My Crafty Life Part Five

Ah. The Scrapbooking Years. Still in them. Still loving them. And it all started, as it usually does, with a trip to the newsagents.

A layout about a layout? Probably overkill. But for the sake of completeness, here it is

I'd taken the morning off from fixing the hem on my sister's wedding dress; and I was browsing around, thinking about what I could make for her as a souvenir of her big day. As I was paying for something else, I caught sight of a scrapbooking magazine. I'd never seen anything like it. All the things I'd been playing about with for years - cutting, collecting, keeping- were right there, together. It was irresistable. I brought the magazine home. I stayed up late into the night looking at the pictures. Then I got back out of bed so that I could read some more (really). I sat at midnight, wondering at such perfection.

Of course I had to have a go. I looked around, I bought a few things and I made this (ready? remember, it's my first page)

That's my very first page. Never seen in public before. We can all see what isn't so great about it. But, know what? I like it a lot. It has pictures (I even took a detail shot); it has a story (on the tag); it has ephemera (that receipt envelope from the shop in the story) and it has my set-the-mood patterned paper background I still use today. It was  a scrapbook page. and it was a start.

I joined UK Scrappers, I took some classes. I met some nice people and I kept on cutting and sticking. One of my pages was spotted in the UKS Gallery and in Spring 2009 it was published in Scrapbook Inspirations. Then I had another one picked up, so I submitted a couple more and they were published too. I took part in their Ready Steady Scrap challenge later that year and it was a lot of fun. I was so sad to see Scrapbook Inspirations go. A lot of us were.

Then I started to blog and I met even more lovely scrapbookers. I took other classes and I joined the Gotta Craft team; and all the time I'm still working on my pages, pushing myself to learn new things. I'm not a technique-y scrapper (I don't think). I'm more about the story and a piece of pretty paper and a sharp pair of scissors. But I'm always finding new ways to lay down what I want to say and I don't think I'll be retiring from this part of my crafty life any time soon. Oh, and that souvenir for my sister? I made her a scrapbook, of course, with some cross stitched decoration and a box to keep it in covered with some left over curtain silk. I never throw anything out, and I never, ever forget.

So that's my crafty life. By the time I'd finished all of my pages, this is what I thought:

- My Reading Life might just be next.
- I used the same basic design all week, and I'd do this again, even though I was aching to try something new by the end.
- I used two kits from Midnight Rooster throughout. This was the easiest way to keep it all coordinated.
- Other ideas did come to me as I worked. All the fancy dress costumes I made; and the soft toys I sold at a Craft Fair. But I'm happy enough to add pages in at some point in the future. That's what ring bound albums are made for.

Now over to you. If you were to tell your story in stages like this, what subject would you choose?

My Crafty Life Part Four

Just before I slipped into my thirties we moved house. We had one baby, and plans for another one, so we looked for more space and found it in a pretty red brick semi with lots of little rooms and quirky touches. We had enough for the house, but nothing left over, at the beginning, so of course we started making things again.

These are the soft furnishings years. What I can't believe now is that, when I started making curtains, I had no sewing machine. I did it all by hand. It sounds daft now; but then it was soothing, calming work after a day of toddler taming. And every time I got tired, I went out and looked at the price of the ready mades; and then I went home and sewed some more.

Blue stars for a "space" bedroom, pink flowers for a girlie haven. Then, at last with a sewing machine from a magazine special offer, factory shop creamy linen for the kitchen and sage silk for best.

I kept going when we moved here to High in the Sky. Brown gingham downstairs, more linens, more silks higher up the house. Never, ever at full price, mind. I'm a frugal, factory shop loving girl when it comes to fabric. I used a book by Katrin Cargill to learn how to make the pelmet in the photograph for a small Small One who wanted a country look. Then  I challenged myself to make matching slipcovers for a little sofa. (I did a fake animal fur rug too - when I say "country" I guess I really mean "Little House in the Prairie").

 She must have liked it just fine, because a bigger Small One still has no plans to turn teenager and paint her room black. If she did, I'd be ready. I have some bargain, roll-end, black factory shop linen just waiting to be used. And all curtains wear out eventually, don't they? Let's just call this phase "on hold" while we look at where I'm at right now. But that's for tomorrow...

My Crafty Life - all this week

My Crafty Life Part Three

I got married when I was twenty two (just). I think I probably spent the next few years caught between wanting to stay in and make things for our new home - and wanting to go out to prove that now I was married I wasn't going to spend all my time at home, making things.

