What’s On Your Work Desk? Wednesday 908

 Her family have announced that Sarah’s funeral will be on the 9th November, 11am at Stafford Crematorium. Lynne has enquired about whether the service will be streamed, Sarah’s son has said that he will post details closer to the day. He is posting on Sarah’s Facebook page and Lynne is updating us on the WOYWW Messenger thread. Thanks Lynne.

Back then, to normal form and trivia chez Dunnit. This is Tuesday evening’s desk, totally unchanged until at least tomorrow…no getting back to it today. I am fully aware of how lucky I am to be able to leave my desk mid action. There is a downside to this luxury though, gentle Desker. It means I rarely clear up, as if I need to say that; you have seen evidence of that over the years! This run of scrapbooking has been lovely, specially over last weekend when the clocks and the weather truly conspired against us!

It does look pretty much the same as last week, I realise, just a different page in the making. There are a few interesting bits though…the cup with the straw - my attempt at correcting my very bad hydration habit. Not as good as it looks though, it’s about a third full of squash and is untouched since last week. Oops. To the far left is what looks, according to Mr Dunnit, like a row of bones. Nothing sinister, just a hairband! You can’t see it, but at the right front edge of my desk is one of those cup holders with a bin. Literally right where I need it, not even the full arm’s reach. Both cup holder and cute dangling rubbish bag are empty. It would seem that the gap between what I’m working on and the difficult-to-see guillotine is a far better place to leave it all. Weird huh. 

And so there, share your little bit of craft haven, rubbish and all, please! Link to your blog post and helpfully, include WOYWW in your title. Thanks ever so. See you in a minute.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 907

 Well gentle Deskers, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve used my desk.

No anti glare filter this week, so I’m super impressed at the colour repro; for once, the light was being kind, don’t you think! There’s one of my everyday life type LOs. Because I’ve only got 80 kerjillion photos to scrapbook, so yeah, go ahead and record a tomato. No wonder my daughter won’t commit to keeping my albums for future generations! The coloured boxes at left sit nicely in their own suitcase and hold my scrapbooking embellishments. The uncoloured version that sits on the floor by my desk holds the photos that I don’t scrap. The unscrapped are more or less in year order, which is hilarious considering my albums are in absolutely no order at all. I have considered taking all the albums apart and putting them in chronological order, and I’ve thought about it more than once, but the conclusion is always the same : I think that would take too much time, time I could spend scrapbooking, AND I don’t think it would be of any actual benefit. Ask me if you’d like to put something off and need to come up with a logical sounding explanation - free service. 

Join us do, first time or 907th time, it’s always fab to see your creative space. Link your blog post here and we’ll join you, probably over the next couple of days.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 906 WOYWW

 I don’t think that many of us are yet over the shock of losing Sarah, and probably like me, your thoughts turn constantly to her family in their sudden loss.  Just as she has done in the face of personal loss and difficulty, we’re going forward. She told me at the Stoke crop that her routine had saved her more than once, and with this as part of our routine, we’ll keep her in our minds. 

Don’t think for one moment gentle Desker that your return to this blog for linking means that there have been many changes in the 124 weeks since Sarah set the bar for preparation, planning and tidiness. Absolutely not. In fact……

I’ve put a dramatic filter on it to manage the glare….

You find me in the middle of several things. Finishing the VAT return (all the white papery stuff in the centre) making some simple cards for a girlfriend to copy when we get together in a couple of weeks. Sorting out the red boxes which are now empty…but too good to throw away. (That is definitely a thing isn’t it? Please…!! ). And unpacking after a crop day last weekend. I took loosely made up kits with me because I knew it would be a post summer catch up with the Coven, but I wanted to power-create too. Yeah right; two LOs, both slightly unfinished. Not exactly Sarah prolific! However, it won’t stay like this for long, I need to get it tidy (as tidy as it gets, that is) and actually produce something. Have scaled back a lot of time consuming commitments over the next three weeks - testing to see if I’m lazy when at home, or am I saying ‘yes’ just a tad too often so my at home time is otherwise used up. Not scientific, but well, call it the idleness test and hope you will see results instead of my having to admit to another huge character flaw! 

