Nostalgia.

I have a few more days off and have chosen to spend them crafting. Yes, I should be cleaning or sorting or decorating, but to be honest after the few months I have had, crafting is what I wanted to do.
From a nostalgia point of view, I have long admired and known that my Granny and Aunts and Mum and those that came before them are very clever, thrifty and talented at making things, making them go round, making things out of nothing and also making things beautiful. I just sighed and looked on. Each year I have wanted to do more than sigh, but I just never 'got' it. I could only look at a piece of sewing and think wow how did you do it. I could only eat some gorgeous chutney and think wow, how did you grow it and how did you preserve it? All a big mystery. The last few years though of being a scrapbooker have helped so much. I have learned about craft, learned about colour and design and also about how things do not have to be perfect to be loved.

So, this week, despite my plans to just paper craft I had an overwhelming urge to stitch and quilt something and set about it.


If you are a crafter then you will hopefully be cheering me on and just ever-so-slightly shaking your head at how inept I am to be so thrilled with what I made.
Learning how to bias bind has been a real challenge, but I was determined as I love how it looks and to be able to make your own to match seemed like the very thing that would keep me interested in my projects and how they would look.
My mind has gone into overdrive as to what I might make!

I also wanted to talk about the phone, Kathi started it off and I immediately thought of our phones when she said and I have also been so interested in everyone's stories which are the same but different.

The first phone I remember being installed was on a party line and I remember picking up the receiver and hearing our next door neighbours the Slades on the line (and putting the handle down carefully so as not to disturb them).

My first mobile was in 1993 or 1994, I can't remember. However I know there was only two of us in our group that had them and that we felt very flash phoning each other across Portsmouth Dock. We both worked on the Cross-Channel Ferries and I would ring him when he was sailing out and vice versa. As soon as everyone had seen them and had been paid they got them too and that was my first social network. Best of all I can remember my dear departed Dad's chuckle when I used to ring him and tell him I was staying in Portsmouth to go out and would be home whenever. He always said are you ringing from the new phone?
I got him a mobile phone quite quickly as he was intrigued but even 10 years later as he was dying he didn't really know how to operate it. He knew enough to press the green answer button and there were several times that I was very glad he learned that and I was able to speak to him. Bless him.

It amuses me that my niece Lauren, that lives with me, has an iphone now (an early 16th birthday pressie from me and Mum) and that Louis (my eldest son) will inherit my iphone 4s when I get my new contract in a couple of months and Ali (my nine year old inherited an iPad) will all be able to iMessage each other for free and for easy. I am sure that I shouldn't embrace this development for all sorts of reasons, but, you know what, I adore it. Being out of the house for 11 hours a day it means that I can communicate with them on their terms. They hate to talk on the phone but will answer a message no probs. I also get photos and a 'flavour' of their life online that I don't get otherwise. (When I get home it is all sad faces about me making them do homework and clean up etc...borrriiiinnnngggg. for them and me.).







Night all xxx