Arts and Crafts..........

If tales of crafting and such bore you to tears then please feel free to skip this post....I won't be offended in the least......

A while ago Guy from Astoria Oregon Rust asked me in a comment what kind of crafts I do so I thought I would show you some of them.....and then explain a bit about my crafty tendencies.....

TV viewing was strictly monitored in our house at all times for most of my youth.....which wasn't really a big deal to us as we knew no differently really....growing up in Europe TV was almost non-existant other than for the news and rare holiday specials or things to do with the Queen when we lived in England. So, when we first moved to Canada I was about 13/14 and my mother had it in her head that she was not going to let any children of hers become corrupted by anything North America had to offer (keep in mind that my mother, although very worldly in many respects, is from a very strict European, pre-, during, and post war era). At the time it was just my younger sis Trish and I at home -- the 3 older sibs were off on their own already and the youngest.....well, he was not to be a twinkle in anyone's eye for a few years yet!!

Our TV viewing was limited to certain shows and to only a certain amount of time per day. The qualifier was that if we were going to watch TV we HAD to be doing something creative with our hands as well......and so my crafting abilities were hatched!! My younger sister......not so much. It started out with knitting and keep in mind that Trish would have only been about 7ish and, well lets just say that my sister was the consumate tom-boy who was going to have nothing to do with any knitting or crafty stuff!!!

These pieces are all called counted cross-stitch which translates to......there is nothing printed on the canvas when you start....so you start with your coloured threads (dozens of colours), a needle and your blank fabric.
Here is one of my most favourite recent projects.....I made it for my bestest gay male friend....you have to know him (big and tall bear of a guy)....and it really is very fitting for him!!

One year, '94 I think it was -- was there a winter olympics that year??.......I was unemployed for about 6 months -- kinda by choice, kinda not -- let's just say I was taking some time and in no rush to locate any employment quickly!! That year I knit 12, count 'em 12, of those wintery, Icelandic pull-over sweaters!! Here like these ones..............

I knit EVERY colour combo imagineable......now to be honest.....6 of those sweaters were in pint-sized sizes as all my nieces and nephews were toddlers still back then.....it was so much fun knitting the smaller ones....just to see how they turned out.....most of the patterns and sizes I had to make up and scale down from the adult versions as there were no kid size patterns to be found at the time!! Those little cute sweaters were passed around from family to family as kids out grew them.....there may still be some tucked in attics and cupboards where outgrown clothes often go.

So there you have it.....some of the crafts I do while watching television......hope you enjoyed looking at these. It was fun....a journey down memory lane.....thanks for posing the question Guy!!