WOYWW 883 The One About Neet

Neet, of Hickydorums blogspot died last week. Her cherished husband Chas let us know and has posted on her blog about her quiet and restful passing. She hadn’t been well for some months and spent Christmas in hospital, full of praise for the staff who looked after and who she instantly befriended.

That was Neet to a tee: befriending. And warm. And oh so craft talented. And rather enabling. Indeed her own blog bio suggests that she hopes to be an enabler…..

I guess you would call me a crafter. Mainly paprcrafting but I enjoy Friendly Plastic, Shrink Plastic, Melt Art, Clay and Jewellery making. I teach various workshops and demonstrate at shows (now totally independent - whoo hoo) and I get most of my pleasure from passing on to others what I have learnt myself be it from the internet, other workshops I attend or simply messing about myself. I like to think I am an "enabler" and so help people to become more confident in themselves and enjoy what they are doing. If they are making something like a book, canvas or a piece of art I encourage them to produce something which is different from that of the person next to them, or mine - ie with their own personal slant.

Of course, Neet enabled in a way that was entirely giving, helping others to acquire skill and improve their crafting confidence. How typical of her. I learned from her, and she enabled me in the other sense too, tuning me into Janet Klein’s designs and happily giving me ideas and suggestions. If I’d been another foot taller, I’d have asked her for wardrobe advice too, man was she a cool dresser and so casual about her look. 

Neet joined WOYWW in 2011 and until late last year, she contributed almost without pause. Always positive and so very humble about her teaching and demonstrating;’I guess you would call me a crafter’…. she really had a reputation, and I’m sure that her local group, Victoria Crafters will miss her just as much as her online community of friends will. 

I searched for Neet’s blog rather than typing in the url, and look what came up - even the AI Dolly knows her - 

Based on the search results, Hickydorums (often referenced as hickeydorums) is a blog and creative persona associated with Neet, an active participant in the online art journaling community.

I don’t know where Alvin and Alvira came from, but a Neet gave them life and giggles and I’ll miss their stories on her blog, I’ll miss her incredible modesty with all of her creations, and I’ll miss my giggling at her idea of an untidy Workdesk. I cherish our friendship online and the memories of meeting up at WOYWW crops. I miss reading that she drove into the nearby Barrow to post her blog because there is no internet at the holiday caravan. Dedicated. Another word that describes her. 

My heart goes out to Chas at the loss of his life’s love, and I hope that he finds some small comfort in the memories of the many friends that his lovely wife was surrounded by. 

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 882

 So convinced that today was only Tuesday that I’m writing this at 2pm! I had a day off on Monday and it’s totally thrown me. A lovely weekend spent at crop means that I’ve done a lot and now am in the messy part of clearing up…..

There’s the pile of LOs that I made at the weekend. It was a weekend of tough decisions….sit outside in the beautiful garden and enjoy the sun, or actually do something indoors…..ended up doing a lot of both really, especially by scrapping well past bedtime to make up for afternoon time in the sun! The magazines there have had a belly band fitted to jazz them up a little as they’re to go as a gift with a card -one of the trainers at my gym is having a knee replacement as we speak and I know that she’ll be bored rigid for the few hours she has to spend off her feet every day!

Meanwhile, here’s a quick pic to prove that there actually is a pile of layouts to show for my weekend

I need to go through them and see if they need any tweaking before I put them in their album. Given that I thought I was a day in hand, that may have to wait until the weekend. Hope you’re all experiencing some version of the glorious sunshine (today’s the same but the wind is brutally cold again) and enjoying the Spring that’s sprung!

Sarah’s  is the place to find links to superior crafting and desk pictures, go see! 

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 881

 I’m going away for a Crop weekend on Friday lunchtime. What you see here is my untidy desk covered in the ‘suitcase’ of little boxes which comprises my embellishments and ah, ephemera. 

I was checking for a particular thing to add to the LO you can see in the lid. Because you see, gentle Desker, in order to pack for a weekend of cropping, I first have to unpack and put away from the day’s cropping three weeks ago. Oh dear. You can see remnant tubes of white paint from last week, and a new set of embroidery skeins that I found rather cheaply at a charity table top sale. Colours are a bit erm, non-traditional, but they’ll largely be used on felt so I don’t doubt they’ll do. 

