The Fear.

After completing my two flowers that I made for a friend, as inspired by Attic24 and also completing an order for little hearts and bows, I felt hungry to crochet something that would be warm and lush. I didn’t have enough wool to do a big blanket so opted for one that would fit snugly in a pram or cot. Admittedly I don’t really need a pram or cot blanket as there are no more baby Petit’s planned and the current baby Petit (a very non-petit 2 year old) already has a fishy cover to keep his gargantuan feet warm but I thought it would be a good way to warm up for the real deal, when I can crochet a blanket big enough to cover us all as we watch Cars 2 for the zillionth time.

Flowerpot Flowers

Caught in action

Knitted Bows and Crochet Hearts

Waves

Capturing the ‘Essence’.

Lippy Fish Springy Thing

Wooden Seagull Springy Thing

This was my first foray to the beach playground along Worthing seafront in ages; it was delightful to be out and I gulped in the air whilst the middle child raced around in glee and the youngest scooted, stropped and filled his nappy full of sand. I borrowed Mr P’s camera and started taking photos of the wooden springy things and of my blanket beginnings, which he thought made me look odd. I explained they were for my blog and he made a face and some sort of ‘why on earth…’ comment and I flicked my head in a nonchalant, arty sort of way in a ‘well you wouldn’t understand’ manner whilst demanding haughtily, ‘Have you even read my blog? No! No you haven’t..’  Whether or not Mr P has or ever will read either of my blogs was soon forgotten and as the sun went in and the air chilled further, I went home feeling I had achieved something.. well, I had. I had actually left the house!

Other achievements have been the jewellery items I have made.  Each piece I make gives me a thrill of pleasure, the utter enjoyment of producing an item that I would be happy enough to wear. Doubts try to sneak their way in but I banish them back to their cold, draughty holes in the land of Far Far Away (not the same place as in Shrek) which is somewhere between my right ear and occipital lobe. The Doubts  are pesky little shites that follow me most places and are right now getting in the way of my Etsy shop. I am still flirting with Etsy, but am somewhat terrified of it. I feel like a commitment phobe in that once I ‘open’ my shop, I will actually have to ‘do’ things such as make things and sell them. What if no one likes them? OR they like them, buy them and then unlike them again? OR buy them, like them.. still like them and then order more.. if I let the Doubts stay then I won’t get anything done so off they go again, huddling in for warmth and conspiring about how and where to strike next.

Bird’s Nest Ring

Size J

Bird’s Nest Necklace

The smaller ring was a birthday gift to a friend.

Wire Wrapped Bead Ring

Silver & Gold Plated Wire Rose Ring

Bead and Rose Rings

Fear can be an obstacle but can also be a wonderful motivator. I read a fantastic article yesterday that was shared by a friend on Facebook, called The Busy Trap by Tim Kreidder and I think as I am not busy currently, the fear has set in. After I read the above, I then read this which also started the brain ticking; should I start a new routine or have a strange ritual? A naked bath? No.. that’s just normal.. the problem is I am not very good at routines or rituals (strange or otherwise). My motivation and inspiration are very, very cyclical as are my moods. There are some days that I feel like I could burst at the seams with ideas, methods, creativiity and productivity but they seem to be less than the days I feel bogged down, Eyore-ish and despondent. So I guess what I have to work out is how to get the most out of my ‘yippeeeeeee’ days and just get through my ‘eughhhhhhh’ days. I know that my fear is based around my designs, they are in their infancy and many have been ‘done’ before.. and what if the finished product isn’t good enough.. the angst could go on and on..  but I have come to the conclusion that one just needs to fight that fear, grab it by it’s horns and rodeo dance it into submission.

For now, though I shall just continue to lie here on the bed and think about doing my physio exercises.. and I shall leave you with some pictures I took whilst in the garden last week.

The 8 year long mosaiic.

A beautiful pink..

A coveted bluebell.

The lonesome tulip

Emily and the mosaiic

Lambs and Wire.

Mr Petit and the two boys have gone on a day out to Washbrook Farm. It is sunny and lovely and there will be new born lambs skipping and frolicking. I am not envious at all, or jeal… I am jealous. I am really, really, really jealous. I am holding back from placing a hoax bomb-alert call to the front of house receptionist at Washbrook Farm. I may pee all over their clothes and bedding like cats do when they are pissed off about something. Instead here I lay surrounded by jewellery making stuff and wishing I could buy some more tools and supplies to satiate my need for retail therapy due to the psychological damage I am endurng because I have been abandoned by the rest of my family going somewhere fun and pretty with lambs.

