Shoshiplatypus

Time for my annual review at the close of the year. This year has passed so quickly that it has left me gasping. The days seem to have flashed past me like for the hero of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine…

For some of the time, it’s been more a case of what hasn’t happened than what has. I’ll review it by topic and it will be good to measure the achievements and good bits if I can remember them all!

I warn you, this is a very long post, but I hope it will be of interest.

Creativity

It has been a strange year. For much of the time, my studio has been a dumping ground, or just somewhere to store stuff, and I was beginning to feel a bit guilty about having such a lovely room and not using it enough! I haven’t done as much papercrafting and mixed media as in previous years, but have done more on the fibre and textile side – embroidery, knitting and crochet, and some sewing. On this latter subject, one good thing to come out of it is that I feel I have now got to grips with my new sewing machine – actually not so new, but it hasn’t been used much. It replaced my wonderful old friend that was a 21st birthday present from my parents and which died after 40 years – not bad going! I have replaced it with an electronic monster that terrified the life out of me for too long!

Knitting and crochet

Early in the year, I completed a striped knitted scarf I’d begun some time ago, and embellished it with a selection of felt and crochet flowers, leaves, butterflies and balls.

This is the second winter I have enjoyed wearing it, and it has caused a lot of nice comments wherever I’ve been!

I also worked on another scarf I’d made, this time from a ball of yarn from a charity shop:

I began crocheting peacock feathers to embellish it with, but I have not finished this project yet – another addition to my ever-increasing list of UFOs (UnFinished Objects)…

My circles jumper is making very slow progress. I haven’t done any for months. The back and most of the front are done, and I hope that this particular UFO will get finished in the next few months!

Embroidery

In the spring I bought a gorgeous pair of felt slippers.

I decided to embellish them, so I added appliqué felt flowers and embroidery, and completed the project with the addition of little bells which tinkle when I walk in them!

Eco Projects

This year I worked on three eco-projects. First, I made re-usable cloths from flour sack towels as a substitute for kitchen paper – I also made some larger ones to wrap mushrooms and they keep really fresh in the fridge!

I also made some re-usable make-up remover pads from recycled towelling and tea towels. They are embellished with a little hand embroidery.

My consumption of these disposables has gone down enormously as a result. The third eco project has bitten the dust as I’ve hit a bit of a roadblock with it, but I am hoping to resurrect it in the coming year.

Tudor Gown

My most significant creation of the year is probably the Tudor gown I made for an event down in Cornwall in December. It was a Tudor banquet hosted by the National Trust and I thought it would be fun to dress the part. Using mostly recycled materials, some of which were in my stash, and some which came from Ebay and charity shops, I made this:

I made some compromises in the design because I didn’t want too much bulk, and also I didn’t have a lot of time to complete it, but I am very pleased with the result. Amazing what you can make out of a pair of old curtains.

Cards

I did make a few cards during the year. This was the wedding anniversary card I made for my hubby (33 years this year!).

and this is the birthday card I made for him, after he told me about the dream he had had about Lily hang-gliding!

Lily and her hang-glider are attached with acetate strips, so they move. This was a special card for my hubby as he celebrated his 70th birthday. I gave him a special present, a gorgeous skeleton watch:

which he is being very good about not wearing in the workshop but only for best!!

I also made a 60th birthday card for a friend, using quite a few recycled materials:

My latest card is the first to come out of my 2019/20 Card Factory – a fun interactive-type card which opens up a window to reveal a hidden image when you open the card.

I shall be making some more of these in the New Year, and more cards with a fun surprise in them.

Watercolour doodling

I did some watercolour doodling in July – something I definitely want to do more of, as it’s relaxing, easy and fun. My best efforts were doodles over simple watercoloured shapes:

Here is a card I made from one of them.

Teabag art

I have been experimenting with stamping on teabags with bleach. The results have been less than satisfactory. However, this is something I am determined to pursue until I get some reasonable results. I know the effect I want! Eventally I tried stamping with white acrylic, which gives an inkling of what I am after.

Celtic Zentangle

A recent meeting with an artist friend inspired me to try combining a free version of Celtic art with Zentangle. This is my latest piece, done towards the end of December.

Craft Show

In September I went to the annual craft show in Exeter and it was amazing… I took far too many photos to include in this post and it was impossible to choose one to illustrate what an awesome day it was. I stocked up on various items missing from my stash, and really enjoyed my day out.

