Today I have closed the Conscious Crafties Knitted By A Tee shop.
Why?
Lots of reasons. Mostly because I was paying for it and I wasn’t getting any work or sales from it.
So what if you want to buy something from me?
Contact me directly!
robyn@designedtoatee.co.uk will land you right in my inbox and we can work from there!
Hope to hear from you soon!
I’d say I’m sorry about that but really? I’m not. Things happen. Things don’t happen. Ya know. Life.
But I have just updated the privacy policy to align with GDPR (hey, I’m only 6 days late!). And some other bits and pieces, like the Welcome page and the About Me page, so I thought I’d pop over to here and give y’all a thrill.
Are you thrilled?
For the record, I keep almost no data on anyone. My digital data is kept by Conscious Crafties. Anything physical I have is under lock and key and I have the only key.
So your data is safe with me.
So what have I been doing?
Some of this. Some of that.
Some of the other.
I’ve been knitting and crocheting and turning 49 and planning Adam’s 9th and just general living.
I’ve had incredibly pain-filled days.
I’ve had perfectly normal days.
I’ve had mentally bad days.
I’ve had mentally good days.
I’ve just been being me.
How are you?
First of all, the sharp-eyed among you will realise that the URL of the site has changed. My former web host, aka my brother, decided to shut down his server and so we’ve migrated to a new host (NameCheap, if anyone cares) and given me a new URL. Which is actually my same URL that I’ve used for the company website since I started it seven years ago. Six years ago? Some amount of years ago.
But don’t worry about changing your bookmarks or that you’ll miss something because Leyser.org/TeeBlog will get you directly to designedtoatee.co.uk/TeeBlog. That’s the front page of the entire site now. It’s a nice picture of me, yeah?
Of course, if you don’t care about looking at my working or buying things from one of my shops (And why not? Huh?) you can add a new bookmark. To get directly here, to the blog, you need to use http://www.designedtoatee.co.uk/TeeBlog/Blog.
Or you can come through the front door. That’s okay. 😀
Let’s see, what else…
We’ve purchased and moved into our new house. OUR new house. As in, we own it. Weeeeelll, us and the bank, at least. But we can do whatever we want to it. And we are. And we will. And it is awesome in be here. I’ll be posting some before and after pictures at some point. Major changes coming, actually, starting with a complete bathroom refit.
My mental health is good. My diabetes seems to be under control. My fibro/early degenerative disease/arthritis kicks my ass and steals my spoons on a regular basis.
But I’m knitting. And crocheting. And doing tapestry. And sewing. And being a mum and a wife. And I have just bought a drop spindle and some wool and a book and I am going to learn how to spin.
I wonder if Simon will notice if I put a new shed up in the garden to hold a spinning wheel and a shuttle loom…
Or maybe convert the attic? Image source: http://www.jofirthlacemaking.co.uk/textiles_of_ireland.html
As most people who read this blog know, my son, Adam, now 6, is Autistic. As is common with ASD, he also has some physical issues, including a fine motor delay.
This delay means he cannot button buttons or do hook and eye fastenings. He has just recently nailed snaps and zips but even those can be a struggle at times.
The other thing you may know is that Adam is tall for his age. Very tall. As in just over 48 inches tall. Yes. Four feet. At 6 years old. Never forget; I’m only 62 inches myself. So yes, he’s nearly to my shoulder.
In any case, this means that I could not find any school trousers without hooks and eyes for him this year. Luckily some of last years trousers were fine in length at the beginning of the school year. But, as he always seems to do, 4ish weeks into the school year he had a growth spurt and those trousers went from fine in length to borderline to nearly flood water length in the space of, I swear, a week. Or maybe even a day.
It’s been suggested I stop feeding him, but that seems a bit drastic to me. 😀
So I needed to solve the problem of how to get a hook and eye off and a snap on. I took a seam ripper to one of the pairs of trousers only to find that Marks & Spencer has some magic way of inserting the halves of a hook and eye through the fabric so I would have to cut the fabric to remove them. I made a face, sewed the seam back up on my machine and started thinking.
