all made up with nowhere to go

I have had a cold for the last...week? I felt really grim when I finished work last Saturday, but it had also been a really bad shift - it was busy and we were a person down, so yeah.

Now I'm at the sneezy/snotty stage, which eugh. I think I may actually spend the day in bed, if I can think of something to do whilst being there. (This is the downside of all my creative stuff being mostly downstairs now, heh).

And my hands have been hurting to varying degrees during this time. Which could mean this is a stress response (and I think sometimes it is), but also it could be my immune system being all "HEY! LISTEN!" Which I also suspect it might be. IDK. I am not a doctor, and apparently it's still not arthritis, so who t f knows??

I'm looking at my hands right now as I type this, and I can see that my right hand is swollen. My left hand feels it, but doesn't look as bad. I wish I knew what was going on here.

Anyway, that aside, I sorted through some more of my mum's/gran's yarn stash - the stuff I don't want is going to charity shops or the local college - and found a whole load more crocheted squares, including what looks like the start of a blanket like my childhood one. Which confirms to me that my gran made these, since I know she made my blanket.

So I have unjoined all the squares I'd put together so far, so that I can put them around this rectangle instead, but also so I can make a more coherent big blanket. I'm honestly glad I didn't do anything more than slip stitch them together, as it made taking them apart really easy.

But part of the reason I decided to go through the yarns was because I was looking for 100% (or high percentage) wool to felt. Because after almost a year of feeling like I didn't want to do felting/didn't know what I was doing, I am sort of back on that! Partly because thinking about art dolls got me thinking of ways to make them, and 3D felting is one way I can do (some of) that. I didn't think I wanted to learn 3D felting, but I appear to have changed my mind about that!

But also partly because I sorted some yarn that I found in the cupboard under the stairs a few months ago, and then proceeded to knit three scarves from the blue shades (as it is my favourite colour). I washed them, as the yarn had been under the stairs for more than forty years, in all likelihood, and some of them felted. I don't mind, since the scarves were just for me. But then I was like, "I could make my own felt from some of these yarns!" by knitting them up and chucking them in the wash. I don't know that it will work for all of them, but I think I have a fairly good grasp of what a wool yarn feels like? And assuming they were mostly my gran's, she seems to have used high percentage wool a lot. So I shall experiment. Although not right now, given how my hands feel.

I impulse bought some more felting stuff - it should have been delivered on Thursday, but I knew I would not be home when the postman brought it, so I had to rearrange it to come this coming Tuesday. Which turned out to be the only day where I am home as I am working/doing other stuff the rest of the week. So. Yeah. Although I haven't regretted the purchase in the time since I bought it, so yay?

I feel like this post should have a more coherent end to it, but it isn't going to. I'm stopping it here.

I am currently very impressed with my council's bulky item collection team. I submitted a request to have the tumble dryer (and some other stuff) picked up at the beginning of last week, and they came around twenty four hours later and picked it up!

\o/

I'm pleased about that, because it had already been out there ten days from the date me and Jackie moved it, and I feel self-conscious about a lot of stuff being out there, even though I don't do it that often (last time was literal years ago).

~

In other news, I made another sketchbook wrap (link goes to my ko-fi), partly for myself, and partly as a test to see if it would be a viable thing to sell/offer as a commissionable object. It took me around 20 hours to make and, at £10 an hour (which is slightly less than current UK minimum wage), I don't think anyone is going to want to pay me £200 for one.

I mean, there are ways for it to take less time - this was all hand-sewn, because that's how the original tutorial I watched had done it. So, like, I could machine sew parts of it, or make it less faffy (I didn't even put any decorations like special stitches or beads on this one I just made, and it still took that long!) But honestly, I dunno. Maybe I need more confidence in myself to think that my work is worth £200, and someone might buy it.

I know this is a problem with all hand-crafted things. I used to underprice my work SO MUCH when I was younger and I probably still do it now - the prices on the embroideries in my shop are guesstimates, but they're closer to the prices they should be.

I am mostly just venting my frustration. I know there's nothing I can do because, as I have repeatedly said to former bosses, you can't force people to buy things.

I think also I am feeling a bit frustrated with the felting, because I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't feel like I have any concrete ideas about anything, and that's leeching off into other things. That said, I did find a tutorial in one of the Stitch back issues I have for making your own felt from wool, but it is wet felting, which I'm not really interested in, but who knows till I have a go, right? (It just feels like an incredible faff to me, and I'm too tired to faff with stuff).

~

Anyway, that's all I have for now, I think. Life is very much a work, sleep, video game cycle right now, and that's not terribly interesting.