Hello!

I’m Nicole, and I am the creator of nicolew.

This is a place for me to post my love of crafts, photography and travel.

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Copyright 2020 nicolew All Rights Reserved

August 2, 2020

Reality adjustment

The pandemic has caused us all to adjust the way we live and operate on a day to day basis, and I’m no exception. Myself and my partner are some of the lucky ones, where our jobs give us the ability to work from home – being that we both work in IT. This has meant that my daily schedule now involves going from my bed to the couch, and the couch back to my bed again. The monotony caused me to look for things to entertain myself that didn’t involve leaving the house. As you saw from my previous post, I turned to crochet for my ‘staycation’ – and things haven’t really changed much. I’ve been experimenting with my new camera and lenses, and crafting in between. As the lockdown started to ease, I’ve also bee out and about with my camera and taking walks around my neighbourhood.

Since lockdown began, I went on a little project frenzy – where I was purchasing wool and patterns at an exponential rate, When I noticed I had over 10 projects on the go. I realised I was starting to develop a borderline obsession, and needed to reasses my purchasing habits. I enforced upon myself a yarn buying ban – until I have completed all the projects that I currently have in progress. My last purchase of yarn was to be 17 balls to make the Technicolour Coats for me neices. My first step was to assess what yarn I actually have in my stash, and what projects I have on the go. I turned to ravelry and start completing all my project information, and photographing my stash. I still haven’t finished my stash catalogue, but my planned projects are all now being tracked.

So, what are all these projects that I need to finish? Here is my list – not in any particular order:

  1. Mystery Sock ’09 by Kirsten Kapur
  2. Whiskey Glass Shawl by Janka Sipiczki
  3. Technicolor Dream Coat by Earth Tricks
  4. Elsa and Anna from frozen by EpicKawaii
  5. Persian Tile Blanket by Jane Crowfoot (Eastern Jewels colourway)
  6. Kipper Coat by Maria Olson
  7. Tolve Mock Rib Jumper
  8. Long socks with cables by Minna Metsänen
  9. Lorelei Cardigan by Deni Sharpe (and matching beanie)
  10. Dustland Hat by Stephen West
  11. A myriad of caterpillers, bugs and butterflies by Lalylala

Since implementing my yarn buying ban, I haven’t purchased any yarn for 6 weeks! That’s a pretty good accomplishment for me – and on top of that, I’ve been completing projects at a completely unheard of rate! (For me anyway!)

I’ll share progree in separate posts – stay tuned!

 

June 7, 2020

A New Adventure

Welcome to my first blog post as I set out on this digital adventure.

My first port of call, is to talk about why I made this blog, and what my intentions are for it going forward.

If you know me, you would know that I have a lot of hobbies. These range from playing video games to knitting and crochet, to learning to play the piano – or at least attempting to! The list doesn’t end here, and I won’t bore you with a complete list of ‘things I do to entertain myself’. I do however, want to share some of these passions with the world – in the hopes that they might help others to pick up a new hobby, or find like minded people who can relate to my personal experiences, At the very least, some of it should be entertaining.

My biggest challenge here, is trying not to stray too far from the intended path. So, to try to restrict my wandering personality, I have chosen three main ‘catergories’.

1. Crafts

I am choosing the overall main focus of my site to be crafts. I chose the word crafts with intention, as I switch between knitting and crochet frequently, with a spattering of embroidery. By calling this ‘Crafts’ I can add any of these to the site without leaving my overall theme.

2. Photography

That’s a bit random… I hear you say. Well when it comes to photography, I am definitely not a professional. I recently upgraded my DSLR to a mirrorless, and have reignited my passion for photgraphy. That being said, I’m hoping to learn more, and want to include my learning journey here – it also makes for a handy tool to be able to take nice photos of my work and instructions as I start to build the database of knowledge and blog my crafting creations.

3. Travel

Travel was not initially on my list of things to talk about. I was going to limit it to the above two. However, I travel a few times a year (when there isn’t a Global Epidemic!), and love to take photos when I do. In saying this, you can see that it will relate back into the photography topic quite nicely over time as well as provide me with a place to document my adventures.

This site is going to take some time to build up and document everything, though I’m hoping to use some past emails and images to help me get things off the ground. I will start adding more specific posts in the coming days.