When, quite a few years ago, I turned to cross stitch as a kind of mind-calming therapy during a period of turmoil, friends and family expressed a degree of surprise. I was slightly bemused myself, I have to admit, having spent months and months in abject misery making a never-to-be-worn floral blouse in the needlework class I dragged myself along to at the convent school I attended through my teens. But when I thought back to before then, I remembered that, as a nine-year-old, I’d constructed my very own puppet theatre, complete with working lights, and made all the puppets myself, out of papier-mâché and felt. Likewise, around the same time, I’d spent many a happy hour putting together and painting Airfix model kits (of Henry VIII and his unfortunate wives – the aeroplanes and sports cars I left to my brothers). Before then, I designed my own range of ‘MandyMade’ greeting cards for my beloved mother – cards she kept for the rest of her life, I poignantly discovered when time came to clear out the family home. So really it shouldn’t have seemed so bizarre when I turned to cross stitch much later in life – and then became slightly obsessed with it, stitching the most convoluted and ornate kits, and even designing a few from scratch myself.
And now, two decades on, I’m proud to be continuing the pattern of learning a new craft and becoming totally enamoured with it, as Carol and I hone our skills and build up enough stock to sell at craft fairs once we make the move to Glastonbury. Modelling in papier-mâché I still love, and that’s one line I’m working on, but in addition, I’ve just discovered the joys of needle felting, and now I’m finding it hard to put that wretched (not to mention painfully barbed) needle down!
The wooden maquette in the photograph was bought with a view to making it into a felted cowgirl, but it proved unsuitable (though I’m sure we’ll find some other creative use for it!), and so I made an armature out of garden wire instead, wound wool round the wire, and needle-felted into that. Gosh, I’m even beginning to sound vaguely like I know what I’m talking about! I don’t really – as with most of the other things I’ve enjoyed doing in my life, I work by intuition rather than by carefully studying textbooks and plans beforehand. The felted cowgirl is more impressionistic than realistic, but that’s fine by me.
I realise that none of this is directly related to my music, but a song could come out of it all yet – as well as a few extra bob if we hone our skills to the point at which people actually want to buy our handmade goods… So, to conclude, long live weird and wonderful portfolio careers – as well as felted cowgirls, cacti and dachshunds!
And now, two decades on, I’m proud to be continuing the pattern of learning a new craft and becoming totally enamoured with it, as Carol and I hone our skills and build up enough stock to sell at craft fairs once we make the move to Glastonbury. Modelling in papier-mâché I still love, and that’s one line I’m working on, but in addition, I’ve just discovered the joys of needle felting, and now I’m finding it hard to put that wretched (not to mention painfully barbed) needle down!
The wooden maquette in the photograph was bought with a view to making it into a felted cowgirl, but it proved unsuitable (though I’m sure we’ll find some other creative use for it!), and so I made an armature out of garden wire instead, wound wool round the wire, and needle-felted into that. Gosh, I’m even beginning to sound vaguely like I know what I’m talking about! I don’t really – as with most of the other things I’ve enjoyed doing in my life, I work by intuition rather than by carefully studying textbooks and plans beforehand. The felted cowgirl is more impressionistic than realistic, but that’s fine by me.
I realise that none of this is directly related to my music, but a song could come out of it all yet – as well as a few extra bob if we hone our skills to the point at which people actually want to buy our handmade goods… So, to conclude, long live weird and wonderful portfolio careers – as well as felted cowgirls, cacti and dachshunds!
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