All the things I made in 2019

Whenever I make things, I feel like it takes me a really long time. Life gets in the way you know, and while it may take a mere second to knit a stitch, it takes thousands of seconds to knit the many stitches in a tiny sock

But then I look into my closet and realise that I have more handmade scarves and chunky house socks that I can possibly wear in my lifetime.

It’s easy to lose sight of what you’ve achieved when you’ve been working slowly. Crafting has always been a steady hobby that I turned to when I had free time or spare hands, but it hasn’t been something that I’ve kept tally of the same way I keep stock of my professional accomplishments on my resume.

In the first half of 2019, life was busy. Work was stressful, I was training for a 520km relay bike ride, planning a wedding and preparing for a move overseas. I had a few craft projects on the go, but I don’t think I finished any of them.

One thing I did make was the flower arrangement that went into my hair for my wedding. I bought the flower posies from the Collingwood Farmers Market (Hans picked them out), snipped the rosemary branches off the local church’s front garden, and assembled it with floral wire and a few bobby pins.

I used some handspun wool to make a few tiny beanies (I really mean tiny), some shaped like chickens, and also some tiny amigurumi octopuses to give to friends.

In the second half of 2019, life slowed down.

I quit work, stepped onto a plane to the United States, and moved my life overseas. My visa status meant I had to wait several months before I was allowed to work, and that meant in turn that I had a lot of crafting time, whether I liked it or not. Unfortunately for me, most of my wool, yarn, spindles and fabric was packed in a box and sequestered on a ship somewhere on the ocean, the location of which was only known to Australia Post and USPS.

I was without the bulk of my crafting supplies, beyond the few small things I packed into my suitcase.

Tiny crafting things included sock yarn and double pointed needles. I knitted a pair of socks for me and a pair of socks for Hans. Hans’s socks are grey so they don’t get a picture, but you can see a patch of grey on my pink sock toe where I ran out of yarn.

I found a bag of suspect looking yarn at a rummage sale and turned that into leg warmers after I realised that Chicago weather was freezing my legs off. I have not gotten the hang of making items that are meant to match actually match. Like all my other twinned objects, one half is oddly smaller than the other.

Since we were planning to stay in the states for at least five years, I had enough justification to buy a sewing machine. I purchased a 70 year old, fully metal geared, Riccar sewing machine. It was too heavy for me to lug so I called a lyft for what would really be only a 10 minute walk home.

The sewing machine has helped me hem all the oversized pj’s I’ve bought from yard sales. I’ve also made a few small things like aprons, reusable produce bags, a laptop case, a cutlery roll, and a tissue holder.

For National Indigenous History Month in November, I went to a few crafting circles. At the first event, I learnt beading. At the second event, I learnt how to make beaded necklaces. And at the third event I learnt how to make corn husk dolls. According to my quick google image search, some people are selling corn husk dolls for extravagant amounts of money on etsy. I don’t recommend buying or selling them. Just make them.

Cornelia Husk takes a swig of her russian mule. It’s cold right now so she’s put on a hand spun, hand knit wool beanie.

Christmas came around and I made some stockings to go on the mantlepiece and tree ornaments, despite having no tree. The stockings were zippy to assemble, but beading names on it took weeks. I learnt that my lamp light is misleading, and the blue beads are actually green.

In this picture you can see a glimpse of my basket of yarn, plus the top half of my navajo spindle. The blue green cone of yarn on the spindle is the closest thing we have to a christmas tree in this house. Despite being fifty times bigger than my sparrow sized turkish spindle, the navajo spindle made it with me in my suitcase. It was too big to fit into any of the shipping boxes, but could squeeze into the largest suitcase when placed vertically.

Next year, I plan to make mushrooms for my christmas tree, if I do get one.