- oky_katie 6 Comments

A Shift in thinking…

So I haven’t been posting much here recently. I kept sitting down the write a blog post and feeling like I had nothing to say, even though I have projects to show you, and podcasts and books to recommend. I just couldn’t get them in to a blog post.

Luckily my dear friend Lara came to visit us, and she managed to tease out of me what is going on.

Basically all my online presence is branded with OxfordKitchenYarns, which is great, except there is SO much else going on my life, and OxfordKitchenYarns is only one small part of that. It’s not a full time job. It hasn’t been a full time job in a long time, but at the same time, it’s still important to me, and I don’t want to give it up.

However right now, it feels really weird having it out there front and center when most of my time is actually spend on parenting, and home education, and our home, and making things that are for our practical use, rather than to show off my yarn. Basically my perception of all this is all out of balance and it makes me not want to be out in the world online, because it makes me feel like I’m not doing enough. Which is not true. I’m doing plenty.

I can’t express how freeing it was to realise all this. (Thank you Lara! X)

So here is what I’m doing to change things up:

I am still dyeing yarn. I will try to do a shop update every month, but there will only be one update a month. But OxfordKitchenYarns is just one of the things I am doing. It’s not central to my online presences any more.

I am going to post more, (probably about once a week), but about all thing I want to post – so there will be sewing, and knitting, and books and some adventures in home education, and stuff about doing up our house, and book recs and podcast recs and all the other things in my head.

The blog, and pinterest will look different to reflect what is going on with all this. All my blurb will be different. I will probably change my url, though oxfordkitchenyarns.com will still exist and any links to the blog with send you right here. The twitter will continue to highlight stuff going into the shop.

OxfordKitchenYarns has existed for over seven years! And in that time become a parent, and had three children, and as a family we’ve started to home educate. It not surprising that the fit has shifted some what.

Anyway that was probably more of an insight into my thought process that you needed, but there you go.

I’ll be back next week with a whole load of recs. It’s going to be great.

Thanks for sticking around.

(I promise there will still be yarn.)

 

 

- oky_katie Leave a comment

wonky mats are better than no pictures at all

framed mice(The postcard set is from here.)

I had the frames, I had the prints, I had the mat board, and I had a mat cutter, but they sat in a cupboard for about two and a half years gathering dust because I was scared I wasn’t going to do it well enough.

And then, about three weeks ago, I was tired of the images on the wall by my desk, and decided I should cut the mat for one of the prints and hang it up. And so I did. And in about ten minutes it was done, and I was pleased, and I wanted to do the other three in the set. Unfortunately I ran out of mat board and CP cracked one of the panes of glass so I still have the fourth one waiting in the wings until I sort out more glass, (I’ve already bought more mat board).

Spurred on by that success I decided to pick up some frames for some more images I’ve been wanting to frame and put up, and last week I got on and cut the mats for the postcards I bought I about two years ago, (and which have been sitting in their packaging ever since.)

It… well it didn’t go as well. Probably because  had to cut smaller mats, with multiple holes. Having done some more reading since, I realise that the green cutting board I have is too hard, and I would be better putting a layer of cardboard on top, which I will try next time. Probably I should have waiting till the children weren’t around, but that time is really limited right now, and I would have probably made a worse job in an evening.

It’s not terrible. It’s just not my best work.

I admit I was disappointed, and for a moment I didn’t know really what to do next.

So I hung them any way.

Why not? They were hidden away for ages and if I can’t change the walls of our house right now (which I can’t), then I can at least put things on them that are meaningful to me. And I can always cut better mats in the future.

So I hung them, and actually, they are fine. Not perfect, but not noticeably bad. If I get up really close, I can see the wobbles. But when I pass them, having just come in the front door, or down the stairs, what I actually see are the beautiful felt mice, the clever details, the actual images, rather than the card around them.