All Fingers and Thumbs

Sewing from my studio. I practically had to beat a path through all the things piled up in my space but a power tidy of ten minutes last night and I sat down at my machine this morning to start work on some stitched postcards. So much time thinking about making is just no replacement for actually making. Especially when in the thinking I create such a definite vision of what the finished thing should be that it starts to become something almost unachievable by normal levels of effort. It was talking about the thinking that then jumpstarted the making. I guess because the ways out of your head and in to your life are by recognising your limiting behaviours for what they are. Talking, journalling, blogging. Just taking a step back in some way is so helpful. I reframe this version of what 'perfect enough to get started' is so many times that I trick myself I've given up on 'perfect' and yet still I circle around things instead of getting on with them. Afraid that...

Once upon a time there was a lady who remembered that Christmas for her is about sparkles of light in dark days. Slow, gentle, magical time with herself and a few of her loved ones enjoying and being thankful for all our blessings and she lived a very happy Christmas 2013 indeed. Sometimes I think crafty types turn into some kind of crazed fairy godmothers at Christmas, determined not just to have the 'perfect' Christmas as pumped in to our heads by the marketing machines of just about every company out there but to MAKE the whole damn schnazzle from scratch as well. Of course this year with less working hours to excuse me I wanted to make more gifts, more food and participate in the creation of more new traditions than ever whilst remaining serene and shiny throughout. I thought I'd refined the lists, sprinkled a little fairy dust and was going to shimmy on through. Then my back said no and I lay down for a week. Lists are shorter, there are small touches of handmade...

Non-knitters might think this was just a cosy jacket. Perfect for the final layer of a jumper cocoon to snuggle in to and keep chill winds at bay. It is that it is true, but of course, so much more. This is a magic jacket not just for the reasons the designer Robynn calls it so , its ability to fit and flatter many women, even naughty knitters who go down a size and still make it too big cos their gauge was off and there was no way they were doing the maths to sort it out! Hmm they're probably the kind of slap dash Sal that would fail after hours of work creating the garment to get proper photos taken before blogging about it!! Lawks they are lucky they have a magic jacket to protect them from the knitting police!!! This is a magic jacket for me for the memories it contains. Started just a few days in to September a treat to mark the start of the new phase of work designed to allow more hours of craft to come in to my life . I bought the yarn from our lovely, local, East Oxf...

Studio. Soon. Still stuttering along in the cleaning and tidying stages . Some days that makes me despair it will ever be usable. Some days I know this preparation is just part of the cycle. That's where I am today and where I'm going to try and stay. I'm preparing the ground, committing the space, making a firm foundation for what I feel will be a big new wave of creativity. I've been fallow for a long time now. Little dabbles here and there: I have a cardigan all but done I'm itching to show off and I've made forays into many new areas with classes this year. They have been so important for me in helping me hold on to the identity of crafter and yet... Classes are like a wander off to a well tended park and sometimes I come back refreshed and sometimes they have made me cast ever more harsh eyes at the mess and chaos in my living space and specifically amongst my supplies. Happily that is not how I feel after needle felting and I have the perfect baske...

Another class as part of the 2013 schedule to try ALL the craft s. This time taught by the totally wonderful Gretel Parker at my local yarn shop, The Fibreworks Oxford . Class buddy Mama at my side, we studiously (and not so studiously) applied needles to roving (and happily rarely to fingers) to sculpt something Christmassy. Or if you were me (egged on by Gretel I feel) started out with a dinky, dainty Christmas cottage in mind and ended up with a substantial mushroom house. It must be my new freewheeling attitude, I just let the roving do what it wanted. Scuse the grainy photos, we work with iphones and limited light the best we can. I think the totally adorable nature of the creations shines through. The row of the worlds cutest wee cottages are Gretel's perfection, the last photo is mine. Still a WIP. Roving on its way from the very efficient Adelaide Walker to add a few last touches. And to begin creating the entire woodland village currently living in my hea...

