Saturday, March 6, 2021

Getting Crafty

RHYS BOWEN: At the beginning of an unforeseen length of isolation I assumed I’d use the time well. Not only would I write stellar books but I would take up all those things I planned to do during my life and never had done. I was going to perfect playing my Welsh harp. I was going to take my knowledge of Italian beyond ordering meals and talking about the weather. Ditto with my Welsh. I have both programs downloaded onto my computer. Both untouched to date.

 Also I was going to be really crafty and make all sorts of wonderful things. Well, I did make some masks before you could buy them, including one from a bra! It looked okay but since I couldn’t breathe with it on was hardly a great success. 


 I bought a big cross stitch picture and I actually started it. I’ve done about an inch along the top by now. At this rate I’ll finish it by 2030.


I cut up many lengths of yarn intending to thread my loom and weave a scarf, but they sit, draped over the loom, not threaded, not ready to begin even. But I did knit an outfit for a German doll given to my daughter Clare as a baby by my best friend when we were visiting in Germany. Clare never really took to the doll (it has a carved wooden head) and so it lay there, too dear to throw away. But the doll was dressed as a baby and I thought he ought to be a little German boy. So I’ve made him lederhosen and a traditional green jacket. I’ve decided i can knit doll’s clothes. I like something I can finish in one evening.

 One thing I did do a lot of, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, was watercolor painting. I found it calming and I liked that I was totally absorbed and so did not worry while I was working. Having done landscapes I tried my hand at portraits and painted several of the family for Christmas gifts.

This was a picture of my mother, done from an old black and white photograph. It does look like her!

 But I notice I haven’t picked up my paints since Christmas. IN fact I haven’t done much in the way of creativity except for starting on my next book--and that’s because the word DEADLINE looms. But I think I feel burned out… too much underlying worry for too long, and then adding additional worry about crazy mobs storming the Capitol. Now all I want is for life to return to normal. I want to feel free to pop to the store whenever I feel like it, not just during senior hour, to meet friends for lunch, to go to a theater again. I’m sure you all feel the same.

 So who else has found her artistic and crafty side during this time? I saw a post from Jenn that she had ordered masses of yarn, intending to do great knitting projects.

I know Hallie has been doing jigsaws like crazy. Has anyone else found a hidden artistic bent? A new hobby that will be continued after the pandemic lifts? I think my new hobby will be research for upcoming travel!
And who found they were more creative? Less creative? More inspiration? Less inspiration?   For me it was the latter. I find I have had to drag out the words for my books, force myself to sit at the computer.  Now I have my vaccines maybe I'll be bursting with new creativity--make that cross stitch, weave that scarf, oh, and write a few brilliant books along the way.

AND drum roll please! 
The winner of Ellie Griffith's book is Joan Emerson.  Joan please email me at authorrhysbowen@gmail.com with your street address and I'll see that a copy is sent to you.  Congratulations.

58 comments:

  1. Sad to say, I haven’t done anything even vaguely crafty unless you count baking as being creative. I did a LOT of that . . . .
    I read a lot of books, too [but that’s not really anything new]. And neither of those will count as a new hobby.
    I didn’t find myself more creative or more inspired, just frustrated and concerned . . . .

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  2. Let's see if my comment makes it. I think I have pandemic fatigue. Since I am up at 2 am I am going to try to tackle that writing project. I do not think that I am crafty except for knitting. I have not knitted since University.

    Diana

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    1. RHYS, I am impressed by your watercolor painting talent. If I tried to paint watercolor portraits, my water color paintings would look like a child's fingerpainting.

      My art is more like doodling.

      Diana

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  3. No, I have NOT become more crafty (ha ha) or artistic during the past year stuck at home.

