About Me

Hello everyone, I’m Ruby and welcome to my blog. So, a little bit about me. I’m in my late 40s, wife to a fabulous bloke and mum to three great kids. Two sons aged 22 and 17 and one daughter aged 20. We live in South-East Essex, about 8 miles away from the coast and with plenty of open fields and farms on our doorstep. No Essex jokes please   as we all originally come from London.

I work from home helping out in hubby’s business. He’s an ex Systems Analyst and for the last few years has been running his own business from home repairing PCs and providing other IT services to his growing client base. Working from home does give me ample opportunity to persue my crafty activities.

I’ve always been crafty from quite an early age. My mother was a trained seamstress and embroiderer. She spent most of her life working in the rag trade. Firstly in her native home in Spain; then, as a migrant worker in the early 60s, she worked in factories in London’s East End and in North London. Maybe this is where I get it from. Funnily enough though, sewing was never my forte as a teen. In fact, I was pretty awful at it, so much so, that I’ve not touched a sewing machine since the age of 15.

She did, however, teach me to knit when I was about 7. I took to it like a duck to water. First I would knit for my dolls, then I progressed to knitting for myself, my much younger brothers and finally for my own children. Then 11 years ago, I stopped. They were at that funny age and well, it wasn’t cool. My mum also tried to teach me to crochet around the same time but could never get the hang of it. I finally ‘got it’ in March 2010 much to my immense joy.  That was when I rediscovered my love for knitting. My children were older now and a bit more appreciative of handmade things so I started up again. It’s been my daughter who has been the recipient of most of my recent makes and who keeps adding to my Ravelry queue

Other crafty pursuits of mine in the past include candle making, cross stitch, tapestry and I’ve also dabbled in soap making. Hmmmm, maybe I could finally teach myself to use a sewing machine. I don’t think it’s too late to learn a new handicraft, is it?