A Year of Life Lessons
This weekend I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition at London’s stunning Victoria and Albert Museum. On display, along side many of her artworks, was a collection of her belongings including photos, clothing, personal items and medical devices discovered in her family home in 2004 – 50 years after her death.
A Year of Life Lessons
I’m in a bit of a pickle. A contradiction of sorts. It’s about this word Authenticity.
If you spend any sort of time on social media, you will have seen it scattered all over the joint. I’s the new Avocado on toast. If it were hand made it would have the word Artisan before it. It’s the hipster beard of character traits. The trouble is that 90% of the time I see people talking about their authentic selves, it’s in a context which displays the exact opposite. This makes me want to cry a little because being authentic is also a really fucking important piece in the jigsaw of a happy life.
Craft
The Corner to Corner, or C2C stitch pattern is hugely popular among the crochet community. It’s worked on the diagonal, from one corner, increasing to the widest point and eventually decreasing back to the opposite corner (hence the name). It is an easily worked dense fabric making it perfect for home decor and garments.
A Year of Life Lessons
”I carried a watermelon”.
It’s a phrase which, thanks to the classic film Dirty Dancing (just in case there is anyone out there who didn’t know), has come to be loosely translated as “I said something utterly ridiculous because I could think of nothing better to say”.
That’s how I interpret it anyway. That image of Baby stood in front of Johnny for the first time, desparately wanting to appear cool and failing fairly spectacularly is a formative early teeen lesson in how not to impress someone.
A Year of Life Lessons
Holidays often end up initiating a period of reflection for me. Not the holiday itself, but the feelings which arise on the return to ‘real life’. You know that sensation you get when you first walk into your home after time away, where everything feels somehow familiar and unfamiliar at the same time? Going back to normality is similar. It takes some time to adjust. Some people call it post holiday blues, but I don’t feel the same negative connotations, more a chance to review and refresh. The break is a way to see your everyday life with fresh eyes and decide if you like what you find.
A Year of Life Lessons
Around this time last year, the 25th August to be precise, I wrote a post called “No to new”, which was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to go a whole year without buying any new clothes or shoes. I was allowed to make my own clothes (which I did) and buy second hand (which I did) but that was it.
keep reading
A Year of Life Lessons
Sometimes we have to make bad decisions. Ones that leave a bitter taste in our mouth. For all the freedom we have, there are those situations where we get caught between a rock and a hard place. Though we may not feel that we have a choice in a decision we need to make, we always have a choice in how we see it through.
A Year of Life Lessons
Last week I wrote about how to be imperfect. It was the product of a week or two of farcical fails and I was looking for a way to drag myself out of the self criticism mind-set. This week, I want to continue on that path, focusing on practicing gratitude and celebrating small victories. It has been just over a year since I started blogging and I have been spending some time recently thinking about all that I have achieved.
Crochet
I love yarn. Feeling it, squishing it and smelling it.
Last year I went to Yarndale for the first time. I absolutely loved it. All that yarn goodness in one place. Plus all the hooks, needles and crafty accessories to perv over. Just last week I went to Fibre East for the first time which was less full-on than Yarndale but had several marques full of beautiful yarn from indie dyers, producers and spinners. Plus I got to see a sheep being sheared -with old skool shears, AND met an angora bunny!
A Year of Life Lessons
Crochet
This week sees the first anniversary of the start of my journey in crochet design and I wanted to take a little time to reflect on what the past 12 months has taught me. I can’t quite believe it’s been a year since I published my first blog post and crochet pattern. How can that feel like a life time ago but yesterday at the same time? (I’ll leave that one as a rhetorical question, as much as I like to explore the unknown on Doralosophy, I’m not sure I’m up to answering questions surrounding human time perception… It’s too damned hot for serious thinking!)
A Year of Life Lessons
I’m not normally one to wade into a twitter row, but something got my goat so much recently that I had to say my piece, which is why this week’s post is a little early! It was like a little irritating stone in my shoe at first which I tried to ignore, and ended up throwing my shoe at the wall!
Watching the whole thing has set a fire off in my belly. So I decided to do what a writer does with that energy and write about it.
Crochet
During these summer months I have been working almost exclusively with cotton yarns. Around March time when I began the design for the Maslow’s Rainbow CAL, I was researching what cotton I wanted to use and I became a little obsessed with finding something affordable as well as understanding what worked for what type of project.
You know how the internet can be a time vampire? Well I lost hours umm-ing and ach-ing about which yarn to try, and have since tried a bunch of them, so thought I would see if I could save you those hours and share what I learned!
A Year of Life Lessons
When I lived in Leeds, back in my student days, some work colleagues from my part-time job at a bookies, and I used to regularly go to this karaoke night at a pub called The Ship, which was hidden down one of the many small arcades which Leeds city centre has. I don’t really remember that any of us ever actually sang, maybe one lady called Julie who drank the weakest tea I’ve ever seen (funny the details you remember).
A Year of Life Lessons
This week I released a new crochet pattern called the Play Time Top. I named it that because I strongly believe that we human adults should take a lead from human children and play a lot more.
There’s a quote I heard once which is thought to have originated from Oscar Wilde’s first play