Arts in health and wellbeing, how arts and crafting helps me and how it aids my well being.
It is October. First Saturday in October 2020, and time for my next monthly blog post. September has been busy with a lot of personal stuff, partially because it happened to be so this year, and partially, perhaps, to keep busy through what is usually the most difficult month of my year, emotionally. September usually means new beginnings, which come with some stress until things settle down again. Not sure why, but coincidentally, i usually start new jobs around this time of year, or various courses, and with this excitement of the new thing, also comes the slight stress of not knowing what i am doing yet. Today, i have no huge announcement about…
I am going to kick off with a quote: "The act of sewing is a process of emotional repair."Louise Bourgeois Normally i would substitute 'sewing' for 'crocheting' but for this particular post, for what i want to dwell on today, let's stick with the original quotation, because today, the glove fits, and i shall wear it! I do love sewing. I have spent some time comparing crochet and knitting in one of my blog ramblings before HERE, but i do not think i have ever yet looked at how, why and when i sew for alleviating my struggles, or for giving a channel to my creativity... Sewing is another craft which brings me the…
Toys for boys. That was my prime directive for this kind and considerate request, and it is the story about how they came to be that i would like to tell you today. I do not fully agree that there is such a natural distinction... What i mean is, i am not convinced there is such a thing as innately boy's toys and innately girl's toys. I do not have children, so i cannot comment from experience of bringing up a little person of either gender, but i secretly hope that it is culturally enforced and reinforced into our personalities, by the outside world. By the world of media where gender and other…
Blue squares. There is something about the blanket that i want to talk about today, that feels complete. Not just because it is actually finished as a blanket. There is something more. The individual pieces of this blanket were made at various stages as i was learning and relearning crochet stitches. As i started changing my work from my arty farty video installation work and adapting it into something more every day use - you could say crafty farty... I know i keep saying that i do not follow patterns, but at least i try to look at patterns and learn from them now. Then i did not. I tried to make granny…
At the start of 2020 (or pre Corona) i decided to make regular contributions to the blog but was worried i’d have nothing to talk about monthly as blankets take so long to create. I went ahead anyway. Then as i have started writing monthly posts, i was pleasantly surprised not to be short on blog post themes, in fact i am one or three crochet blog posts about completed projects behind, seemingly.... I work on more than two projects at any one time, some small, some big, picking up one or the other as and when, depending whether i wish to make a gift or occupy my hands and mind long term…
Retrospectively REWRITTEN DUE TO TECHNICAL Difficulties in 2026... Some blankets begin as ideas. Others begin as feelings. Gaseous Giant began as a room: the one Rose McGowan used at the Edinburgh Festival that year, washed in deep blues, warm oranges, and that quiet sense of outer‑space vastness. I remember sitting there, noticing how the colours held the air, how they made the space feel both expansive and safe. Something in me recognised that palette instantly. Sci‑fi skies. Nebula edges. The kind of colours I’ve always gravitated toward without needing to explain why. When I got home, I reached for leftover yarns and started with a simple square. Nothing ambitious. Just a way to…
To open this blog post with an understatement: There has been a lot going on recently... There has been a lot of unforeseen changes and as a result of our current global pandemic, most of us have had to adapt out everyday life in ways we have not experienced or could not predict in our lifetimes. Thank You! Thanks to everyone everywhere. Everyone has dealt and keeps dealing with the crisis in the best way that is available to us all at any one time. We have all done our best, we have all adjusted how we could have, and that is okay. Whether you agree with me or not, I just…
I got a little disillusioned with the whole website business thing few years back. My website was built really well initially, then nothing was updated for ages.. Years even. I even stopped crocheting for a little while, as it became painfully stressful, and i became unable to craft for some time. Slowly, however, eventually, i got back to crochet, and slowly i've started recording more and more blog posts. The more i write, the more i seem to know what my work actually is, and these realisations lead me to restructure THE WHOLE website to reflect this. I’ve shaken it all about! The recent decision for a monthly blog post seems to…
dear diary – dandelion drumbeat Today’s story is from the past. The rainbow blanket that I want to introduce today was made at the start of the year. It was January and there were hardly any countries on lock down yet. It seems so long ago and so much had changed since then. Still, I want to show it off, because it deserves its dedicated space and it's story of origin. I could not write about it any earlier for a few reasons. It was a present for my beautiful niece, who was about to be born any time then, so i needed to finish the blanket when i did... As it turned…
“I crochet to keep my mind from unravelling” is a revised version of a quote by Niki de St Phalle, very much appropriate for my next blog post, all about my crochet processes. I suppose it helps to look back at what you have done, every now and again, to review, and when you make blankets as huge as the ones I make, at the same time hope to post monthly, well, there are expected to be some months void of crochet blanket completion news.. This gives me a space to fill with crochet ramblings before each blanket is finished and each blanket's story is ready to be written into a new blog…
