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I hope you enjoy reading my posts, and please leave me a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and will try to visit you in return.

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You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.


This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others, including my favourite right now, parchment, both traditional skills and Groovi, very relaxing and calming to do.

I have decided to put some structure into my blog so that each day will have something of a theme.
Monday- for Mindfulness; Tuesday - Tidy Up Day; Wednesday - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday; Thursday - Technique and Tips; Friday - Finish Off Day; Saturday - Start Something New; Sunday - Anything Goes
These themes are not hard and fast and will be changed if I feel the need.

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Enjoy whatever craft you do.



Why am I showing a picture of an Olympic gold medal from London 2012?  I hope it might become clear as I go on.

When you were a baby, you did not know how to run a race.  That might sound a strange thing and an obvious thing to say, but think about it.  You had to learn over years.

Very few people are blessed with the ability to achieve high levels in anything straight away.  There are, as always, exceptions to every rule.  My son proved to be the exception when he turned up at our caravan, where we were at the edge of the lake.  He got on to our friend's windsurfing, one that was very difficult to balance, with a huge sail.  He was full of confidence and we all expected him to fall off, but he just took off and sailed very happily for at least an hour.

I have been reading about how Carl Hester and Charlotte DuJardin trained Valegro to become the best dressage horse in the world.  It took careful work and years to gradually bring him to the stage of winning two Olympic gold medals.

With any of the crafts or hobbies we take up, we should start at the beginning and build a good foundation.  If you rush to do the advanced things straight away, you might be lucky but more likely have problems and then lose interest.  That is a shame.  

If you look at the parchment work of Linda Williams, the colouring of Gail Sydenhan and Tina Cox, to name just three, do not expect to match their work straightaway.  They have been learning for years and will tell you they are still learning.  They all started at the beginning and built a strong foundation.  I bet they did not produce beautiful picot on their first day.

The same applies to any hobby or craft.  Nothing worth doing is learned quickly.   Start at the beginning and enjoy learning and practicing.  The day you stop learning should be the day you shuffle off this mortal coil.

3 comments:

Lynne Bishop said...

Thought you were off to compete to begin with there Maggie. You are right parchment takes lots of practice and many mistakes. Worth it though when a piece turns out right. X

Sue C said...

This is so very true, I tried to explain to my granddaughters that things don't always go the way they thought especially when they are doing something new. My eldest granddaughter will spend hours on a drawing then screw it up because its gone wrong in her eyes or stop doing a mixed media piece where as the younger one will take on board my 'happy accident' way & get on with it. Every day is a school day is also one of our family sayings in other words we are always learning.
Wouldn't life be boring though if we knew everything at the beginning !!
Hope you have another great crafty day x

Sarah Brennan said...

So true Maggie. We are all on a learning curve, just at different points.