IDreamElectric

Time to breathe some life back into idreamelectric.

Since my last post, I have decided to have an early mid-life crisis, saying farewell to my London life and venturing bravely into the realms of retraining, specifically as a primary school teacher. I am incredibly excited.

However, this won’t start until summer next year, so for the first time in many years I have found myself with time on my hands. I will start a series of placements in local schools in September, which leaves me with a few months all to myself. Lucky me!

Historically, idreamelectric has always frolicked in the creative talents of others. Now I have more time, I thought I would try to do something with my own pent-up creativity. So, for the first time in four years, I am dusting off the pencils, brushes, sewing machine, apron and knitting needles and camera, and learning how to focus my eyes on objects further away than a computer screen. I’ll aim to share my artistic endeavours regularly.

To kick things off, I have been trying my hand at patchwork and quilting. I started with a couple of small pieces:

and moved onto a larger baby quilt for my cousin, who is due any day now. It is yet to be bordered and quilted:

I have been hoarding some really beautiful fabrics and when the baby quilt is completed, I will put together a larger quilt for myself. It’s tricky trying to design a pattern that will do the fabrics justice, but with crayons and graph paper on my side, I will hopefully be able to create something good.

I also took a shoemaking course a couple of months ago, at the London College of Fashion. My grandfather was a Sicilian shoemaker, appropriately named Luigi, so I wanted to see if there was any deep-set talent lurking in my blood. Thirty hours and more than one unfortunate incident with a sanding machine later – I have my very own pair of shoes:

They have been allowed one outing, and now they are stored safely in my wardrobe so I have some proof when I tell my grandchildren that I was once youthful and cool (after they have discovered my quilt stash). It isn’t something I could see myself doing for a career, but it was incredibly fun and I would recommend it to anyone who might be thinking about it.