Thursday, September 23, 2010

Beginnings......

Welcome to Kuriosity and the Kat!

Never having blogged before, I thought it was a good time to start recording and sharing some of my creative efforts. Over the next few weeks, I'll upload some pics of my past endeavours, as well as sharing my latest (and greatest) creative focus - Japanese temari.

I chose Kuriosity and the Kat as the blog name because it pretty much sums up my foray into creativity. I'm incredibly curious by nature, and enthusiastically explore any and all pathways I find myself on, much like a cat. It also has a tendancy to get me into a slight amount of trouble, as it means I tend to hoard craft supplies! Luckily, most of them get recylced into other projects later on. The blog name may change......I'm not compeltely sold on it yet. I have another in mind, which is more specific to Temari, I'm just waiting to see how things pan out.

Past endeavours. There are lots, especially considering I'm not yet thirty. Most of them were quite quickly explored and moved through. Some never even got started properly, only the initial stages were explored and then something else snaffled my attentions. I'm have shocking stick-ability when it comes to hobbies. I've attempted clay sculpture, bookbinding, knitting and crochet, plastecine sculpting, freehand embroidery and pincushion making. I've tried candlemaking and decoupage, paper tolling, origami and quilling, as well as making a variety of preserves, and household recipes like furniture polish. I colour in mandala pictures, designed an ex-libris image and also love to read. I did belly-dance for a while, making my own costumes - beaded sleeves and all. I play softball 6 months of the year, and I have just done a free Tai Chi class - am still deciding on that one whether to continue that one or not.

Most of the time, my journey starts at one hobby an finishes at another. For example- Temari. This came about because I had gone to a craft show and seen crewel embroidery. I loved it. I got a kit, but wasn't confident enough (as I have very little embroidery experience) to complete it. I tried to do some of the stitching, but it wasn't up to scratch. So I explored the Internet, and found some basic free hand embroidery on felt pincushions which would give me stitching experience in similar shapes/stitches to the crewel and also be rewarding as I would have finished projects instead of UFO's.

Well, I stitched pincushions for a while. My stitching was getting better. I participated in an overseas swap. Then, while googling for inspiration, I found Yubinuki (Japanese thimbles) that had been turned into pincushions. My interest was piqued. From there, it lead to Temari, a natural link as they use similar techniques. And there I have stopped to explore for a while. So far, I have made about a dozen temari since April. And I'm happy with them! Hopefully I have found a hobby that I will finally stick with, that I can do without going to classes (thanks to a great level of online support) and that I really enjoy.

Explore and enjoy - it's what life is all about :)