Featuring my new Instant Pot in a 70s inspired monoprint: two projects in one! This is the easiest monoprint where you put ink on a glass plate and then put the paper facedown and draw and press on it to make coloured areas. Don’t lean on it and use a sharp biro! The 70s is all about orange for me.
Let’s hope 2021 is a better year than this!
I have lined up a programme of projects which include:
Mastering my new Instant Pot cooker
Having progressed my meat and cake cooking, working on fish, veg and puddings.
Retro 70s homecrafts: I have a candlemaking and plant pot making kit and want to try macrame. Maybe that classic, a macrame owl.
Knitting: the DrWho Scarf continues and I have a pair of legwarmers planned. Maybe this year I will even do a jumper!
Monoprint: I tried this this year and liked it, so will be doing more next year.
Reading: I am working on appreciating difficult c20th architecture, starting strongly with a book on c20th churches. I will them find some in the real world and draw them. My plant pot kit also feeds into this as it involves mixing your own concrete!
Favourite Books of 2020
I haven’t actually been reading that much this year, but some books I particularly enjoyed are:
Beowulf by Rosemary Sutcliff, a retelling of the classic viking myth. Also King Arthur by the same author, epic and weirder than you expect.
The Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser about the reivers of the Scottish border, Alistair’s bandit ancestors.
The Cabaret of Plants by Richard Mabey about interesting and weird plant biology and history.
How do we Look and The Eye of Faith by Mary Beard, to accompany the Civilisation series. I love Mary Beard.
Favourite TV
The Crown, surely needs no explanation
Queens Gambit, drama about a girl chess champion
Classic Tom Baker era Dr Who
Poirot, ok some of these are re-watches
What have you enjoyed/ recommend blog readers?
Well, I hardly need to digress on what a bloody awful year 2020 has been. Some much needed good news emerged in the form of a vaccine being developed and Trump losing the election.
Other good things that kept me going included having our new house and garden to work on and inhabit (including my own study), sewing which I did a lot of, jigsaws and cooking.
I am now running my own Dungeons and Dragons game, which keeps me busy with plotting and researching. And devising deadly dungeons for the adventurers to suffer in!
Workwise it was actually quite a successful year once we were back off a seemingly interminable furlough period, working mostly from home is actually quite productive.
Things I need to work on for next year include doing more art, doing more exercise and reading more. I am also determined to crack knitting, having started well with my epic Dr Who scarf project.
Things I am hoping to do next year are to see family and friends, go to the theatre and restaurants and go on holiday, but we will see.
I love Scrabble (although Alistair usually beats me). This 1980s vintage set didn’t have a bag for the pieces so I made one in green needlecord to coordinate with the box.
Really enjoying making loads of these to stick on our front window. From outside it looks nice for passers by and from inside cheers up the gloomy winter view. I used to love making these as a kid, its when you unfold and the design is revealed! Also an eco way to use up those bits of printer paper where it’s just printed one random line at the top!
Might try some more winter papercrafts...does anyone remember making stained glass windows with bits of tissue paper stuck in them?
I bought this lovely jersey fabric in a forest with deer print to make pyjama trousers, which is my current project.
My big project for early 2021 is a Dr Who scarf (Tom Baker era) knitted using the authentic BBC instructions. We are currently watching all the Tom Baker Dr Who series and they are brilliant.
https://www.openculture.com/2015/12/instructions-for-knitting-the-iconic-dr-who-scarf.html
Also I plan to finally crack making a pair of proper jeans and sew a waistcoat for Alistair, who seems to be getting lots of use out of the one I made him years ago. (Working from home in the winter makes you realise how cold it is with the heating off).
Starting to look forward to the end of 2020. I hardly need to say what a nightmare this year has been for everyone.
Here’s a list of supplies I found essential in 2020...
Masks
Sanitiser
Soap
Hand cream
Jigsaws
Craft supplies
Gin (or any other alcoholic drink)
Gardening tools
Laptop (Alistair’s)
Office chair (liberated from my work)
Slippers
Dungeons and Dragons books for our gaming
Cake (preferably home made)
