2013 & The 52 Project

2012 was quite a successful crafty Christmas. 

I made these elephant bean bags for my little nephew. He likes to throw things.

And a lovely denim bucket, made from an old pair of jeans, to put them in.

[This comes from a great tutorial here]

For bigger people, I made these clever things.

They are long tubes filled with rice and lavender. You warm them up in the microwave for a few minutes and then use them like a hot water bottle, for aches and pains or cold places.

On the baking front, I made this yule log for a Christmas Eve lunch with some young visitors. I’ve never made a cake requiring rolling up before, so I was quite pleased with my achievement.

With Christmas now well and truly behind us, all that remains is to think about some crafty resolutions for the New Year.

I came across this post, in celebration of a successfully completed 2012 resolution at Peas and Needles. The author set herself the challenge of finishing an ongoing project or creating something new every week in 2012 - the Fifty 2 Project. What a fantastic achievement to have finished 52 things in a year. Somewhat optimistically, as my #1 resolution for 2013, I’m going to attempt the same for 2013.

Qualifying projects could be cooked, baked or preserved, grown, photographed, sewn, knitted, crocheted, or otherwise made, improved upon or upcycled in some way. I would love to add drawn to the list, but sadly learning how to draw goes down as a 2012 failure. I’ve started a new Pinterest board to record ideas and inspiration.

First and foremost on the list is the renewal of one of last year’s goals, the still-not-yet finished Africa Blanket. Poor old Africa Blanket, always gets neglected when things get busy. Never forgotten though!

Another inspiring blogger of 2012 is my friend Emilia Bird, who resolved this time last year to make by hand all of her clothes. I am in awe of her talents and I have decided I would love to attempt this myself - my own skills however are sadly lacking at present. So, resolution #2 is to work towards being able to take on such a big challenge one day. To start things off, I’ve signed up for another course at The Sewing Lounge this time in making alterations which seems like a good place to begin. It is really thanks to the owner/teacher Kat that I am able to sew at all, so I’m happy to be going back for more expert tuition!

I’ll be posting updates on these challenges soon. Wish me luck!

World, meet the sandwich pie. King of the sandwiches.

One round loaf of bread with the top sliced off, hollowed out and filled with as much meat and cheese as will fit inside. Chilled overnight and then sliced into wedges. I think it’s a good start to my summer sandwich challenge.

I’m taking a course at Sew In Brighton which claims in three weeks I will be able to sew, and have two handmade items to prove it. This course is a) necessary and b) long overdue: I’ve owned two sewing machines in my life, and I’ve never got to grips properly with either of them.

This could be blamed on whichever government was responsible for the National Curriculum during the years when I was at school. I never learnt so much as how to sew on a button, as “design and technology” had by then taken over from the learning of useful skills such as how to cook and sew or actually make anything.

I took “food technology” for GCSE. Over the course of two years, we studied the process of designing ready meals and attempted to recreate that process in the rooms used by former students for learning how to cook. This involved preparing the same dish 20 or 30 times over with minor variations to the method or ingredients, producing mock ups of packaging and perhaps most futile of all, hand-drawing a 2cm border around the edge of 40 or 50 sheets of A3 paper onto which we then recorded our efforts for presentation to the exam board.

So, what with trying to make a cardboard sleeve shaped like a pineapple and drawing all those borders, I never learnt to sew. There have been countless occasions since when I’ve really wished I could. Most recently, after an incident involving a dress and an airport escalator, and indeed every time I buy a pair of trousers.

The first class was last week, and I came away feeling pretty confident. I can thread up a machine, wind a bobbin, change a needle, sew a seem, and keep said seem straight. I know how to change the type of stitch to zigzags, change the length of the stitch and the tension. I have a somewhat scruffy strip of fabric to show for it so far. Perhaps after the next class, I’ll have a non-wobbly seemed cushion to proudly display.

Chicken Soup

Exam season is once again upon us. The list of reasons why I don’t enjoy or see the value in bringing more stress and seriousness into the lives of children and teenagers is as long as my arm, but somewhere near the top is the unimaginative questions prompting only the most artificial communication.”What’s your name?” (Somewhat redundant given that we have now been teacher and student for a minimum of nine months) and “How do you spell that?” (Do you or do you not know that “i” is not “eeee” in English) are followed by “What would you like to do when you grow up?”

Although the answers are generally uninspired, at age 12 to 13, I am secretly proud of them for mostly not having a clue what they want to do at this fictious point in their futures of ‘being grown up’. I guess for some people the answer to that question has always been, or becomes at some early point, clear. People like Mozart

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It began as a way to pass the time in Tripoli, a challenge to learn all the flags of Africa. It has travelled with me everywhere I’ve been since. And now, at long last, it is approaching completion. When it’s finished, it will be by far and away the best thing I’ve ever made. It will be a blanket big enough for two. I’m sure it will be unique. Who else has ever made a crocheted Africa-shape formed of its flags and surrounded by the sea?

