Skip to main content

2020 in Crafts

 How was your crafting year?


For me, homeschooling in the first part of the year left little time for crafting - except with the kids, as part of learning. There was a lot of drawing, colouring, painting, box-modelling with a hoard of recycling, and decorating kindness stones to hide during our daily walks.


I did find time to sew up fabric masks. I knew from the beginning of the pandemic that I would never want to wear a disposable mask - washable and reusable all the way! I've experimented with various styles and methods of making them, settling on a simple shaped design in the end. Friends and family soon asked me to make up masks for them, and I ended up making some for work colleagues using fabric custom-printed with images from the archive where I work. Making so many masks certainly gave me more confidence on the sewing machine, which I had bought in 2015 inspired by the Sewing Bee, but had never really got to grips with in a serious way. Masks were a gateway back into sewing!



In the summer my daughter asked me to organise a jumble and crafts sale for the RSPCA. I made a pile of masks, all from fabric already in my stash or from old clothes. Alongside these there was a lot of upcycling: decorated tin cans turned into flower pots or pencil holders. Scrap fabric too small for masks became hair scrunchies. I practiced some hand-sewing and embroidery by making some felties. I also turned pebbles into tic-tac-toe sets and story prompts by painting the stones and making simple draw-string bags from felt. The sale raised £150, with the face masks the most popular item by far! 






In the autumn we repeated it with Halloween themed crafts. A skittles set made of tin cans painted as various monsters sold out very quickly with requests to make more! Halloween bunting, glass jars and tin cans turned into potion pots dripping slime, and felt decorations also sold out.





For Christmas I ended up sewing a number of gifts and decorations, including fabric baubles, fabric trays, rice filled hand warmers, eco-friendly washable face wipes and book cushions for the kids. I also made several of my gifts for #YayAdvent, including experimenting with melted beads (Hama beads or Perler beads)! With the kids I stamped parcel paper to make eco-friendly Christmas wrapping paper.



Looking back over 2020, crafting of one kind or another has played a vital role in my year. It has been so important to make things, however amateurish they may turn out: battling the urge for perfectionism and learning to enjoy the process has been another theme of the year! Making things feels and being creative feels like a challege to the dark, something positive and good. I have no illusions that 2021 will be any better than 2020, at least at first - so crafting will continue, which leads me onto the net post - New Year Crafting Resolutions!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eco-friendly Upcycled Face Wipes

 I recently ran up some eco-friendly face wipes for a friend. These are designed to replace cotton pads or face wipes, and are washable. To increase their green credentials I made the pad section from an old towel. I had some charm squares spare, so used those as the backing fabric. I cut the towel into squares that were slightly smaller than the charm square, and wrapped the fabric over the towel piece to form a small border.  I then sewed the top fabric down with a zigzag stitch. This meant I was mainly sewing on the fabric, as my machine can't sew through towel (unless I haven't found the right setting or needle of course)! Very very simple, but pretty and functional! There are lots of tutorials for other ways to make these face wipes, such as:  https://www.arosetintedworld.co.uk/how-to-make-reusable-make-up-remover-pads/ It seems to be even more simple with an overlocker:  http://juliawithanh.com/sewing/23-reusable-face-pads You can even crochet some! https://dab...
Post a Comment
Read more

Musings of a Beginner Dress-maker: #historybounding

 I've always wanted to learn to make my own clothes, but it's not something I've had time or felt confident enough to try until recently. I am ENTIRELY a beginner - I didn't have a single sewing lesson at school and until I bought my first one had not so much as touched a sewing machine. I wrote in my Sewing Resolutions post about being plus-size and how I see dressmaking as a way to make clothes that fit me well. But that's not the whole story, and I've recently found a community of sewers who express exactly what I would like to achieve: #historybounding The term #historybounding was coined by Morgan Donner in this video: It refers to those of us who want to incorporate some historical elements to our daily style, whether that is going full-on vintage or using shapes, silhouettes and accessories that 'feel' historical. There's a strong overlap between "history bounders" and #costubers - those people who have YouTube channels where they f...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Year Resolutions 2022

 Happy New Year! It's 2022 already... The #ConfinedCrafting blog is now a year old. Which brings me to my first resolution: update the blog more often ! I haven't been a regular blogger and I would really like to make a good go of regular updates here. My new sewing assistant is even more disruptive than the cats! Meet Rudolph the Spanador (Cocker Spaniel-Labrador mix). Spot my stolen tape-measure... My second resolution involves following projects through to the end before getting distracted planning a new project! I really enjoy the process of planning, choosing a pattern, assembling the kit, even cutting out the fabric, and often at that point I start to sew then run out of time to finish in one go, then just ... Never pick it up again. Even if I really want the thing I am making! Hence the resolution to focus and finish on a project before starting another. I still haven't hemmed this circle skirt that I made in May 2021... My third resolution is to keep my sewing area...
Post a Comment
Read more