Welcome to Musings of a Sporadic Crafter, a blog born out of the creative, indecisive mind of an ever experimental crafter with an injection of relatable everyday ‘life’ musings thrown in. If you frequently start new projects but rarely finish them, if you have countless bags, boxes and cupboards full of tat that ‘Could be useful for something, one day’ then this is the blog for you! Hoping to spark recognition in other symptomatic sporadic crafters
Chapters New
After a longer than planned hiatus from blogging, I’ve finally stopped long enough to get my thoughts together and pin them down!
We’ve been in another lockdown over here in the UK, although I have continued to go out to work throughout as I work for a small firm of solicitors in the Conveyancing department and moving house is still very much allowed! And with a ‘Stamp Duty holiday’ thrown into the mix, it has been a very busy time for us!
On the subject of house moves, we’ve moved too! We never intended to move house during a pandemic, it just sort of happened and after 20 years in the same house, it kind of felt like a ‘now or never’ moment when we found this place and fell in love with it’s location and vista. Our minds were made up!
Despite working in the industry, it was an incredibly stressful few months. I guess it’s always different when it’s yourself? but on the 15th January we finally moved in and it’s been a whirlwind of work, eat, sleep, repeat in the week and unpacking, building furniture etc at weekends!
We are however finally, properly settled and I have to admit, it felt like home from day one. I haven’t given the house we lived in for 20 years a second thought! It was a very happy home that saw us married and our children grow up but those memories all came with us and we’re all embracing our new chapter!
I must admit, waking up to views like this helps too! 😍
This week I purchased some wool (for the first time in months!) as I finally have time to relax a little now the big jobs are done.
I feel a little out of practice but in my usual enthusiastic (haphazard!) crafting style, am throwing myself into it – making a new throw!
Here’s my very limited progress thus far 😉
Red Sky in the Morning . . .
Urban Sunrise
Finding the beauty in nature
Autumn is my favourite time of year for its beautiful colours. Not just in the trees and on the ground, but for the incredible sunsets and sunrises it brings.
For a long time I’ve had a great love and appreciation of the skies, staring in awe at the different cloud formations. Watching them race across the sky in a time lapse on windy days and discovering little unknown treats like Sundogs and Sun halos.
A few years ago, after sharing a number of well received photographs on Facebook, I set up an Instagram account dedicated to these photos. They are by no means professional but friends and family admitted that I’d certainly got them looking up at the sky a lot more – which to me felt like such an achievement! So many of us go about our day to day blinkered, not seeing some of the most wonderful sights around us if we’d only look up from our phones, tilt our head skyward or look a little closer at the beauty all around us.
And the best thing of all? These incredible gifts are free! We simply have to notice them.
A Sting in my Tale
Another week has passed and another piece of crochet is on the go!
I’ll admit, I haven’t yet sewn the first cardi together but all of the elements are there, so I will get around to it! This mustard wool was just calling to me to make something, anything! From it.
I’m unsure what I’m even making and hoping at some point soon I will just know 😬 but I love the colour and it’s nice thick yarn so this is definitely something for winter.
On the subject of winter, another of my winter pansies is in full and beautiful bloom! The mallow is also doing well and it’s leaves have doubled in size! It will need to be re-potted very soon.
If you’d have told me 12 months ago I would be enjoying gardening and growing plants from seed, I would have laughed in your face! But, here we are!
Whilst I’ve been sat here writing this, it’s come to my attention that I’m not alone! Something on the window caught my eye and on closer inspection, it’s a little wasp. He is very still so is either sleeping or expiring. Either way, I am happy to view him from my inside vantage point! Bees don’t bother me at all but wasps always make me a little edgy as they usually have an agenda!
Nurturing Nature
Anyone who has been following my blog for a while knows about our baby tortoise Kiwi and my quest to grow my own plants from seed, to provide a fresh supply of safe foods for her to eat, using no chemicals or pesticides.
This has proved a real learning curve to someone who has no previous experience in plant growing and even less actual knowledge of plants. However, I am slowly but surely getting there and wanted to share my latest ‘from seed’ success with you!
My little crop of pansies!
They’ve been supplying her with some lovely big leaves for a few weeks now but today I finally got the reward I’ve been waiting for when the first of the flowers fully burst into bloom! It may only be one flower but there are a couple more emerging and most importantly, I am now beginning to get my head around sewing the seeds in advance as the seasons change and watching as the different plants get their time to shine.
Hopefully, supplemented by my foraging, little Kiwi will now get a good supply of homegrown flowers to keep her happy and content as the weather gets colder.
Musings of a Sporadic Crafter 