A minor bit of excitement, that makes me feel cool in a nerdy sort of way. Or is it nerdy, in a cool sort of way
This afternoon, I was rung up by someone from the BBC, asking me (yes, me!) about ushahidi, because I'd mentioned it here.
That's it really. But it is a bit cool.
(Ushahidi is a geographical data mapping tool used by some websites.)
Who could resist posting, with a date like today's. Especially as I haven't posted all year.
Post New Year crafting is concentrating on Pax Vobiscum.
However, bad blogger (or bad photographer) that I am, I am haven't taken before and after pictures. In words, I have finished the round bit of the 'P' of Pax, done the purple of the 'x' and legs of the hunting dog.
With no pictures, I might as well have used usenet, not a blog.
I also signed up for a dying workshop at Threads and Patches in Fenny Stratford. It's split into two sessions, two weeks apart. I just need to buy some white cotton to use. In an amazing feat of self-restraint while I was there, I just bought one skein of DMC and the TIAG "Blackberry Jam" chart.
As a postscript, best wishes to the people in Queensland. In my childhood, we had an Australian game called Squatter, about sheep stations. Your sheep station could face draught for several turns: being flooded would not break the draught. But now it is real people, real lives.
At long last, I have reached a major milestone in the leaf quilt.
I have hand-quilted the very last leaf.
The gaps were machine quilted some time ago, by Ferret.
It took a long time for me to handquilt each of the 33 leaves.
Actually, it wasn't too bad - 33 leaves, 36 months, slightly less then one a month. That's quite respectable progress. (Although the making of it started before I started the blog.) The advantage of having a blog, I suppose, a way to measure my progress against myself.
The next step will be to work out how to do the borders, and cut out the material and bind it (hand or machine?) and then photograph it, and post it. Hopefully before we redecorate the sitting room, which it is supposed to grace when it is finished.
The other big story of Christmas 2010 is the slight lack of heating.
Our oil boiler ceased to function on Christmas Eve morning, and although we managed - by dint of ringing every number in the phone book - to get someone out to see it in the afternoon, the news was not good. A major part had failed, the kind of part that costs hundreds to fix. However as the boiler itself is about 30 years old, and needed to be replaced soon anyway, we have decided that we won't bother with a repair. Of course, with bank holidays and the like, we haven't even had a chance to talk to possible installers yet (I'm hoping they don't shut up shop for the entire Christmas/New Year break).
On the other hand, we have budgeted for a new boiler, we don't have to worry about the cost of emergency purchase of electric heaters, we are not hungry, or thirsty, or oppressed, or afraid, or any of the other problems that afflict people this year.
And when I left the Church after going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the snow in the churchyard made it look like a Christmas card picture. It's sad to see it melting today.
I have much to be grateful for, as 2010 draws to a close.
And having got the Tree we bought last year out of the garage, I am reminded that it is one of these new-fangled affairs with integrated lights, and a transformer at the base which can't be covered. Hmmm, no tree skirts this year then.
However, someone tweeted earlier: sgwarnog Tomorrow is an auspicious day: Full Moon (08:13) Total Lunar Eclipse (08:16) Sunrise (08:23) Sunset (15:47) December Solstice (23:38) (GMT)
It's taken a while to start thinking about Christmas in anything but a vague "at the end of December, something usually happens" way.
But now it's nearly that time. Preparations started late this year, but on Friday, I recognised the junction I was driving past as being near the Bramble Patch quilt shop. So I parked and had a look round the shop. And I decided I liked the look of the hexagonal tree skirt, but the material from the square tree skirt, and they agreed to let me swop the patterns round, and I came home with a very nice set of material to make a tree skirt. Of course, the whole idea behind buying a kit was so I could just come home and make it, without thought, so why did I then search through my fabric looking for my other Christmas fabric? And then work out the trigonometry of exactly how long each of the strips needed to be. Material is now gathered, but uncut...
