Stress Crafting

When greatly stressed, I tend to be jittery.
Restless leg syndrome. Restless feet syndrome. Restless hands syndrome. One of the reasons why I do crafty things is to keep afore-mentioned restless hands occupied - the rhythmic movement actually calms me and slows my heartbeat down. This week, in order to balance out the hours spent correcting final exams,  I've been making soap socks to use up scraps of felting wool in my spare time.

Basically, these are just knit in the round (she says casually, not revealing all the cursing and temper fits that accompanied the first attempts), and a bar of soap is squeezed through the hole in the top of the little bag before you draw the opening shut. With time and use, the soap sock gradually felts. What happens then, I don't know, because I haven't quite got that far with my own tester soap sock. At the moment it's a woolly, squidgy thing in my soap dish and so enthusiastic am I that I have turned away from our liquid soap to my bar of felted squishiness. Ideally, I would like to make my own soap and I've assigned the task of the scienciness of it to my husband, who owns a lab-coat and goggles, and understands The Gravity of Lye (apparently, when one discusses lye, it is appropriate to capitalise its Gravity and Potential for Damage. Oooh, won't soap-making be exciting?)

Pater Gingerbread's Woodland Stream

Snazzy labels, eh? My husband was a bit perplexed by them: a look of fear came over him ("Oh no, she's stocking up her Phantom Frippery Shop again!") but these soap socks will either be sold at a craft fair or donated for sale at a charity craft fair, so I need some kind of label. Besides, I like things to look nice. You should see my blackboards at school - students use their high-tech iGadgets to snap photos of my beautifully illustrated blackboards (I would do so, too, but my 10-year-old Nokia comes equipped with only three functions: Make Call, Receive Call and Wish You Had A Better Phone.)

The curse of good presentation was given to me by my father, Daddy Gingerbread, who is a (graphic) artist. He paints beautifully, crafts wonderfully, gardens fantastically and makes a banana sandwich that could be exhibited for its perfect precision. I am terribly proud of him (and can only recommend his sandwiches.)