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todayiamadaisyI'm doing a weekly update, not a daily one, and I still have no news. All I did this week was work - my job and filling in for one colleague still on leave - then flake out on the sofa. Towards the end of the week I forced myself to actually do something, so I made a cake.
This time last year Australia was on fire. Parts of it are again, but not here. So cold we had the heater on this week.
I bought some more dahlia corms this year, a pack of them in sunset colours. The first one has just bloomed and I can see it from the kitchen window. It pleases me so much.
Next week: I will attempt to leave the house and/or actually do something worth writing about.
This week's Friday Five: Sew what!
1. Are you crafty?
No, in the sense of scheming and plotting. I suppose yes, in the sense of making things. Knitting and cross-stitch, occasionally embroidery.
2. Do you own a sewing machine and what brand is it? If you don’t sew, do you own a glue gun?
Technically, yes, I own a sewing machine. I inherited my grandmother's old machine. It lives in its carry case in the spare room/home office. I have no idea what brand it is and I don't know how to use it. The last time I used it was, ooh, fifteen years ago, when my mother was bedridden with a back injury and her ear was getting sore from lying on one side all the time. She had me make her a tiny donut pillow for her ear. It was very rustic, but it did the job.
It is one of four sewing machines in the house. My mother has two: a tiny one that she's had at least my whole life and probably a lot longer, and a much bigger, much newer one. (She also has an overlocker.) The fourth sewing machine is one of these old treadle machines, which I've never seen used as it's always folded in. I remember being surprised as a child to realise that there was a sewing machine in its belly. It was used as a TV stand in the kitchen of the farmhouse I grew up in; these days it lives in the dining room with a vase of flowers on it (actually, no, I've just looked, there's a stack of books I got for Christmas on it at the moment).
I do have a glue gun, but I haven't used it for anything in ages. I don't need it for much and I don't tend to think of it as an alternative to a sewing machine as this question implies.
3. What is the bane of your sewing/crafting existence? I mean, is it button holes, zippers, or something else?
Sewing in the ends of knitting. Finishing things in general, really.
4. When and how did you learn to sew or craft?
My grandmother taught me to knit. (And to crochet, but I don't do that.) My mother taught me embroidery. She also made many attempts to teach me to sew with a machine, but it never took. My brain just doesn't want to know.
5. What do you consider your sewing/crafting opus or is it still a work in progress?
When I was in my late teens, I bought a large cross-stitch kit. Up till then, I'd done smaller projects, so I decided it was time to do something more ambitious. Only I didn't know enough to realise quite how ambitious the kit I bought was. I went from little pictures with whole cross-stitch and a little bit of backstitch for emphasis to... well, to this:
(The website I just took that picture from describes it as an "intricate pattern" for the "experienced stitcher". Or the young idiot who doesn't know any better.)
On linen, cross-stitch, half cross-stitch, quarter cross-stitch in different directions, backstitch everywhere, lots of colour changes in similar shades, and colour splicing (putting two different coloured threads together to make a mix). It took me YEARS. I think what caught my eye in the first place was the backstitch honeycomb round the edge (it was certainly my favourite part to stitch), but what I like now is the vegetable garden in the centre. Look at the little turnips!
This time last year Australia was on fire. Parts of it are again, but not here. So cold we had the heater on this week.
I bought some more dahlia corms this year, a pack of them in sunset colours. The first one has just bloomed and I can see it from the kitchen window. It pleases me so much.
Next week: I will attempt to leave the house and/or actually do something worth writing about.
This week's Friday Five: Sew what!
1. Are you crafty?
No, in the sense of scheming and plotting. I suppose yes, in the sense of making things. Knitting and cross-stitch, occasionally embroidery.
2. Do you own a sewing machine and what brand is it? If you don’t sew, do you own a glue gun?
Technically, yes, I own a sewing machine. I inherited my grandmother's old machine. It lives in its carry case in the spare room/home office. I have no idea what brand it is and I don't know how to use it. The last time I used it was, ooh, fifteen years ago, when my mother was bedridden with a back injury and her ear was getting sore from lying on one side all the time. She had me make her a tiny donut pillow for her ear. It was very rustic, but it did the job.
It is one of four sewing machines in the house. My mother has two: a tiny one that she's had at least my whole life and probably a lot longer, and a much bigger, much newer one. (She also has an overlocker.) The fourth sewing machine is one of these old treadle machines, which I've never seen used as it's always folded in. I remember being surprised as a child to realise that there was a sewing machine in its belly. It was used as a TV stand in the kitchen of the farmhouse I grew up in; these days it lives in the dining room with a vase of flowers on it (actually, no, I've just looked, there's a stack of books I got for Christmas on it at the moment).
I do have a glue gun, but I haven't used it for anything in ages. I don't need it for much and I don't tend to think of it as an alternative to a sewing machine as this question implies.
3. What is the bane of your sewing/crafting existence? I mean, is it button holes, zippers, or something else?
Sewing in the ends of knitting. Finishing things in general, really.
4. When and how did you learn to sew or craft?
My grandmother taught me to knit. (And to crochet, but I don't do that.) My mother taught me embroidery. She also made many attempts to teach me to sew with a machine, but it never took. My brain just doesn't want to know.
5. What do you consider your sewing/crafting opus or is it still a work in progress?
When I was in my late teens, I bought a large cross-stitch kit. Up till then, I'd done smaller projects, so I decided it was time to do something more ambitious. Only I didn't know enough to realise quite how ambitious the kit I bought was. I went from little pictures with whole cross-stitch and a little bit of backstitch for emphasis to... well, to this:
(The website I just took that picture from describes it as an "intricate pattern" for the "experienced stitcher". Or the young idiot who doesn't know any better.)
On linen, cross-stitch, half cross-stitch, quarter cross-stitch in different directions, backstitch everywhere, lots of colour changes in similar shades, and colour splicing (putting two different coloured threads together to make a mix). It took me YEARS. I think what caught my eye in the first place was the backstitch honeycomb round the edge (it was certainly my favourite part to stitch), but what I like now is the vegetable garden in the centre. Look at the little turnips!