I’ve not touched any art supply since I opted out of art class at age 14. Unable to paint or draw and only really enjoying the feeling of peeling PVA glue off my hand I resigned myself to the fact that I was not artistic. And, as great as an art folder would have looked with my goth clothes, I headed to an education full of maths, history and english.
Fast forward nine years and a seemingly romantic gesture from Rus that we make each other valentines day gifts leaves me in cold sweats.
Talking about it at work my colleagues all cocked their heads and said “but you look artistic”. Apparently you can’t wear tie-dyed anything without owning a box of water colours or spending your spare time paper-macheing.
My sister just burst into fits of giggles when I explained the task and my mum suggested I buy something that looked homemade.
After a lot of pondering I decided on stitching something, I had spent my late teens hand sewing my jeans to make them so tight I couldn’t cross my legs without getting pins and needles so it seemed like the best bet. I wanted something easy, Rus always says he misses the way I smell so I opted to stitch a little cuddly that I would then douse in my perfume for him.
The first choice was a sock monkey, but they are slightly sinister looking. After looking a patterns I decided to tweak it to turn it into a bunny. The first looked a lot more like Kipper the dog, but the challenge was complete, I had something that looked decent enough and hadn’t taken me too long at all.
About a week later my mum announced she had booked a craft stall for April to sell her ever growing collection of crocheted accessories and did I want to come along. I bought a pack of kids socks from asda, made the pattern less kipper and more bunny and started sewing.
I now have a little collection of adoptable bunnies – they were a hit at the craft fair so only a few remain. As I was packaging them up to sell I had a flash back to my Cabbage Patch Kid dolls all coming with their own names and decided to do that for these little orphans too. Each one comes with a name, birthday and a few favourite things.
Flop! 