What better day than Halloween, Nos Kalan Gwav, Samhein or whatever flavour suits, to talk about witches. I've always had a soft spot for the witch archetype: be she represented as the mad cat lady, beautiful Bewitchy type creature or hag throwing eyes of newts in a cauldron. We spent a fair bit of time discussing this archetype at the Redfox Retreat and I came away with renewed faith in the power of women and the magic we are all capable of making. Meghan shared a piece with us by Pamela Grossman that she had found in the Huffington Post which so eloquently explores these ideas and so in honour of my inner witch: "The archetype of the witch is long overdue for celebration. Daughters, mothers, queens, virgins, wives, et al. derive meaning from their relation to another person. Witches, on the other hand, have power on their own terms. They have agency. They create. They praise. They commune with nature/ Spirit/God/dess/Choose-your-own-semantics, freely, and free of any ...

  The weather forecasters are telling us to batten down the hatches and the winds are certainly swirling out there but for a while longer the storm is holding off and clouds scud at speed across blue skies. We made the most of our extra hour today to get chores done early and get out for a blow about the park. These photos look very serene but imagine a swirling rushing sound track that is just begging you to join in and scamper about with it and you'd be closer to the mark.

Hello postie, no boring insurance renewal notices today. New crafty supplies yay! From the lovely U-Handbag site . I saw some sweet handmade purses on sale in Cambridge and thought I should act on the thought 'I could make something like that.' So much potential in these little pieces. Am now hoping that the ancient proverb: 'Give a girl purse and she has a purse for a day, teach a girl how to make purses and she has purses for her lifetime' will come to pass.

Feeling very slow today. I had aspirations of scything through many things, gardening, baking, cleaning, creating but I woke with a headache and sore feet. So instead of doing I focused on being and I am sure that all that I most needed to get done today has been done. My head and feet are certainly feeling happier which is most delightful as I have a weekend away in Cambridge to look forward to. I think that these lessons I need to learn will come up again and again as many times as I need . It makes my impatient soul itch to think I can't just grasp the nettle the first time around but often times I think we are unwinding many years of habits, social norms, lessons learned that don't serve us well now and so perhaps the only way to learn the new ways is to repeat lessons, to practice. Just like learning any new skill. I wish now for the patience I had when I learnt to knit and for understanding of the time needed for this amazing projec...

A special perk of my new phase of work is that the office is shut on Fridays. Blessed be, a day to myself. Today it has been literally that, since I peered blearily at himself off out to the coalface early early I haven't seen another person and that has felt just perfect. Outwardly I am quietly puttering in the most delicious of ways: crafting, tidying, chatting on the phone, pinning and eating. Fluffing my nest! Inwardly I am busy as a bee incorporating the most wonderful hit of love, light and revelation from last week. Redfox Retreats = one of the most precious, significant, AWESOME events of my life. Dreamt up by three of the most amazing women you could ever have the privilege to meet, attended in the fullest sense of being present by sixteen of the most amazing women you could ever have the privilege to meet. True kindred spirits and very foxy ladies too! At the start of the year I remember a drive down to see to my family. I was in the passeng...

Happy September, autumn in the air. A month of change - of new starts and things coming to fruition in the northern hemisphere. The perfect month to be starting a new job. I felt all back to school-ish on Tuesday when I set off, no shiny bag, shoes or pencil tin to send me on my way but different commuting routes to explore and enjoy. My office now is based on the Cowley Road in Oxford, a bustling, busy place compared to the business park I have been on. Two days done and I'm crazy happy with that and everything about this new role. I love the freshness of this month, a chance to turn a page or start a new exercise book. Breaking from routines brings in opportunities to do more of what you love, what you want to do, what makes you sing and less of what you find yourself doing by rote, for convenience or because you think you should. My few days break gave me that feeling I often get dreaming away on holiday, thinking about all the things you could do i...

A stately old lady has come to stay with me. 120 years young if I read her number correctly (love that Singer list these on their site ). She was £3 in a local auction. £3! The first photo is how she came out of her original case, complete just a bit dirty. She's been waiting in the wings a month or so now so that I had time to read and watch some of the many resources generously shared online and learn a little of her mysteries. All I've had to do is a little cleaning and oiling this weekend, adjust the tension and now she's trundling away happily making stitches. Just forward, nothing fancy you understand but if I'm still here at 120 I doubt I'll still be making stitches! Somehow she's both baffling and simple. So many great resources online are helping me get her stitching like she should be - she's a long bobbin or vibrating shuttle or whatever the correct terminology is. The bobbin sits in a bullet shaped case. I'd never realise...