[NFB-Krafters-Korner] Introduction

[Georgina Joyce]

Hello All,

I was born in Northampton a boot and shoe market town in the middle of England. I now live in the North West between Manchester and Liverpool. At the age of 11 I was taken to a residential school for partially sighted children and deaf children. They promised my parents that I would be taught braille. This was not true. At this school is what I would guess in today's language was for children with learning difficulties. I was looking forward to doing the 11 plus exam in my old school and was disappointed when they assured me that I wouldn't be taking any exams while at this residential school. Instead of academic studies we did jewellery making, candle making, basket weaving and the most useful was touch typing. When I left school I made a few baskets and trays for people. It was obvious I would never be able to make a living from it as the raw materials were expensive. These baskets and trays were either willow or a plastic cane.

It wasn't until my 30's when I took opportunities to study. I have achieved a lot having studied computing and psychology. I have struggled to find gainful employment and undertake voluntary work. I have RP and now I am 60 I have no useful sight. As RP means loosing sight slowly it is easy to adapt. More frightening is the loss of high frequency hearing. I am currently adapting to using hearing aids.

I have always tried to play it safe and I am fed up with it. Decorating my home and dressing plainly just to be safe is not being true to myself. I did do some knitting some years ago but needed a lot of support in correcting my dropped stitches. I like wearing hair clips and pieces and think it would be easy to make flowers to wear in my hair. I could jazz up some of my plain clothes etc. with other decorations.

I made some acoustic panels a few years ago to create a nice audio recording environment. I have used recycled decorating cloths and removal blankets to face them. As these materials are a variable shade of grey. I thought if I attach upholstery sparkly buttons I could create the affect of the night sky. Then I found that it is easy to buy cloth cut shapes to make flowers so I am exploring these possibilities too. Which has brought me to hear. I was discussing these panel designs on the woodworkers for the blind email list and I was pointed to this list.

I have purchased some chunky yarn and a knitting loom set. Which I think will arrive tomorrow. But deliveries are rather disrupted at the moment.

I can see there are some useful books on Kindle and have purchased a couple on loom weaving. I have joined the U.S. Book Share service and have been setting up my iPhone with a braille display today in order to read books and will see what works well for me. I see the book of the month "Small Loom & freeform weaving" is available on kindle. I will start working through it soon.

I look forward to a creative colourful future.

Gena

Call: M0EBP
DMR ID: 2346259
Loc: IO83PS
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