And this is what I came up with:
So, how did I do it? Let’s see!
First I gathered some stuff:
Then I cut the fabric to size. I realized long after I was done cutting that it would have been neater if I’d allowed a bigger seam but by the time I realized that they had all been cut out and zigzagged stitched and I didn’t have the time to start over. Note: Yes. I used Avengers. No, it’s not technically part of his uniform. But since no one would know but us? I thought it would please Adam. And it did. 😀
Snaps in position for hand sewing. Yes, one of them is backwards. Again.
Next I hand sewed the snaps to the fabric pieces. Top Tip: Check you have the snaps the right way around. Then check again. And then again. I had ripped them out more times than I care to admit.
And finally, I machine sewed the strips over the hooks and eyes.
And when a small but very tall boy tried them on? Perfection!
I went to Ikea, is what I did today.
I bought a few things.
On that cart are various bits and pieces, table tops and legs, chairs and storage to be turned into my ‘studio’.
I put studio in quotes because it isn’t going to be an actual room in the house, but an area of our dining room, against our back wall, which is glass and looks out over our back garden.
Our dining table will have to move just a tiny bit out and down (it’s hard to explain) but I have measure twice and shopped once (heh) and I’m sure it will all fit!
So tomorrow the nice Ikea delivery people will be bringing the table top, the legs, two storage units (Kallax, 4 cubes each) and a new comfy chair (in deep pink!) and I shall turn that end of our dining room into my studio.
I’ll still probably knit sitting on the sofa. And I definitely still use our dining table for laying out patterns.
But I soon will have 200cm long and 60 cm wide for my sewing machine and my yarn winder and really? Anything else that strikes my fancy.
More pictures when it’s done!
I am about to start messing with this site.
I am bringing together all my knitting, design, blogs, social media etc etc under one brand design.
Starting with this site. This site will become the Tee The Brand (heh, anyone see The Apprentice?).
There will even be a small shop here along with the Etsy one.
Did you know there was an Etsy one?
So stick around. See what’s coming.
It’s going to be an interesting ride…
About two months ago I suddenly realized I had no idea what I’d been doing all winter. I mean, my son was alive and happy, my husband likewise, and there were a few knitting bits around. But I remembered very little of it. I had been black in the Land Of The Black Dog and didn’t even realize it.
It had, indeed, been the winter of my disconnect. I can remember days, weeks even, of seeming to be looking out of my own eyes. Of being someone else inside me, watching me go through my life.
When I finally ‘confessed’ to Simon, he said he knew something was wrong. That I had spent whole weekends in bed, asleep. He didn’t say anything because he knows me and knows I would deny it, even bury it, until I was ready to say ‘It’s bad again.’
So I saw a GP at our practice and we switched me to a new medicine that worked for a bit. And then didn’t. And then I saw another GP and actually had an anxiety attack right in front of him and he switched me again. This time to Venlafaxine. Which has not only helped my anxiety, it’s helped my fibro.
To the point that I am nearly pain free. I am still tired a lot and my brain is constantly leaking out of my ears, but I can deal with that so long as I’m not in pain!
I mean, I still have pain. I’m not cured or anything. But I am so much better.
So…what have I been doing?
This:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KnittedByATee
Yup, I launched my shop. And immediately had two custom orders with a third happening soon.
I also sold one item from the shop directly.
I’ve also been doing this:
Yes. That’s a sewing machine. I’ve got the two Great British Sewing Bee books and I’ve started sewing from a pattern. My first shirt is nearly done and I am so chuffed with myself!
So I am feeling more connected to my life and my husband and my son and my craft. I’m imagining studio space through out my house as the dining room table is a bit inconvenient.
And, as the icing on the cake? In one week from tomorrow? I’ll be in Berkeley loving on my first two babies.
I may acknowledge their parents and my parents as well. 😀