Show us your desk then…floor/washing machine top/tray/lap…we don’t mind! What are you working on? No doubt some of you are all about Christmas now and I just know that’s going to make the pip of panic in my head grow to a kernel. Oh boy. Nothing like a deadline.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 905. Today is for Sarah..

 

With apologies to Brian who wasn’t ready, but my, what a great picture of Sarah’s apple cheek smiley face!

Oh Deskers, we gather on Wednesday905  with great sadness and shock to remember Sarah, and celebrate that section of her life that she shared with us. I can’t share any details, I don’t know them, It is enough isn’t it, to know that Sarah has died. Too soon. Too suddenly. 

Sarah took over the management of WOYWW 125 weeks ago when I decided that I’d had enough and you were being bored by my uninspiring blogging. True to form, Sarah took it all on with magnificent efficiency. Her time management skills were a bit legendary don’t you think? I think she and I were good illustrations of that old phrase ‘give a busy woman a job and she’ll get it done, give a woman who has time to do the job and the deadline will slip…’ or something like that. Procrastination was just not in Sarah’s genetic code. She crafted ahead - made backgrounds for her daily ATCs in monthly batches, she did a year of daily art journal pages for which she prepared each prior evening, without fail. She knitted ahead of the season she wanted the item for. Nothing in terms of her preparations escaped me because they were so impressive to my slap dash character!

Sarah joined WOYWW in early 2018 which was quite a big year for her in Craft terms, she had some samples shown on TV’s craft channel called Hochanda and was invited to join the Clarity design team. She has been a member of that DT ever since. I don’t know, but am presuming that like a lot of other  design team members, her blog had to become exclusively about Clarity products. I know she had a lot of followers - between the Workdesk posts that we knew her for, she published some really useful step-by-step technique instructions and attended Clarity’s Retreat days as a tutor. Im sure her blog will remain as a good resource for many.

We first met Sarah and Eva at the Llandudno Crop hosted by Margaret. She was very forthright - there had been earlier Crops which she did not attend, and without hesitation told me that she didn’t really think it would have been worth the petrol and the effort!  Speak as you find gal, I replied, and asked her if this one, her first  Crop was OK. I must admit I was quaking a bit, I’ve never had a critique of Crop before! All good, she was pleased they had come, found us all quite friendly but the parking inadequate. Made me laugh (relief and empathy, parking was a bit horrid!) which made her look a bit baffled! Indeed, such was her continued enthusiasm that she hosted a crop in Stoke on Trent, her home town (that’s where the picture was taken).

That Crop at Stoke was bittersweet for Sarah and came at a time when we were all glad to be able to hug her and offer support. Her husband Paul had recently passed away and she displayed deep resilience in going on with plans made. The next day at her beloved Trentham Gardens, Cindy, Helen and I walked with her in sunshine and enjoyed a very relaxed and sunny time with her.  She chatted about Paul and her sons, and her twin sister and her Mum and Dad. Her Dad has since passed away. It’s been quite a hard couple of years for her and her family, they are very much in my thoughts as I write about Sarah, as is dear Eva, who found Helen to break this awful news to, and who has lost a very close friend.

This is how I’ll remember Sarah;  casual, and often in my head, wearing the shirt of her football club, Stoke City. WOYWW, Stoke City, Clarity….showing a woman who had deep loyalties, huh. Her WOYWW family will miss her for sure, she touched the lives of so many, a language teacher in real life, and certainly a craft teacher in fun life. And as always, so, so much more. So many parts to her, as complicated and accomplished a woman as you could wish to meet. Rest In Peace Sarah, and thank you for teaching us all how to make the most of every day.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know Sarah, link here to tell your desk or your Sarah story, we’ll get back to the trivia of desk tops and crafting at some point, not least because it’s our therapy.