Yarn free crafting

This weekend was a very busy one, so I didn't have much time to spare for knitting or crochet. I have "cast on" my second year of projects project; now I have a simple crochet pattern to distract me when I am fed up of my lace knitting.

Saturday morning was a bit of a nightmare, as we ended up in A&E getting Jamie's fingers stitched back together (he had an argument with a kitchen knife). So I lost a lot of time on Sunday to doing household things Jamie couldn't do, like the washing up.

One thing I did managed to get around to doing, though, was helping Jamie out with a prop he's been making for the LARP event we've got this weekend. It still isn't finished (we're now waiting for varnish to dry before completing) but my main contribution was made yesterday afternoon:

I think it's going to look awesome when it's finished; if I manage to get photos of it before it goes to site on Thursday I will show you next week.

I don't think I'm going to get much done on my projects this week, as I will mostly be frantically sorting out my costume and character for the weekend! It's my first LARP event since last August, so I'm rather looking forward to it!

Of course, this does mean I won't be around to write a Year of Projects update on Sunday.. I shall have to trust Blogger to post for me at the right time.

Inspired by others

When I started this blog, my vision was to post all sorts of exciting things about all of the crafts that I enjoy. Over the last two months, however, I've got so enthusiastic about crocheting that I've not really done much else in the way of craftiness, so have little to post about.

In an attempt to live up to my claim for being a jack of all trades, I am going to share with you some of my older work in other crafty areas. Hopefully, this will provide the much needed kick up the bum to get me crafting in other ways again. I must confess, this post is wholly inspired by a similar post over on my friend Ro's blog.

I've never claimed to be a great artist, but I do enjoy picking up a pencil or paintbrush every now and again. It runs in the family - my maternal grandmother, great aunt and great grandfather were all painters. While I'm not great on doing original pieces, and my composition sucks (I don't do backgrounds, generally), I do well copying images.

I am very fond of Winnie the Pooh!



Alongside Pooh and his friends, I have turned my hand to other cartoon characters. I don't think I've got them all scanned in, and a lot of them are in a box in the attic at the moment, but when I was at university I decorated my room door with loads of these little cartoons.

Occasionally I try and draw more serious real-life things. I'm not always convinced I do a good job. This drawing I did not long after its subject passed away:

This is Mitzi, she was almost fifteen when she was put to sleep, on the day after Boxing Day.

I've done paintings too, but not very many. Gran taught me to paint with watercolours, this is the most complex thing I did.

It's a copy of an oil painting by Cezanne called Mountains in Provence. His is much better than mine, of course.

I'm sure I've got some more recent work lying around the house somewhere, it just doesn't seem to have made it into the scanner yet! I will have a scavenge and see what I can find.