Hijacked!

I am sure that many of you reading this will have experienced this feeling. After my visit to the Knitting and Stitching show last weekend (read about my haul here) I came back wishing that I had enough hours in the day to do all the things that I wanted. At the show there were fantastic fabrics  and buttons that made me want to make quilts and start making clothes again. There were also amazing yarns and makes that made me want to make slippers, gloves, cowls, jumpers…… In short I was thoroughly confused. I read some great blogs where people do a variety of different crafts – maybe I should not be too narrow? Any of this sound familiar? This confused and flighty behaviour stayed with me all week.

Project Number 1:

For the coach journey to the show I took with me a knitting project to make some fingerless gloves.

I have not quite finished but will be by the end of Downton tonight!

I chose these to take because it was a portable project (beading just isn’t) and the wool was provided for me by the Simply knitting magazine. (It came in a vacuum pack so small that it was hard to believe that it was really a full ball!). It is also nice to follow a pattern every now and again.

And here they are being modeled. They have not been blocked yet as you can see.

Project Number 2:

Some of you will be aware that it has been my intention to sell my wire jewellery for some time but I just have not felt ‘ready’. At the show there was a lady who made knitted jewellery in a very similar style to me. In fact the main one was very, very like this twisted necklace that I made a while ago:

My twisted Necklace

Hers was knitted whilst mine is crocheted but the style was very similar. This experience was very encouraging to me as it meant that I am not completely mad when it comes to my designs. It also gave me back some determination to achieve my goal.

When I got back from the show I turned out all my jewellery and had a look at it, making some finishing touches here and there so that it was in sell-able form. They are all currently hanging on a hanger in my bedroom and there they have stayed for a week!

Project Number 3:

Following this new-found enthusiasm I got my beads out again and made a pair of earrings that had been planned for a long time:

They didn’t take long and I have to say I am really pleased with them. Unfortunately I have not yet made up the ideas that I now have along the same lines…. mainly because of

Project Number 4:

Many of you will know how proud I am of the success of my good friend Joanne Scrace (Notsogranny) She has not been designing knitted and crocheted items for a year yet she does not have a space in her diary for anymore projects. She is truly amazing. Following a conversation with her one day this week I was, yet again, led off down another path. Not saying too much here, my head has been buzzing with some ideas that I am now trying to put into reality. This is what I have come up with so far (after rather a lot of trail and error!):

I have a long way to go with this and this is only one out of the two ideas I have. These are not quick little projects obviously.

Conclusions:

As you can see I have flitted about a lot this week (and that is not all the things that have been going on in my head!). Does this sound at all familiar?  Has anyone come up with some good strategies to deal with it? On reflection however I do have a couple of points to say:

1. It doesn’t actually matter if I flit about as long as I am happy. I am not trying to build a business (yet!).

2. I do love creating , it makes me truly happy so I am going to dedicate a bit more time to it. Instead of keeping it to the evenings I am going to spend one morning a week on it and see where that gets me.

3. I am also going to dedicate some proper space to it in my house (that means moving it from the corner in the lounge and putting it out in the spare room where there is more space.)

4. I need to believe in myself more 🙂

Finally:

I also love the whole online creative community. I have found some amazingly talented people who are all so encouraging. As always I am linking this post in with Handmade Monday over at Handmade Harbour. Here you will find some of these amazing people I have been talking about. I do so love my weekly catch up, why don’t you join me?

One final note – I am really delighted to see that I am in the very privileged situation of being featured on the Sheep shop website.  The Sheep Shop is a lovely local woolly shop in Cambridge and I am very grateful for this. If ever you come to Cambridge, do go and have a look – it is a really lovely shop full of lovely things.

Hope you all have a great week. 🙂