    Not surprisingly, I am focused on improving my baking/cooking repertoire, but that's because I am FOOD-OBSESSED. Living alone has never stopped me from trying new recipes and storing the leftovers in my fridge/freezer. My edible balcony garden doubled in size last year out of necessity since our farmers markets were closed until May. I am glad I did so since the FM were a sad facsimile of their past selves. I bought some grow lights and ordered all my 2021 seeds in advance and have been growing my salad greens, herbs, and other leafy greens all winter for the first time. The pink oyster mushroom kit has been a fun, beautiful, tasty addition to my indoor garden, too.

    RHYS: Those watercolour paintings are beautiful! I hope you picked up the paintbrush again when you have time and inspiration strikes.

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    1. your garden and cooking are inspirational Grace!

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    2. ROBERTA: Thanks, I certainly ramped up my gardening ambitions. And I was got myself out of a cooking rut although I had to skip/modify recipes due to my nightshade/spice allergies.

      DEBS' recommendation of Milk Street has been the best find for me since I love global cuisine. I checked out the cookbooks, downloaded recipes/watched videos and am only in month 2 of a 6-month trial subscription for only $1!

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    3. You are such an inspiration, Grace! I swoon over your food photos!

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    4. Grace, I am envious of your leafy garden! That was another thing I planned to do but dudnt

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    5. HANK: Too kind, I am so glad you enjoy my foodie posts!

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    6. JRW, thanks. My major limitation is that I don't get a lot of direct sun on my balcony (my apartment faces north & west), so I am restricted to growing leafy greens, herbs and some root veggies such as radishes and beets. And I have a nemesis squirrel named SATAN who kept digging and knocking my planters over last year!

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  4. I admire your industry, Rhys; painting and cross stitching and writing books. I did some knitting in the early days, and revised an old novel that I loved 15 years ago, when I wrote it (and nobody wanted to buy it). Finished quite a few jigsaw puzzles. But since November I have kind of hit a wall. Yes, I'm doing more paid work now, and I have had some stressful deadlines. Yes, I not only have pandemic fatigue, as Diana mentioned, I also have some residual nearly-froze-to-death trauma to sort through. But productive? No.

    Fortunately for me, you lovely ladies have created a lot of interesting alternative realities I can escape into. I've done a lot of that. It has probably saved whatever sanity I have left.

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    1. You guys in Texas have really suffered Gigi. And let's not get started on your governor. I think we should all get awards for surviving!!

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    2. Thank you, Gigi. I realized early on that my job was to help my readers stay connected. So I’ve done loads of Zooms and posted almost daily on my Facebook and Twitter

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  5. Like you, I sewed a few masks early on, but they didn't turn out to be a good design and weren't comfortable. Otherwise not one crafty thing, and I wasn't even a very inspired gardener last summer. T least I got my sourdough mojo back last fall!

    All my creativity went into words. I wrote four books and four short stories, including one novel not under contract, a new project that so far hasn't sold. But I love it, and am not done with it yet.

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    1. I'll take your creativity, Edith!

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    2. Four books, Edith! Wow! I feel I work hard with 2!

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    3. Wow, you've been writing steadily. A lot of writers have found that hard to do. Bravo!

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  6. Back when I was in my 20s and teaching third grade at a public school in Manhattan, I got together with a group of teacher friends and crafted - crocheting was the thing. Also macrame (remember that?) But I'm not a natural crafter. I'm a cook. So my artistic efforts get channeled into seafood stews and eggplant parms. Painting and cross stitching? For me it would be like trying to swim the English Channel. (And it's funny how a deadline can turn one into a little dynamo of productivity.)

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    1. Ah, but you are a wonderful cook, Hallie. I was even less inspired than usual
      Because there was no restaurant to go to when I didn’t want to cook

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  7. Rhys, your water painting projects are nice. I did do a painting project with my job, and it was fun. It's the clean-up, I didn't like.

    At the start of the pandemic, I did make three masks, one of which was of no use. Then I was quilting like crazy, but after awhile, I got bored with the process.

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  8. I really haven't done much of anything except read. Surprisingly I haven't even done a jigsaw puzzle even though they are the best for a mindless escape.

