the clifftop and contemplate its’ life.  Its’ time here, on earth, way before any of us existed.  Contemplate the fact that we do exist.  The great paradox- that we all matter, as individuals and as a collective, and yet none of us matter any more than the other.  Am I getting some substance yet?

Fifth: Complete card no. 2 of the Artists trading swap.  I’ve really got to get going on this. I wanted to have the 3 required for the swap done by the end of this month so I could send them off with plently of time to cope with the postal service. I’ve planned to do  mixed media cards.  So they are begun with a watercolour wash.  Then a bit of ink drawing.  Then some stitched embroidery to embelish.

Sixth:   ????? I’m not sure.  Could be some crafting; working on that big cross stitch project, or on the weird cushion, or on something else entirely.

 After all… you can’t plan creativity out of existence can you?

Oh.. and in between that … I know there will be some housework etc.  In fact I just heard the washing machine stop.  Time to put out the clothes!

When I was a little child I had a book -actually I was a lucky child and had more than one, but we are only concerned with one book today.  This book was called “Make and Do”.  I’m pretty sure it had a picture of a maccaroni necklace on the cover.  That in itself should describe the book’s artistic aspirations.  Never-the-less it was one of my favourite books.  It kept me company whilst the adults were busy participating in their adult life.  It kept me “out of trouble’. 

These days I am still  kept “out of trouble” by my attempts to make and do.  Only now I am not getting out of my mother’s way, but rather I am finding a way out of my entangled mind.   Making something, (anything really -  so long as it requires thoughtfulness and physical activity), removes me from worries and allows me to re-open my internalised “Make and Do’ book.

I usually don’t leave my sketch book lying around for just anyone to see.  Its exposure is usally limited to those I know will give me a postive reponse - my partner and my sister.  But today I bought some expensive paper from which to make some artists trading cards.  I joined a swap!  Oh my God!  Someone else will not only see my picture but will own it!  This is very exciting!

Most people feel lumps in the throat.  I am like most people.  Mamonth lump = no voice = no words.  Or , at best, lumpy words.

I joined my first Artists’ trading card swap a couple of days ago.  I love anonimity at this time of my life. There was a time when anonimity was frightening.  But not now. Now it’s peace.

Be kind.  Be gentle for this is my first post.  I am a beginner and do not know how to do this properly yet.  I don’t even  know why I am doing this.  But here I am.  Here you are.  But we may not be here together.  When I was little I always remembered how to spell that word, “together”, by breaking it into the smaller words ” to get her”.  

They are coming to get her.

I’m not sure what I intend for this blog.  I might try to thread together some pieces of arty crafty work and see if they make any sense.  At this stage I pass the time with some knitting, embroidery, cross-stitch, drawing and writing.  I also should be continuing to work on carving a walking stick. 

It’s coming to get her

So we’re away.  I’ll have to upload some pictures.  I’ll have to take some pictures, then upload them. 

Good wishes to all,

C