budgie project

When I remarked the other day that our knit and natter group was not solely women I was referring specifically to Andrew, who learnt to crochet at one of Paper Village’s classes earlier in the year and launched straight into making a crochet budgie!

The first budgie was Bert, soon to be joined by Bessie and they have their very own Facebook page. This has now evolved into a full-scale project to create a flock of budgies which, it is hoped, will be installed in a local museum. The idea is to raise money for charity, but also to create a community of people working on a fun (some might say daft) project. Andrew has got all sorts of people working on it from the regular knit and natterers to older people in residential care.

Each maker is encouraged to name his/her budgie and photograph it. Most people also go on to create some sort of budgie persona. One or two of the budgies are very adventurous and have been hang-gliding or climbing Mont Blanc.

As my budgie took shape a very different character emerged, however. This is Peter. He works in a hair salon and he likes nothing better than watching The Great British Bake-Off.

(If you have a yen to make a crochet budgie for this project you can buy a kit costing £5 at Paper Village, which contains 2 balls of yarn; some odd bits of yarn to create eyes, beak etc;. a pattern and a label to attached to the finished bird that you return to the flock. There is plenty of yarn left over to carry on making your very own aviary)

why are you doing it?

So, I’m just over half way through the November blog-a-day challenge and it’s proving quite difficult to think of something to post every day. It certainly changes the nature of the way I blog. I was talking to a friend about it yesterday and he asked why I had taken the challenge on. Good question!

I suppose, partly it’s the good old “because it’s there” motivation. I discovered that the challenge existed and decided to give it a go. It’s also because my blogging has always been pretty sporadic, but had recently almost dried up. It wasn’t quite a choice between abandoning it altogether or going for it 100%, but increasing my posting rate – even if slightly artificially – seemed a good thing to do.

Which of course raises the question, why blog in the first place? To quote my own words back in January 2008 when I started :

“ I don't think I'm a natural blogger. I have resisted this for a long time. Have kept diaries in the past and always been keenly depressed by re-reading them.However, I have recently been inspired by the vast numbers of creative blogs out there - notably knitting, but other things too and thought it might be a good way of reviewing my work and encouraging myself that I have actually done something.”

That’s pretty much how I still feel about it. If I were doing it just to be read by other people I think it would be quite a different blog, but the fact is that I am using a public medium, so there’s obviously some desire for it to be seen and read by other people. It also means making sure that I only publish things that I don’t mind anyone else seeing (and that I don’t infringe anyone else’s privacy).

Although my blog is still largely for my own benefit, as time goes on one becomes aware that blogging creates a community. Some of the blogs I visit on a regular basis have masses of comments and I gradually noticed names appearing in more than one place and a kind of blog-circle emerges. There’s a kind of reciprocal courtesy in the blogiverse that means that if someone comments on your blog, you visit theirs and make a comment and gradually relationships are formed. Up to now I’ve been quite a shy blogger; visiting blogs, reading them and slipping quietly away, with perhaps an occasional comment. Recently I’ve felt more inclined to take part and have a voice in the conversation.

Sharing the blog on Facebook also makes a difference to how it is seen and read. Facebook oddly feels more public than the more anonymous cyber village that is blogland. One is more conscious of the people one knows reading and forming opinions. These are the moments to be grateful that there is no “dislike” button! It has also lead to some welcome conversations in the real world with people who have read what I’m saying and said that they enjoy it. (Thank you).

printmaking adventures

This exciting piece of kit was delivered this week.
It's a relief printing press,

bought as an early Christmas present for Ruth

by her lovely husband, Stuart,

to help in the production

of her exciting new range of lino prints.

knit and natter: a very good yarn

After a morning of technological meltdown yesterday trying to reinstall my wireless printer (unsuccessful so far), it was a relief to leave the house for the refuge of Wednesday afternoon’s Knit and Natter group.
We meet at Paper Village our local craft and yarn store, owned by the redoubtable Vicky - all round artist, crafter, trainer and social entrepreneur.

She welcomes a mixed group of knitters and crocheters every Wednesday afternoon just for the cost of a cup of tea. People come and go over the course of the afternoon and the range of projects is even wider than the range of people working on them (not exclusively women, by the way).

It’s hard to say what is so enjoyable and just plain right about sitting around yarning in the company of others, but it is – give it a try.

ladies who mooch

I had a lovely day with my Daughter no. 2 yesterday.

Hannah had a hospital appointment in town early in the day and a work commitment in town mid afternoon and decided it wasn’t worth going back home to her computer in the interim, so we met up for a leisurely coffee in Park Street. We thought about going to see a film, but the only thing available at a convenient time was a horror movie, so we wandered in and out of shops looking at this and that, discussing Christmas present ideas for each other and rest of the family.

By the time we got to the Harbourside it was time for a leisurely lunch. Then we carried on our drift through town and shops until we arrived at the Drawn in Bristol pop up shop for Hannah to do her duty stint.

We talked and talked, very little was actually bought and it was lovely. Despite living in the same city and catching up with each other reasonably frequently an extended time like this is fairly rare. Anyone with three children knows how special it is to spend time with just one of them alone and this pleasure continues into adulthood.

With a baby due in six weeks it may be some time before we can have another day like this, so it was time to savour.

(Image: two of H's prints displayed on our kitchen wall)

singing their hearts out

I’m so enjoying the current series of The Choir. I had somehow only managed to catch an isolated episode or two of Gareth Malone’s previous efforts to bring the joy of singing to unlikely places.

On the face of it there’s nothing at all unlikely about a group of military wives forming a choir – it’s just that no-one’s thought of it before. Judging by the enthusiasm of the recruits he has signed up at Chivenor and in Plymouth it’s something they’ve been waiting for. Watching a programme about the military would not be on my regular wish-list, but whatever my views on Afghanistan or Iraq, there is no doubt that the women and their families left at home while their partners are deployed in dangerous places have a very difficult life indeed.

Gareth Malone is very talented at what he does. He creates enthusiasm, boosts flagging confidence, challenges people to do things they thought they couldn’t do. His choice of repertoire is very clever, starting with pop songs that people already know and gradually introducing more classical work so that the singers can experience a range of music and develop their musicality.

One or two of the women involved are veterans of the waiting game and are very strong characters who have learned how to live that kind of life and still be individuals in their own right. Others, one feels, are crushed by the sense of only existing as the satellite to someone else’s dangerous career. So it is inspiring to see these women coming together as encouragement for one another, overcoming nerves and natural anxiety about performance to (literally) find their own voice.

It’s cracking good television and my only gripe is that we don’t see quite enough of the rehearsals and the singing.

childcare and more domestic goddessry

Today was a childcare day and as Steve was playing golf with friends I was holding the fort alone!

This child is obsessed by scissors. Given the chance she will spend the entire day snipping little pieces of paper from bigger pieces of paper. She hasn't got a great deal of control yet (especially given that she consistently uses her left hand and the scissors are all right-handed), but making a series of diagonal cuts and then trimming them off seems to hit the spot at the moment. Papercut artwork is everywhere at the moment so perhaps she's picking up the cultural trend?

There's quite a lot of picking up to do afterwards.

Luckily for my sanity she still has a lovely long nap in the afternoon, so I busied myself making mincemeat. It's probably obvious that I love all the heavily-fruited, spicy mixtures that feature in so many of the traditional Christmas foods, but I haven't previously felt it was worth the effort to make mincemeat. This is a non-traditional recipe, however, with no suet and heavy on cranberries and apple as well as the vine fruits. Looking forward to some mince pies now!

Now we have that very rare thing, a good telly evening - University Challenge, Only Connect and The Choir - and probably a bit of knitting.