Meanwhile, B-J asked to see the LOs…I don’t blame her either, I talk about doing stuff and then don’t prove it. also it will make your teeth itch B-J, the dates are not chronological like your pages!

Please join in over at Sarah’s, and as I recently heard on an Instagram reel….have a good day on purpose!

What’s on Your Workdesk? Wednesday 880

 Big up to Sarah for keeping us going to this lovely bubbly round number!

I have a small amount of action going on - I thought I should tidy and ended up painting! 

I acquired a tray full of out-of-date Pringles from a shopkeeper friend and having rinsed and wiped  the tubs, decided they’d be good for a decoupage stunt at WI. Then I realised that the vibrant red of the pots would take a more covering than a gal can contemplate, so I’ve set about undercoating them in white. The first layer was poster paint and barely made a difference. I rummaged furiously and found all sorts of odd tubes of white acrylic paint, so they’re all now well on their way to being opaquely white. Then they can sit quietly in a box with a couple of packs of natty napkins and some glue spreaders (‘found’ over many trips to a Costa) . They are a back up plan, so we have something to do if a speaker has to make a last minute cancellation. Hasn’t happened yet, so I might even get time to make a sample and test run the theory!

Join us over at Sarah’s for creativity overflow, it’s free it’s harmless, it can be enabling and it’s always inspiring. Have a lovely day!
 

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 879

Well last week I wrote a post and forgot to publish it. This week I’ll schedule it and try hard not to forget to link it. Seriously, I wish I could find someone to blame…..!

Oh gosh, I found myself needing a sympathy card. It caused me, out of some weird respect, to tidy up and make it in a decent environment. No bad thing, but definitely not how I usually make a card ‘au last minute’, as y’all know! Still, having excavated the desk it may see a bit of action at last…I’ve got some scrapbook layouts that need to be titled and have the odd embellishment added before putting them in the album, so I think that’ll be next. Hope you all enjoyed some down time over the Easter weekend, the weather has been 48 hours of sunshine which I must say has done my inner sun seeker a whole amount of good!

Catch up with us all at Sarah’s to enjoy more desks and chatter. What’s not to like?!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 877

I have nothing of interest on my work desk…it’s the same old. Since the card making session for WI, I haven’t done anything at all at my desk; but I haven’t been totally ignoring my er, inner crafter.

This is the coffee table in our lounge area. I fell for the colour of this yarn and needed a reason to own it. My SiL has a ‘feature wall’ in her dining room which is this colour with a silver pattern on it, so I’m making a sort of table runner. Not the full length but bigger than a centrepiece type thing. Turns out the yarn is so thin that I’m using it in double thread mode on 1.5mm hook, it has no substance worked as a single thread, it’s just a silky cotton. Also, I’ve chosen a colour that my old eyes really need daylight for - an hour in the daylight produces twice the number of pieces than an hour by light of lamps and tv! 

Join us all why don’t you, show and tell of your desk space, whatever it is you do…we are fascinated by it all. Links to visit and join in at Sarah’s , see you there!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 873

 

I’ve been doing a hurried, panic induced re-think of my contribution to the WI craft evening next week. 

Last night I ‘trialled’ my plan on a couple of willing non card making members during our inaugural Craft evening. Sent me back to my desk really quick! I need to remember that using double sided tape and foam pads aren’t the norm for a lot of people, peeling them before sticking one side down is only obvious if you know. I need to remember that heat embossing is thrilling, needs explaining better than I did - I couldn’t convince them to stop heating once the powder turned shiny, they both thought it was then wet and needed to be heat dried. So long since I showed anybody that I’ve lost the patter! Also the water colour effect I’d used for the image took them an age to do, I think they were classically scared to overdo it or go outside the lines, something that won’t lend itself to 18 people having a go over two hours with other activities to try! Yikes. So I’ve been back to the drawing board and I THINK it’ll work better now. The panic is because I’m away on Friday for a scrapbooking weekend with The Coven and the diary between getting home and the WI evening is well, unforgiving!                                   

Hope you have a super week, join us over at Sarah’s for a look see and/or a join in!