Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New year, New Blog

Welcome to my blog , well it has been hanging round the web for a wee while but has been unloved a little due to life getting in next the way lol. Anyhoos I thought I would ressurect this and use it to document my ode to all things crafty.

How do I really feel about blogging , mmmmmmm to be honest the idea of having thoughts and feelings and the like hanging around on this thing we call the web seems a little daunting. So thats when I decided that I would use it not for life but for crafty things.

My love of crafting I think is definitely in my genes somewhere, as a dabbler in my family tree I can only go back as far as my maternal grandmother to know this is where my love of crafting has originated from.

My gran lived on a croft built after her mother in law lost her husband and father in an accident at sea, and I can only imagine that as there was no shopping centres in those days thats where the "crafty bug" must have taken hold. For as long as I can remember my gran always knitted or crocheted or was busy cooking or tatting or making rugs. She was in the wrvs and entered her wares into competition for which she ws quite succesful on occassions , whether it be baking , jams , of intricate crochet.

This gift was then passed onto my mum who could turn her hand to most things with brilliant results, school cardigans and jumpers were handmade back then, if anyone need anything fixed they came to our house. My mum knitted and crocheted and also turned her hand to sewing as well. We made my boys nursery curtains, and cot bumpers and it was from there my love of making things grew from.

At first it was knitting and not successfully I got bored lol, then as I had a little time on my hands when I was pregnant with my now 14 year old twins, I turned to cross stitching. My first "big" piece was a wedding sampler for a dear friend and her husband. I also took this with me to my grans croft and spent a few nights trying to get it finished in time.

I dabbled in and off in cross stitching for a while before I thought I need to do something that produces quickers result than the bigger cross stitch pieces I had undertook.

I had asked my mum to show my how to crochet, and so we sat and sat and sat with me doing a little and then showing mum for her to say yes "thats good" or no "thats not quite right". I managed to do a wee coaster, could I repeat it probably not. Although I had done it , I didn't understand how I done it, so to speak.

My confidence grew and I tried a couple of other small pieces, then my world was about to change for ever, my mum was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer in January 2010, and so the trips to hospital began, mum bore her illness with great dignity but eventually it would be this disease that would lift her from this world to be with the many relatives and friends that had gone before. And so my love of anything really took a downward spiral.

So what changed this was the fact that mum had started a scarf for my niece, and hadn't finished it so I decided that I could have a go. However I couldn't do it on my own I couldnt even read a pattern yet alone work out how to finish a piece that someone had started.

I picked it up, I put it down, I picked it up and then I put it down as there was no way I could do it without help. So with a little searching on the web I found a Stitch and Bitch club in Glasgow and decided I could go along and see if I could get back into my crafts, and who knows maybe I could find someone to help me finish the scarf off.

Well turns out I did get it finished , and my niece loved it.

I also met a fantastic group of ladies who are really friendly and more than willing to help anyone with anything. So I tried little pieces again and began to learn how to read a pattern.

I learned how to do a granny square which then grew into a blankie for my youngest son and since then there is no stopping me.

Omg didn't I say I wasnt going to do the life story thingy lol

This is probably the most I have ever written on a blog ever, going to sign off before I bore everyone lol

F x