I've been doing some rethinking since I went back to work in January. My promotion means that I am (mostly) enjoying my job more than I did last year, but it is also sapping my energy and my brain rather dramatically. I have already pulled out of a swap I had signed up for and probably won't be engaging in any challenges, classes, swaps or anything else like that this year. I am also seriously considering closing down my Etsy and MadeIt shops, which hardly sold anything anyway, as I don't have the time to promote them and do all that sort of stuff.
But I am not going to stop being creative! I have pretty much decided to spend this year having FUN with creativity. I am no longer going to try to make things with a view to selling them (not that I would knock back offers, you understand...) I am not even necessarily just going to do my own designs - there are a few things I want to knit using - gasp - other people's patterns! And I want the time to read some of the vast multitude of craft books and magazines that I have, and to play with materials, and to try some techniques here and there, and not have to worry about whether or not they are saleable and whether I have time to try to flog them.
Blogging will happen when I have time.
I have mentioned that we went to Adelaide in January. Here are some pictures I took:
A hotel in Mt Gambier had some very fine cast iron lace work on the outside, and some delightful Art Nouveau embossed wallpaper on the stairs.
And, among various lovely places where local caves and sinkholes have been turned into damp, pretty sunken gardens, was Umpherston Cave , a completely barmy folly of a garden. Lush ... verdant ... bonkers ... And we found it hilarious that tourists (and locals) pay money to attend possum feeding sessions there. In Melbourne we have to wade through possums eating everything in our gardens every night! (Maybe we should open our gardens to the paying public from South Australia!)
And as we just happened to spend an afternoon in the Coonawarra, after which one or two ... crates ... of wine followed us home, we paid a quick visit to Penola and the new Mary MacKillop museum and the restored schoolhouse.
There are more pictures, which can wait till next time I get round to blogging.
Oh, and crafting is happening. But a Dr Who scarf takes a VERY LONG TIME to knit and isn't very interesting to photograph more than a couple of times during the process, and that's basically what I am doing right now. For Wombat who decided he 'needed' a proper Dr Who Scarf.