We did a lot, though. Had to. Money was tight. We papered and painted (but it was my sister who sewed the curtains when we were on honeymonn. Thank you.). We built a kitchen from flat packs. Those were the years of "Prima" magazine with its pullout paper patterns. I stacked them up and thought I knew everything there was to know about domestic economy. Which simply goes to show how much I still had to learn.

And in the evenings, I cross stitched. I can't remember what started it (probably a magazine. It usually is.). I bought books 9all of the Jo Verso ones, so sad when she died). I stitched cards and pictures and in my lunchbreaks from the library I hunted the needlework shop for new threads I loved. A couple of hours on the information desk of an afternoon always went more quickly if I could dream about the new colours tucked away in my bag.

And then, all at once, everything changed. I wasn't so interested in work anymore. I wanted to stay at home and wait for my baby to arrive. I did a bit of knitting for him (sweaters and a hat) but I knew he had two grannies to help out there. So I started a cross stitched baby blanket, each soft square a different letter of the alphabet, with room for a name in the middle. I put in the final stitches sitting up on my hospital bed with my tiny son beside me.

And that was the beginning of the end. Funny, the final thing I stitched was a "Baby is Sleeping" door hanger. He did sleep sometimes; but the sewing stopped. Just for a little while. And there was something new round the corner.

My Crafty Life Part Two

By the time I was a teenager I was making a lot of my own clothes. Some by choice, but not all. Living with a Mum brought up on "Make Do and Mend" sometimes meant going without if you couldn't sew it yourself. Not that it was all bad, though. I was able to knit myself a "picture jumper" (pink clouds, purple mountains - hey, what can I say? it was in my black phase) when they were the right thing to have. And take my jeans in to make them tighter. Always had to have those inspected before I sewed,  just in case I was in danger of cutting off my circulation. But what I really remember is the designing and making of my "formal dress".

Once upon a time, in the days before Proms had been heard of (here), our Upper Sixth decided to have what we called a "Formal". It was simply arranged, just a meal and a band; but we still spent many happy hours in the Study room planning our dresses.

Mine was to be grey (faux) silk, I decided (still in my black period, I wanted something like the one the girl from New Order wore on Tops of the Pops). With a dropped waist. Nothing like it in the shops, of course, and I probably wouldn't have had the money for it anyway. But we did find the fabric and my Mum helped me to put it together She sewed pintucks round the hem and found a length of black velvet ribbon for the shoulder. We took jet beads from an old evening bag and made a new one and she loaned me a silver bangle and a crystal necklace; and I put on the dress we had made and I had a wonderful night.

I wore it again a year later when, as new girlfriend of the previous year's Head Boy I had drinks in the Headmasters study. Different do, different school, same dress. I felt very grown up. That's us in the photo. We don't look like that today. But the dress hasn't changed. It still looks a bit like a sack. And that is just the way I like it.

My Crafty Life - every day this week.

My Crafty Life Part One

On and off now, for a few weeks whenever I get the chance, I've been working on a collection of pages about the things I have made over the years. When I realised I had five I thought - do something new for you Sian and blog them through the week. So, starting today, here they are.

My crafty life started, I think, as soon as I could hold a pair of scissors. Before I went to school my favourite thing to do was cut out Paper Dolls. Not the ones from my Twinkle comic, though; they were too nice to cut up. Funny, I say the same thing about paper now.

My Grandma taught me to knit when I was about five; I made a scarf for Ted Fred, then a little grey woollen satchel. It gave me a headstart when it came to school needlework lessons.

Oh, now there's a subject close to my heart. Why isn't it taught anymore? The Small One is the only girl in her class who can sew on a button. And that's not right. I know sewing isn't for everyone; but those lessons taught us more than practical skills. They taught us about sharing, about bonding, about girl power. For an hour a week the boys disappeared. The clever teachers knew how to gather us round and draw us out. How to get us to talk about school and friends and family while we sewed. Our P7 teacher told us lots of things girls our age needed to know. It's not done like that now; and I think we've lost something there.

We made things too, of course. A knitted "dorothy bag". whatever that was. A Liberty Print smock. (It was the seventies. Wish I had that fabric now.) A chunky ribbed hat and scarf. A needlecase. A rag doll. Some of it was unravelled, ripped out, crumpled up; but all of it was proudly displayed at the end of the year.

By the time I left Primary School I had a gypsy skirt I actually wore, a row of Girl Guide badges I had sewed on by myself; and a love of everything I could make by hand. I want that now for our girls today. Let's bring back sewing lessons! Let's do it all over again!

Tomorrow, my teenage years