To iterate my point here is a picture of a lovely skippity skip lamb.

To be honest having found this picture I now have the fits of giggles.. ah dear at least I amuse myself (which you have to do when you ARE ON YOUR OWN). I actually don’t mind my own company due to the fact that we get on.

What I really am supposing to be writing about is wire and bending. Bearing in mind that I am actually doing all of my wire work and crocheting lying down, it does get a bit tricky at times but as it is keeping my mind and hands busy and I love it.. I bear with. I have sussed that the problem I have is manipulating the wire without damaging the surface of it. You basically have these implements to shape/cut/bend:

And these are the types of wires I am using:

The first picture is a gold coloured copper wire that is thin and easy to use but not very strong as it is so soft. The silver plated wire in the second picture is a harder .08mm which is the one I have the most trouble with and the lower two wires are gold plated at 0.6 and 0.4mm respectively, easier to use but again the thinner the more delicate.

I have been playing about with them and have managed to fix a couple of items of jewellery that I haven’t been able to wear in ages – so although rudimentary in design, they are now functional.

Silver ring casing had split in two places so the wire now holds it together. The lovely pendant underneath had broken so I just rewrapped it.

My next purchase needs to be a jeweller’s steel mandrel:

(This is for not only sizing but for shaping too. I can feel like Harry Potter as well and wield it around unnecessarily). I also need a metal file to get rid of those nasty sharp ends.

So there you go, some technical bits to go along with my musings. Having become bored of lying in my own bed I have taken to moving around to the other beds (as yet not peed on) and here is the view from my middling (meddling) son’s bed, not particularly scenic but at least different and I get to enjoy his Toy Story bedding.

Meddling Son’s Bedroom View.

 

Obsessed.

As a diversion from full-on boredom, I have been making wire rings. In fact anything that could have wire wrapped around it (garden furniture, teabags, the cat) has wire wrapped around it.

I sit on the edge of my bed, back straight so as not to flout any physio laws, breath tightly held and lip bitten, as I twist silver plated and gold plated wire around widowed earrings who lost their partners a long time ago, or broken rings and glass beads. Such is this nigh-on obsession that I am wondering what the outcome will be. In six weeks time I shall be drowning in costume jewellery with balls of wool and crochet hooks tangled in my borrowed back brace. And what for? Well, this is the biiiiig question. Basically because I absolutely love it. I love this feeling that I reckon I must have been squishing for the majority of my life. Well, apart from the time I ordered a crappy little sewing machine from the Daily Mirror or somewhere, with a view to making my own clothes – which ended up in the bin two years later because I couldn’t figure out how to thread the bobbin; and the time I painted a box and stuck glass jewels on it thinking it was a work of art (it wasn’t); and the mosaic that took me 8 years to complete and still produces a lot of sarky comments by friends.. ‘why don’t you do another mosaic Chlo?’ snigger, snigger, snigger…I feel like I’m on a roll, a creative roll, I have finally realised that I don’t have to produce amazing works of art (which is lucky) and that it doesn’t matter if I don’t have a ‘speciality’, that this whole process of just discovering how much FUN it is to create is enough, whether with wire, wool or wood.. it is wonderful.

So I shall continue to make and create alongside offering reflexology, massage and reiki to my clients (www.rainingfeet.co.uk). I will open my shop on Etsy very soon too, so watch this space.

 

My current view.

Some bloody lovely flowers.

 

Cat’s about to get wrapped.

Spring inspiration.

More inspiration.

 

Convalescing

For the next six weeks I am bound to a life of very little due to having had lumbar decompression on a herniated disc. No picking up, bending, twisting, cavorting, high jumping or even getting down to ground level so I can do up my little one’s shoes. I am therefore, making a list of all of the things that I can do whilst I am ‘perching’, sitting bolt up right, walking carefully or lying supine. So far it’s; yelling at the kids, listening to them reading, barking instructions and mainly, crocheting. I have an order to complete, various orders to post (with the help of others admittedly) and a blog to perfect so that I don’t bore copious amounts of people. It’s beautiful weather outside and here are a couple of pictures of some gorgeous blossom that I took on the school run last week.

And for a moment of wee amusement, here is a picture of my puffer fish leg massagey things that I had to wear to prevent blood clots.. At 4am this morning I realised what they reminded me of; pissed off puffer fish – they literally puff and blow up one after another and then deflate.. and then do it again. And again. And again.

And whilst on the topic of fishes, this is Little Fish (not grumpy or puffy) – a crocheted and beaded present for a friend’s 7 year old daughter.

Little Fish – crochet and beads.