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  9. Rhys, I love your art--you're so talented on so many fronts! I've done a LOT of cooking, and writing, and lots of work for the Key West Friends of the library. Nothing crafty sad to say...

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  10. Love your watercolors. Please pick up those brushes again. On the whole I am with the gang above. The new goal is to lose the 10 lbs. I have gained during lockdown. Here comes gardening, hoping that will help. Yes, it would be nice to go into a grocery store and not have to drive 11 miles in the dark to be there at 7am. Keep writing friends, reading has been my constant through the covid voyage. Many thanks for books keeping me somewhat sane.

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    1. I hear you Jude. At least, the sun is getting up sooner and sooner.

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    2. Sunrise before 6:30 am has been nice but Daylight Savings Time kicks in next weekend. At least the increasing amount of daylight is keeping both me and my plants happy.

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    3. Now we have our shots we are still going to the store at 7 am! Habit hard to break, I fear

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  11. One knitted scarf, one lap quilt sitting on the frames (would you believe I hurt myself putting it up and now I can't use my arm to quilt yet). A handful of new recipes. I did complete a novella last fall. And a short story before Christmas.

    Rhys, your landscape would look great in my living room, just saying!

    But, the good news is I got the one-and-done covid vaccine yesterday morning!! Noside effects to speak of except a sore arm (because I indulged myself and read quite a bit yesterday and didn't move my arm enough). Hoping this is the light at the end of a long and horribly frustrating tunnel--for us all!

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    1. Flora, that is great news! So glad to hear the J&J vaccine is rolling out!

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    2. Great news, Flora. I got sore thumb from cross stitch and had to stop!

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  12. No crafts, alas, no major closet cleanouts, though I've put the annual village shredding event on my must-do calendar. With the demise of my oven, I've experimented with stovetop recipes with great success. Onwards to the garden and all the winter-loving weeds that have taken root.

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    1. Has your oven been replaced?

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    2. Nothing available after talking to four different suppliers. We have a countertop air oven and a grill for spring/summer/fall use.

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  13. No artistic or crafty side here, nothing accomplished but I’m still alive and reading, walking and hoping for better times.

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  14. Shalom Reds and friends. Fortuitously, last year, I started a part-time job in a garden store just as the lockdown restrictions were laid down by the state. The longer I live, the more I believe that many traits are passed down from our forebears. In the last forty years of his life, my dad, who lived in a small apartment in the Bronx, created a menagerie of plants in the corner of his small living room in front of his one eastern facing window. He also discovered travel in those years and he would add to his flock of house plants, taking cuttings of plants from his travels. Well, I, at about the same age, started gardening. I started with rose bushes and went on to plant and nurture some 30 more perennials in the time that I lived in that house.

    Now I live in an apartment, with not much sun coming into our living room except in the winter, late afternoons. Nonetheless, I started a small collection of house plants. I bought two coleus plants at the garden store. One died, but the other took off and needed to be repotted several times since the spring of last year. Now the one plant has become 4 potted plants and grows like gangbusters. My roommate gave me a Christmas cactus which someone gave him. It is thriving in the indoor light, but if it doesn’t get some sun, when the weather changes, will never flower again. Another plant whose name I neglected to remember, and looks like a miniature Florida palm tree. Without the sun, it doesn’t grow. However, it doesn’t die. I also have a Golden Devil’s Ivy, which I received as a small cutting rooted in soil. That plant, which started so inauspiciously, now cascades over the edge of the terra cotta pot in which it is planted. Seven plants in all. They all sit on the top of one of my two pianos. My goal for the next two weeks is to clear off the top of the other piano and start some seedlings and see what I can do with indoor light. I may try and rig up some grow lamps for that project.

    Rhys, I am so impressed by the two water colors. I sometimes try making pencil sketches when I am out and about. But not this past year.

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    1. David, I always take my sketch books when I travel.