New equipment and materials

Junk jewellery, canvases for recycling, storage boxes from a local village fete in July.

Miscellaneous stash from the craft show in September.

I also bought more ink pads, and several dies and stencils.

In December I got the Tim Holtz glass media mat, which my hubby gave me for Christmas.

I also bought the tools available for it, and a Distress Sprayer and some Distress microglaze.

In September I had the opportunity to meet up with a couple of crafty friends from WOYWW. That was a real treat!

New Car

In October, we traded our old car (“Katie,” a Renault Kangoo) for an identical model (“Katie 2”) – this time in blue rather than dark red. Katie 1 was on the way out and starting to cost us a bit too much to run, and we didn’t want a different car because this model ticks all the boxes for us. My hubby found Katie 2 online and she has far less mileage on her clock and is in very good nick so he bought her. He has transferred the crane from Katie 1 so we can still get the wheelchair in the back with relative ease. We are both delighted with her.

Health Issues

The worst thing I’ve had to deal with this year is my teeth. I am a dental phobic and have generally been pretty fortunate in that I don’t usually need anything done, but first of all, I had a cracked wisdom tooth which was causing some pain. It was filled, but the filling soon fell out and I was still in pain. They took the tooth out, and it was awful… it had roots like pincers which held on tight and made it very difficult to pull out! Everything healed up OK and I had no further trouble with it. Shortly after this, a filling fell out of a lower deck tooth and this had to be redone, and that was awful too – much worse than I expected since it was just replacing a lost filling. I have just had my regular check-up and been told that the X-ray has revealed some decay in another lower deck tooth, and this is going to be dealt with in January. I’m really fed up with this…

Ongoing hernia problems

In April I was referred by my regular colorectal surgeon to a consultant in Exeter who specialises in “complex cases.” My parastomal hernia has been repaired twice and returned quite soon after the last repair, in 2018, when I suffered a severe post-operative infection. I saw the Exeter guy and he ordered a CT scan which didn’t happen for four months. I had it in August, and I am STILL waiting to hear with a follow-up appointment. He wanted the scan so he could see exactly what was going on, and he could then decide the best approach regarding another repair. It looks likely that I shall require further surgery but have no idea when this might happen.

Pants

The usual saga of ineptitude ensued when I ordered my annual supply of hernia support pants. They always make them wrong. This time the problem wasn’t quite so bad, but the delightful fitting lady returned, and made the adjustments to the order and requested that they expedite this because of all the delays and problems I constantly have with the firm. She said they should be with me before Christmas, but they still have not arrived.

Headaches

For ages I have been plagued with periods of having bad headaches which no medication seemed to touch. I have always put these down to a symptom of my M.E. I eventually saw my GP about it and he began by prescribing codeine which had helped in the past, but they didn’t work. Eventually he put me on a low daily dose of amitriptyline and this does seem to be preventing them – I have had very few over the past few months. This medication makes me very sleepy and I have to remember to take it at about 10 p.m. in order to keep going during the day, and if I forget and take them much later, I find it even more difficult than usual to get going in the mornings! I think I am sleeping better as a result, though, which is a good thing.

Bladder

I have been having ongoing bladder problems since my chemo, which caused some nerve damage. In December I attended a group session with a physio who gave us lots of advice for self-help, and the opportunity for further consultation should we still need help.

Disability benefit and pension

Another pretty negative thing to come up this year was the end of my DLA (Disability Living Allowance), a disability benefit which the government has phased out in favour of the new PIP (Personal Independence Payment) which is a lot tougher to get. I had been awarded a lifetime grant of DLA, which turned out not to be the lifetime of anyone I know, except perhaps someone’s pet hamster, and I had to go through the whole rigmarole again, which I had thought I would never again have to endure, of completing the huge long form, and having to focus on all the negative aspects of my health problems, which is a thoroughly depressing exercise, especially as there was no guarantee that it would bear any fruit at the end of it all. I had to attend a face-to-face assessment (a new feature of applying for benefit) and this then had to be repeated because of some computer glitch losing half my information. The stress I went through was simply awful. Then the waiting game, but the good news was that I was awarded exactly the same money as I had been receiving hitherto, and the new system is now kicking in. The lifetime award has been transmuted into a 10-year award, which I understand is the longest they will give you without you having to reapply, so it was the best news I could have expected.