Today, our sitting room was tidied. And dusted. And hoovered. (Just like we do every day (hahaha).) And then the Christmas Tree was found in the garage, and the tinsel and the decorations, and the sitting room was decorated, and I am starting to feel like the Yuletide celebrations will soon be starting.
And after supper, I got out my little tin of needlework kits, and started on Bethlehem, from County Needlecraft.
This blog has been going for five years today, sometimes with frequent posting, sometimes with infrequent.
At times, the blog has been a refuge, at others an obligation.
It has also been a practise run for the news blog which is now my job.
Five years ago - even one year ago - I certainly did not expect to be running a frequently updated website, which was read by hundreds, even thousands of people a day, including journalists from the national press, but it happened.
The life I have now, is the life I want. An exercise for the Open University's T160 course involved writing about your ideal life. Mine involved doing bits of research, bits of writing, bits of talking to people/giving speeches and possibly even going to meetings. And a month ago I realised that's the life I had.
In the last five years I have a new interest in the history of maths, although that is sadly neglected at the moment.
I'm also doing more craft then I was. I've learned that it is the number of things you finish that matters, not the number of things you start. I'm braver about trying new things - designing embroidery for instance.
I've met lots of interesting people, some only virtually, some in real life as well. The separate strands of my on-line life now merge, whereas I always kept them separate before.
There are many lessons I have learnt over the years. But the idea that really transformed my life most was a question: "looking at your life over the last week what would someone else say was your priority?"
The idea that you have a goal, a one-true-purpose in life is a straighjacket. Find something that interests you, that makes you alive, do it, head in that direction for a while. Don't expect to arrive whereever it is the signposts list, just follow the signs for a while.
When you find the purpose that matters, it will be almost impossible not to do it. If you haven't found it yet, head into the unknown, fearfully or fearlessly. The value in working out what your ideal life will look like is not so you can craft it, but so you can recognise it when you have it.
Yes, I have joined the 13,000+ other people on Ravelry and started making a Baby Surprise Jacket.
I even bought yarn specially: the project needed easy-care yarn with long stripes, and I had nothing suitable. So I bought some James C Brett Bliss in a yellow/green/white combination, and cast on.
No pictures yet, not even the yarn.
FWIW, I will be coming up to my fifth blogaversary in a few days. Scary thought!
Yes, I went to Ally Pally, and I even came back. No photos of my purchases, which were almost entirely sewing related.
Every time I've been, the West End Embroidery stall has drawn me in, to study carefully the fantastic embroidery kits. I've loved them every time, but they always looked too far beyond my ability...
Until this year, that is. I overheard someone commenting on them: it was obvious she'd done several. So I asked her whether they were really tricky - not at all, she said, much easier then they looked.
Buoyed on with her confidence, I bought Tile 2, almost the smallest and the simplest in the range.
But it lacked one thing: those lovely circular star like stitches, whose name I didn't know. I wanted to do them in the corners, and halfway along the side, in different threads to match, the rest of the pattern.
The corner stitch looked lovely. However the shiny rayon thread simply did not work at all. So I unpicked it and carried on and have now done all the squares around the edge.
When I met the Secretary of State last week....
I've been a bit busy, doing things like meeting the Speaker of the House of Commons and government ministers. Of course, it helps if one of them is your MP, but it still sounds impressive.
However, one thing I've found is that when I'm doing intensive brain work, knitting lace helps to rest my brain. It's not that it is relaxing, but somehow it uses a different set of brain cells to analytical thinking and provides a more thorough break then most other options.
However, Loden went wrong. Just like the other side of the front went wrong, I had to frog Kidsilk Haze. (The lace was not as even as I wanted it.) Now I'm slowly knitting back to where I was.
FWIW, I'm going to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandria Palace on Saturday. Anyone else?
My children think they are neglected, my husband thinks he's ignored, no wonder I haven't posted.
But I have crafted, a bit.
A few rows of Loden to rest my brain between complex spreadsheet tasks. A little bit of embroidery when dealing with emails gets too much. A section of Moss on the Summit in the evenings, when my brain has had enough of writing.