There’s no place like home

This is my fourth April of tefl teaching.

April 2009: I was in Brighton. Fresh from my CELTA, still reading Swan before bed and working at three different schools to earn enough money to pay rent.

brighton pier / pleasure & delight / royal pavillion

April 2010: I was in Tripoli, living in brothers black towers, teaching forensic scientists and police men.

shopping / looking towards the city / medina rooftops

April 2011 I was here in Milazzo, living in a gloomy flat upstairs from the school, figuring out how to teach kids.

when the sun used to shine here

In between the latter two, there was Bogota where I taught employees of Siemens at ridiculous hours of the early morning and lived firstly in somebody’s grandmother’s house and then, when it became clear how very much we were being ripped off, in a fairly grim flat with three Colombians at least one of whom hadn’t yet mastered the art of urinating into the toilet bowl rather than all over the seat/floor.

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2012

One month down, and eleven to go. I made six resolutions this year. If progress were being noted on one of my school report, I would perhaps be receiving an A for acceptable but not an E for excellent.

One of the resolutions was to visit a new country and a new part of Italy. I’ve seen a lot of Sicily, and a good chunk of the south. Although I have travelled in the north too, I’ve never stayed in one place for longer than a few weeks. I was lucky enough to spend three of those weeks in a tiny village high up in the mountains sandwiched between Lake Como and Lake Lugano. Looking at the pictures again this weekend made me remember how nice it was there. Hopefully this Easter I will be fulfilling the second part of that particular resolution on a trip north. The new country part will have to wait for now.

Ice cream-coloured houses, on the shores of Lake Menaggio

One of my other resolutions was to keep an illustrated journal. Since I spent my university years living with architects and graphic designers, I have been fascinated with sketchbooks. I always thought they were the preserve of people talented enough to make their liivng out of drawing pictures and that certainly is not me. This Christmas I picked up this book by Danny Gregory, a one time advertising copywriter turned author-illustrator who claims drawing is a skill just like driving that anybody can learn. Despite being 27 and never having sat behind the wheel of a car, I was intrigued to see if he is right.

When I was looking over photographs from a few summers ago, I noticed how many of them were terrible. Maybe it’s because these days I delete almost everything that isn’t Flickr worthy as soon as I put them on the computer or maybe the habit of taking photos everywhere has improved my photography skills without my noticing.

Maybe in two year’s time, I’ll be looking back at fledgling attempts at drawing and feeling pleased with the progress made. I think what puts me off picking up a pen and drawing a mug, and then my bathroom cabinet and then whatever Mr Gregory suggests next as valuable lessons for people who can’t draw, is knowing what comes between the purchase of a blank sketchbook and a tin of pencils and proud reflections. That being the period which so many of my students are currently enduring in their study of the English language - after which you’ve committed to learning something, but before you’ve developed even a middling kind of competence.

project in progress

Like the time I decided to learn to crochet. I attended a one day course for beginners at a beautiful farm somewhere in Sussex. What with it being a class for beginners, I was surprised when everyone except me seemed to already know how to crochet. I couldn’t get my head around how to hold the yarn, or when the hook was supposed to go under or over. I was the bottom of the class. My circular cushion came out all lopsided and wonky. The purchase of a range of books, hooks, and yarn was followed by quite a few more projects in the lopsided and wonky category before I suceeded at making anything half decent.

This brings me to another resolution. A year of finishing projects. The ideas for projects always come easily to me, and I usually begin them with enthusiasm. It’s the finishing that is difficult. I once read a blog post that likened the project durations to the gestation periods of various animals. If so then most of my projects must be more like elephants (22 months) than chipmunks (31 days).

Recently, I have been better. I finished an overdue baby blanket for my littlest relation at Christmas.

I started and finished a little rug, for the very cold floor beside my bed.

I have (almost) finished a second granny squares cushion.

So a good start to 2012. Progress updates to follow.

Projects

I caught a horrible cold, more than likely from one of my students with their foreign germs.

As is well documented, the best cure for this type of lurgy is chicken soup, made with a real chicken and the vegetables in evidence on the retro soup  bowl, rather than from a can…

After a weekend of suffering and a Monday on which I would definitely have phoned in sick were my job any other job, I am feeling better today. I made some celebratory biscuits, adapted from this book. They turned out a little like homemade hobnobs.

I am also trying to finish one of my many unfinished crochet projects. I started this one early this year. The colours were inspired by the amazing wild flowers all around Sicily in the spring.

Progress has been slow… I hope I’ll have a finished project to post soon.

If I get it finished within the acceptable time frame for baby gifts, this will be for my new little nephew, who arrived today.  Flower-inspired blanket is not the obvious choice for a boy I know, but he was still genderless at that point in time.

Congratulations to my little sister and welcome little Malachi!