During the process of applying, I did some research online, and discovered that I should have been receiving my state pension over two years earlier. This was immediately set up, and in addition to receiving an increment on top of the basic rate because of my late application for it, I was also given a substantial lump sum for the arrears. I decided to use this for something specific.

New wheelchair

I bought my new funky off-road all-terrain Trekinetic wheelchair with this pension windfall.

It arrived in July.

Computer

The main event during the year was the start of my new blog in April. I was getting pretty fed up with Blogger which was causing endless problems, and changes to the way Google/Blogger was doing things meant that my offline blog post editor ceased to function. Blogger’s own blog editor is clunky and quite horrible and I loathed using it. The final straw was that at a single stroke, ALL the photos on my 8-year-old blog simply vanished. I started to replace them, but people were still reporting that they could not see them, and I realised that the whole operation was a completely thankless task and I would be better counting my losses and moving elsewhere. So I started this WordPress blog. A steep learning curve, and I still haven’t got a decent home page up and running – I had hoped to have a gallery and other website features but have left that unfinished for now, and just concentrated on the blog. I don’t have a huge following and despite my early efforts, it shows no signs of increasing, but in the end it doesn’t matter – it is for my own pleasure and interest, and the small following that I do have (mostly people on the WOYWW blog hop) have provided me with so much friendship and encouragement – so I do know that a few people do enjoy my blog, even if the wider world hasn’t expressed much interest! I am now happily settled with WordPress and it all seems to be working better.

New software includes a brilliant recipe organiser app called Paprika. I have this installed on both the laptop and my iPad and they sync between each other. Downloading recipes is easy, and I use the iPad as a recipe book in the kitchen these days.

Also just added is my new vector drawing program, SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) for use with the cutting machine.

Kitties

Our 33rd wedding anniversary was also our kitties’ second birthday! This is what they looked like the first time we saw them, at 5 weeks, when they were still too little to leave their mother.

This is what they look like today.

They are a constant source of joy to us, and amusement too. They are so sweet-natured and fun, and full of love for us and for each other.

County Show

In May we went to the Devon County Show and had our usual brilliant day out. I treated myself to some new goodies for the kitchen, and the knives and sauté pan in particular are in constant use.

I’ve managed to slice myself with the knives a couple of times but these days I am generally treating these lethal blades with the utmost respect!!

Other kitchen equipment I bought during the year included a Ninja Foodi, a wonderful device which combines electric pressure cooker, air fryer and slow cooker. This also has a lot of use.

Unfortunately my high-speed blender (also visible in this photo) has recently developed a fault, and I have not had time to get it sorted yet. I am hoping it can be repaired, because managing with my bullet blender is not easy as it is very small.

Food

This leads me neatly on to the subject of food.

5:2 Diet

Over the last several years I had been on the 5:2 diet, drastically reducing my calorie intake on two days a week, and despite various ups and downs during that time and having to abandon the diet entirely for several months in 2015 when I was seriously ill with cancer, I managed to lose 4 stone in weight (56 pounds) and latterly, was managing to maintain my weight at that level by continuing with the diet. However, since the summer I have abandoned this diet and am still maintaining a healthy weight.

Whole-food plant-based

In the summer of this year, after searching for various recipes online, I gained a lot of knowledge about the benefits of a whole-food plant-based diet. When I first came across this I thought it too extreme and I was still eating meat (although not a lot) and never considered becoming vegetarian or vegan. However, since July, I have embraced this way of life more and more as a result of a lot of research, and have come to understand the huge health benefits and the ability to maintain a healthy weight. From the summer onwards, I have been transitioning over to this (although I still have a bit of dairy because I cannot make satisfactory non-dairy equivalents of kefir and yoghurt). Mostly, though, we have the almond milk which I make most days. I am now eating as much as I want and not restricting my intake at all, and have not only maintained a really healthy weight, but have lost a few extra pounds along the way. This year, I have lost half a stone (7 lb) and am happy to maintain my weight at this level.

