do you mind if i knit

I got these name tapes made up a while ago now, and they make an appearance when I'm making something for someone as a gift.....................
...............Like a corsage for my sister, as part of her Birthday present.
I fancy it gives a slight 'professional touch'!
And the wrapping....... vitally important element of the gift.............
For me, when something is beautifully wrapped, it creates just the right first impression............... at least it does with me when I receive a gift artfully wrapped.................. I think that when someone wraps something beautifully for me, they have really understood something of my personality............. like my sister-in-law, Tamsin.............. she gives me the most exquisitely wrapped gifts, knowing it's not a waste of money, but money well spent, because it means so much to me............... ..............So here's my 'little something' for my sister.
It's not the main part of the gift........ oh no.......... I'd be considered 'cheap'............... it's just something small, made with love.................... of course that most definately doesn't guarantee the recipient will like it ................. it's the risk I take when I make things for people.
In this case, I take it the cursory "thankyou" means it wasn't my sister's cup of tea................. oh well, these things happen.................still, it is a little hurtful......................
That thing of someone not liking something you've made them................ it's a whole can of worms of a subject, isn't it.....................? Handmade gifts should probably only be given to people who understand the 'instruction manual of receiving handmade presents'.............. or maybe it should be the other way round........... handmade gifts, made by the giver, should only be presented to people, if the giver understands the 'manual of pitfalls involved in making and giving gifts'.
Sometimes you just think.............. why can't they just pretend they like it.................!!!

Paradigm changes.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the word 'paradigm' as : example or pattern, esp. of inflexion of noun, verb etc. Show side by side. A friend of ours, Miles Gregory, gave a lecture yesterday evening, based on the subject of paradigm changes. His Masters thesis related it to Shakespeare, but I won't go into that. In a short half-hour talk, Miles displayed and relayed theories to us, all theories that have caused paradigm changes in their fields. And I found it fascinating, which I did not expect. And now I hope I'm not going to offend Miles by applying the term, 'paradigm change', to my life. You see, I've begun to crochet.............. This is, I propose, a paradigm change in my life, or maybe I should just call it a miracle. I was always one of those people who had tried to learn to crochet, but just never quite got it. I was a knitter....... crochet was going to have to remain this physically impossible thing for me to achieve. Then I fell into the hands of a most remarkable lady called Pat. Pat is eighty-one years old, and has lung cancer. I think she's extraordinary. She has been through some gruelling chemo-therapy, but looks un-touched, and fabulous. And she has a stoical, no-nonsense attitude to her situation. My impression is that under no circumstances am I to feel sorry for her, sympathetic is probably just about acceptable, after all, life goes on, I can hear her saying. Throughout the time Pat was going through her chemo-therapy, she turned up each week to teach crochet classes, and I must say, still does! All her classes are free of charge, which is extraordinarily generous. She must have been feeling terribly ill most of the time, but her generosity led her, to not let her class down. I presented myself to Pat as someone who has been on a course to learn to crochet, and annoyed the teacher with my ineptitude. I just couldn't hold the crochet hook properly, and my tension was a disaster area. No problem for Pat. (A relief to know I wasn't going to irritate her). It was music to my ears when she said she had not had a single person she hadn't been able to teach crochet to, in her sixty years of crocheting. These words gave me confidence! And as you can see in these photographs, Pat succeeded in teaching me to crochet. I still prefer to knit, but I make sure I practise the crochet. So can this momentous shift from not being able to crochet, to being a sort-of crocheter, be classed as a paradigm change? An insignificant one maybe............. which is probably a contradiction. I must sew a pin to this corsage, and wear it.

Truanting

I'm self-employed, I illustrate children's books for a living, and I work from home. So I need to be strict with myself, and try and keep to 'office hours'. I used to be so strict with myself, I would work punishing hours, weekends too. I lived in a hermetically sealed world of work. Only very insistent people, like Hugo, could puncture a hole and release some of me from that world. And this went on for years and years. Until, slowly, I realised that as a self-employed person, I wasn't really taking full advantage of the potential freedoms inherent in that position. Although in the ten years I have been working, I have been fortunate enough to be in constant work, there always lurks the doubt that it will last. To off-set that fear, I've discovered it's important to take advantage of one element of being self-employed. That is, my time. My time is my own, and I can do with it as I will, and that is one of the great positives of being my own boss. So, that is why it is important to occasionally play truant and do things like............ ........... go out for a piece of cake, ribbon and spotty tissue paper happiness at Danish Design, one of our local gems.