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  15. Just before lockdown I moved into an apartment with no patio so no outside plants for me. I have been collecting quite a few indoor plants.
    As for crafting it’s been a lot of bread making, cakes, cookies, and cocoa bombs for gifting. And the last few months crocheting. Many many hats for relatives and charity and now working on a lovely teal cardigan for myself. Then perhaps I can finally finish the summer cardigan for my daughter which did not cooperate last year.

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  16. Rhys, your watercolors are lovely. That was the one crafty thing I MEANT to do during the pandemic, but I haven't even managed to get the paints out. I've found the whole year to be incredibly creativity sapping. Writing has been hard and I have certainly not been motivated to clean out closets! However, spring is coming (assuming our plants here recover from Snowmageddon), I've had my shots, and it is becoming more fun than depressing to daydream about a trip to England...

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    1. Maybe we can meet there in the fall? You, me and Louise?

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  17. I thought I would subscribe to an online exercise or yoga class, read a ton of books, plant a vegetable garden for the first time in over a decade and tear through the first draft of my next book. None of this happened.

    This time last year, I was saying we were living in the beginning of a disaster movie, complete with ominous news on the TV, runs on the grocery store and a looming sense of dread. We should have known better than to think lockdown was going to be a self-improvement seminar. Whats the goal of the protagonists in every disaster movie? To survive. Period. So if you're still here when you get your second shot, you're a winner.

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    1. Julia, thank you for these two wonderful paragraphs. Comforting my soul this morning. Not to the second shot yet, but I feel that I am winning.

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    2. Well said! There's been a sense of pressure for some people, that they should be accomplishing more, while it's been an upsetting time for so many.

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    3. Thanks for that, Julia. You've improved my outlook this morning!

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  18. Rhys, the painting of your mother is so dear. I'm impressed that you could paint the eyeglasses, with watercolor paint!

    I have not been nearly as crafty as I used to be. One reason is no sewing room, or room to sew. All my supplies are stored higgelty piggelty, still in boxes, and I haven't the attention span, anyway.

    I did paint the LFL, making each of the three sides a different season of flowers that are planted here. And I planted many, many more. And spent the winter plotting how to double the size of my garden. Last fall we put in two sour cherry trees, plus some native berry shrubs. Two pear trees arrived the other day, so they got planted. Now awaiting two hazelnut trees, boysenberry, blueberry, raspberry and blackberry canes, many packets of seeds, plus a lot more. I may have overdone it, or we may never again need to buy jam at the store. Stay tuned.

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  19. I have begun to crochet again. Okay, full disclosure. I bought the pattern book and ordered the yarn! I have completed one book and begun another and I've gotten very "bakey" much to my husband's delight. I intended to refresh (and update) my French. One lesson down....

    I am longing for life to return to normal where all of these pursuits can be discussed over lunch sans (that French lesson paid off) mask!

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  20. I've been successful in a few areas. I decided I needed to take up counted cross-stitch again (smaller projects only) and succeeded in whipping out two framed all hangings--one Halloween-themed and one Christmas-themed. I've started on a very small dragon sitting on a bookshelf, but I haven't worked on it for weeks. It's calling to me!

    I also bought myself a small Instant Pot (3 quarts) and have tried out six or seven new recipes so far. I have another one set for next week.

    I'm excited about something else new, although it's hardly creative. Since I'm an obsessive Jeopardy viewer, I decided to tackle my poorest categories--world geography, US presidents, and British royalty--by learning more about them, so that I can do better playing Jeopardy from my couch! I bought an 18 x 29 laminated world map and was astonished to see that Russia is much larger than even China or India! I'm sure most of you know that, but it was a shock to me. Then I started reading about each US president (online), one by one. I haven't gotten that far, but already I have been thrilled to outwit the contestants multiple times on both Jeopardy and Master Minds. I will definitely continue with this.

    My grandchildren gave me an adorable Lego set for Valentine's Day, which features a cute brown bear. It's not finished yet, as I am definitely spatially challenged! But I'll keeping working at it.

