Confessions

My camera is being very odd today. I don't yet want to admit that it's broken (please please please let it not be) but it's certainly not let me take any photos :(

This means I can't show you what I worked on last night (some more hairbands, with large poppies and giant cherry blossoms like this) ...

Instead, I'm going to admit to my total and utter failure to stick to my Crafting 365 challenge during my internet-less weeks. I was doing so well! and then I got a bit distracted and I had my biggest crafting-free period since I started this last year. First up my neighbour had a nasty fall and we had to break into her house & accompany her to the hospital (she's recovering well, thankfully), getting back at about 1am. Then that weekend the BBC were in Gloucester filming for this year's Doctor Who Christmas special which was just sooo exciting, especially as one evening they filmed in my friend's house and we got to meet the lovely David Tennant. It felt genuinely a bit like Christmas, and all the excitement rather wore me out.

I did manage to get a little bit of crafting done after that - curling up on the sofa and slowly making loads of little thankyou cards out of scrap card and an old book of birds (days 243-7) - but without the daily 365 thing of taking pictures of my work and posting it on here, I rather lost momentum. I was getting to check my emails etc at work and at my friends houses but I couldn't work on my shop at home and it made me really feel at a loose end. Also I'd never really realised before the extent to which I rely on things like digital radio to keep me entertained while I sit and sew. Once I'd worked my way through my dvds I started to get rather restless!

So instead of sitting and sewing, I cleaned the house (it's honestly never been so clean) and tidied up and we had a huge clear-out of things we've been meaning to attend to in the spare room... Then after that I had a proper little holiday during a mini heatwave: lazing around in sundresses, eating strawberries and reading novels (I hardly get a chance to read normally, curling up with my sewing instead of a book before bedtime), and doing the first bit of baking I'd done in months. I used to bake all the time, and really miss it. It's one of those things which I wonder why I don't do it every day, it's so satisfying (and I do like a nice bit of cake).

All in all I think I had about three weeks off from making stuff before I picked up my sewing again (more on that when I can take photos again!). It felt seriously weird to start with, but in the end it was nice to step outside my felt-obsessed universe for a little while and focus on other things. Once I'd stopped being stressed about not being able to check my email, etc, it even seemed like quite a good idea. I am determined to keep going with this 365 thing, it's so much fun and has been so good for my productivity, creativity and working patterns, but in future I shall definitely be building "crafting free" patches into my schedule!

Right, enough wittering: back to the sewing...