I've been tagged! - Why do I create?

Well, Karol-Ann has tagged me to answer the following five questions that she has on her blog (following a tag herself!). When I've done it I have to tag five other quilters, so I hope I don't repeat...

I can't add pictures to this, sadly, as I am doing it on my Uni computer, and the normal tool bar is not here. Something to do with a browser or java or something, but I have no idea what. After I uploaded all my photos to this computer too. Typical. Anyway, here goes with answering the questions:

1. When did you start to make craft?
Well, I was pretty young! As a very little person I remember drawing cats and ballet shoes. Don't ask me why, except I had a cat and did ballet. Luckily, there are no pictures. My Mum used to make my costumes for the school ballet shoes - I remember being a Hawaiian hula girl in a raffia skirt, an American Indian (I still have some snippets of that fabric!), and a frog. My Miss Muffet costume wasn't home made - it was a very beautiful silk and velvet child's costume that had belonged to either my granny, or more probably my Great Granny. Sadly I have no idea what happened to it. It had a companion 18th Century style dress too. Beautiful.

A little later I remember making embroidered gifts for people, monograms on hankies, tray clothes and felt pin cushion (that was at school). My Granny had a lot of embroidery transfers, some from the 1930s, and I used those as patterns. I think I still have some of them - waste not, want not. Jacobean style was one of my favourites. I also started an embroidery kit in my early teens, but made a mess of it. I hung onto it, and finished it off when I was in my late 20s. It is a lovely picture of a kingfisher flying through weeping willow leaves over water, with fish and dragonflies. It is now framed and hanging in the living room. The kit was a gift from my stepmother, from a BBONT gift catalogue (BBONT was a local wildlife trust). Both my grannies, and my great aunts were knitters, and that influenced me a bit, although I didn't really knit until I was a 'grown-up'. I did crochet though - made hundreds of granny squares for Save the Children blankets. I also went to a local lady for Buckinghamshire lace making lessons. I still have a 5 inch long braid that I made, and a very short piece of more decorative lace. I would love to do that again, but my Mum has all the bobbins and the pillow. That might have to wait...

Mum also did English patchwork (guess - hexagons!) in the 1970s, and I copied.

2. Why did you start creating?
Well, Mummy was also making things - for economy I suppose, but also, I think she just likes the sense of achievement, as do I! As I child I really liked the praise I got for gifts that I had made myself, and this included baking as well as sewing! I also remember that it was normal as I was growing up for people to MAKE the presents that they gave, and I really like that. My Mum made me a wooden dolls bed and all the accessories for it, for example, and a farm landscape and buildings out of hardboard, papier mache and sticky backed plastic. I am of the Blue Peter generation - I was inspired by washing up liquid bottles, matchboxes, old fashioned pegs (I made a lot of Peg dolls).

3. Why do you create?
Just have to! Can't watch telly without doing something with my hands. That ranges from reading a book, doing Sudoku puzzles to knitting and sewing. Sewing with the TV less now as I mostly use the sewing machine, so I have to retreat somewhere. But I get cranky if I don't make something regularly. I actually feel like a failure when I haven't made something. Even if its only curtains!

4. What do you create?
See above! Curtains, clothes, dressing up costumes for the children, toys for the children, whether fabric or otherwise, sometimes I make cards, sometimes I draw and paint although not as much at the moment as I would like, quilts, wallhangings and cushions, household items, sewing kit items, bags, occasional knitting and crochet, mostly for the children ... On and on.

5. Has this changed since you began crafting?
Yes but no! I think the main change is that I try to make things more stylish, although as that is a matter of taste more than anything else, I think I should be satisfied with making things in my own style rather than trying to emulate the style of others. Although learning how to design things while doing City and Guilds has made me more confident with design, I have never been entirely happy with my style. As I have less time at the moment to spend on design, when the urge to make is upon me, I have been trying to work through the design processes of others, so I can get into their minds. This is quite interesting, I liken it to being apprenticed to old masters. I think I am learning a lot doing this, without having to invest a lot of time thinking about design before making something. I just get stuck into following someone else's process, reading what they say about it, and following their recommendations. I then do the thinking while I'm making. I hope when I have more time and space for my own work that this will come to fruition. I really should start a sketchbook again though.

One thing I would like to do more of is exploring creating my own fabrics through dying, painting and embellishing...

Who am I going to tag? Ali, Kate N, Sally, Lynda and Andrea. Sorry girls, hope you don't mind!