I have spent a great deal of time in the kitchen this year as my energy levels have allowed. Initially I was prepping far too much and over-stocking the fridge, to the extent that I considered buying a large fridge to replace our fridge-freezer. I am now getting more organised and cook in bulk and freeze, so we’ve always got a supply of “ready meals” to turn to if I do not feel up to cooking. For a while I was downloading tons of recipes and desperate to try them all, but I now have a reasonably extensive repertoire of favourites and we are mostly eating those, although I do still explore new avenues. The fridge is now manageable again and I don’t think we really need a bigger one.

This is a way of life, a lifestyle, and not a diet as such. Nowadays I don’t think of eating all the stuff I used to eat and enjoy. It is not difficult to stick to, and even eating out doesn’t present much of a problem because these days most eateries cater for vegans. I do bulk orders of wholefood supplies online every couple of months, and most of my weekly grocery shop consists of fresh fruit and vegetables. We are continuing to eat home-made probiotics in the form of fermented dairy (yoghurt and kefir) and also kombucha which I make weekly.

I was making a lot of sourdough earlier in the year, but I am not doing that now. It is very labour intensive in that you’ve got to be there to deal with each stage, and it takes a long time. I have kept my sourdough starter going, though, and use that to make my fat-free whole-food savoury crackers, flatbreads and pancakes. I may go back to sourdough again in the future but in the meantime am restricting myself to eating less bread all round, and just making whole grain and seed bread in the bread maker, and freezing it sliced, so we can take it out slice by slice as required. The less refined food one eats, the better.

I still use a little oil occasionally in cooking but mostly sauté oil-free, and dry-roast my veggies in the oven. I make home-made soups, and stock from vegetable offcuts, so not much goes to waste. I have been doing a regular “recipe of the week” feature on this blog, when I come across something I have really enjoyed, and which I think others might like to attempt. Some of the more outré recipes containing obscure ingredients, or requiring specialist equipment, I have avoided posting because they have limited appeal for regular omnivores!

We have a little apple tree in the garden and this year it has been hugely productive, giving us the best-flavoured apples ever. I love them stewed, sweetened with a little stevia. They freeze brilliantly like this.

This new foodie adventure has taken up a lot of my time this year, which is probably why I have been less creative on the studio front. Now I am more organised, even though I still spend more time in the kitchen than I used to before the change over, I am hoping to be able to spend more time in my studio.

Stuff in the house

The troublesome cistern in our downstairs loo finally bit the dust and we had a new loo fitted, complete with a little sink on top of the cistern. The room is very small and there is no room for a hand-basin. I also took advantage of this alteration and had the room decorated in a fun theme, to make sitting on the throne a more entertaining experience! Welcome to the Drain Forest.

This all happened in July.

Bible Study group

This has been going steadily with a few breaks during the year. Our numbers are small, but the members are faithful, and I so love having them. I enjoy doing the preparation and making the visual aids, which I design on my desk-top publishing software and display on the TV screen.

Plans for the coming year

Wheelchair spoke guards

I would like to make some funky spoke guards for my new Trekinetic wheelchair. My normal wheelchair has mixed media ones with flowers on, which is not an appropriate style for this rather industrial-looking off-road job, so I am planning to make some embellished with gear wheels and other steampunky ideas. Definitely something for my cutting machine to get its teeth into.

Cutting machine

My Cougar cutting machine, which has been idle for too long, is about to get a good run for its money. The SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) software which I bought in December is giving me a lot more confidence in being able to transform my designs into cut reality. I am intending to design a series of templates for fun interactive mechanical-type cards, as well as album pages with pouches, tags etc. which should take a lot of the hassle out of designing books on an individual basis. I’ve seen printable templates along these lines on the Internet and thought I could do this myself, but with svg files instead.

My New Year Resolutions

Always a mistake to make them, because I always break them, but I can’t help myself.

1. Tomorrow I am going to stop procrastinating.

2. I am going to get the accounts completed in the first week of every month, and not have them hanging over me because I can’t get down to them.

3. Tidy up. My studio and office, and my side of the sitting room, are in a perpetual tip.

4. Linked with 3. Get rid of stuff! This includes going through my filing cabinets, and putting my shredder into overdrive.

5. Try and make inroads into my huge stash of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) and try not to add to it! It is taking over the house.

6. Use my cutting machine more.

7. Keep on top of my overwhelming email inbox.

8. Eat cake. Oh, no… that was from a previous year. I don’t do that now. (At least, only for an occasional treat.)

A very happy New Year to all my readers and followers, and may the coming months bring good health, happiness, and a flowering of creativity!