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  21. Rhys, this is a great topic, and as a watercolorist, I am so touched and inspired by your landscape.
    Since March of 2020, this has been my GERMAN year. I'm fluent in French and Spanish, and get a lot of stimulation and enjoyment from learning languages. I've always wanted to learn German, and I'm proud of the progress I've made. Every week now, I talk and write with Germans I have met through conversationexchange.com
    I've loved the isolation for all the extra time it's given me.
    I've hated the pandemic for all the obvious reasons.
    I am eager to spend normal time with my grandkids again.
    As for writing, through this past year I've written and edited a psychological suspense novel that will come out in December, under the new pseudonym Sylvie Perry.

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  22. I've yet to finish the blankets I've been crocheting since 2019. I do know that I've always put down my hooks when stressed so it seems normal to not crochet though I do miss it. Since I moved this past year, I've purchased and used some power tools - saws, sanders and drills. I like the sander best. I can do subtle shaping. I need to get more comfortable with the saw but one small step at a time. That and I'd like my fingers to stay on my hands. No new cooking getting done. I moved to a mobile home park, but I'm still not really sure of my space between homes and to be honest I hate the sun but I'd like to plant a couple of roses. I like roses just not sure of the amount of sun that I have in the areas I could plant in. I saw a picture of Jenn's snapdragons yesterday. Beautiful. I really like your paintings, Rhys.

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    1. Power tools? I’m impressed. I always wanted to try woodworking but never did

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  23. I have not found any hidden craftiness in myself during all the time I've spent at home during the relative downtime over the last 347 days.

    Because I had so much time on my hands, I was able to craft the most articles in my series The Cassette Chronicles that I've done in a year. I managed to turn out 48 pieces in all. I had two scheduled off weeks and the other two weeks were when I simply decided I wasn't going to write a new article that week. To my credit, I think, the first of those weeks came after I had written a piece for 33 straight weeks.

    Because I didn't have any live concerts to cover, I ended up reviewing a few more brand new CDs last year than I've been doing the last couple of years. I'm continuing that again this year too.

    The same kind of goes for my book reviewing as well. I'm getting the same amount of books from Mystery Scene, but I've been doing a bit more reading of my own large back stock of books as I try to cut down my piles of unread material.

    It's nothing like trying to be creative in terms of writing new fiction but hey, it has what has kept me busy when I'm not watching a whole lot of TV or at work.

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  24. Well, I did not learn to play the harmonica. Unless you count just the 'fa la la la la la la la la' part of Deck the Halls. Nailed that. I did make a shrine via Zoom with a quirky Brooklyn museum called Morbid Anatomy. Dedicated it to my book out on submission, but book has not sold yet, so may need to revisit that. I made 4th of July cards and Halloween cards, but by Christmas I was over it. I had my first vaccine shot, though, and am ready for my world to open up!

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  25. I used to get the craft itch every few years and make something but I guess that itch has been scratched. I think about doing cross stitch again or needlepoint but I can't read and stitch at the same time, so guess which won? I design (or steal a cool idea) and make a valentine for Frank every year. They are usually humorous and that seems to quench any creativity urge for a while. I haven't done anything with gardening for a while and now I'm in a holding pattern to see what survived the freeze. It'll be interesting!

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  26. Beautiful watercolors, Rhys! Yes, I do have a mountain of yarn to contend with - ugh! On a positive note, I just started knitting again two weeks ago. We’ll see how it goes.

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  27. I have a board on my Pinterest page entitled, "Crafts I Might Actually Do," which should indicate just how unmotivated and untalented I am at crafts. That hasn't changed during the pandemic shut-in. At the beginning of being shut in, I did get into baking cakes and fixing different foods for meals. I got past that last June, although I do occasionally get the itch to fix a new dish. My reading and reviewing was way down last year, but it has picked up some this year. It still has a way to go to reach "normal."

    Rhys, your paintings are lovely. People are so hard to do, and you did a wonderful job on your mother. I'm betting you will pick up your paint brushes again and explore your painting further. The outfits for the doll must be a most satisfactory accomplishment. Of course, I selfishly want writing to be your #1 passion.

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