Stitchfase

It’s been a long few weeks since I have completed an embroidery piece. I forgot how good it feels to finish a commission and hear the words, “It’s fantastic, I love it!”

This is not why I started stitching, but comments like these help to remind me that a creative life is a happy life, or at least in my case, a happier life.

I have bipolar and chronic anxiety, I’m a survivor of domestic violence and rape. I have been self-medicating with all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons for years. It wasn’t until I took up stitching that I was able to firstly get clean, stay clean, and start the immense task of unravelling decades of mental illness.

My darling late granddad, whom I miss every day, was a tapestry master. I wish he could see the work I do today. I wish we could have collaborated. In these threads I have found a lifeline, an anchor, an outlet, and therapy.

I am stitching myself together, one piece at a time.

Stitchfase

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Badass Book Club

I like to alliterate. It’s kind of a thing we do in this house. When my daughter was five she was reading and said to a fellow reception, ‘Aunt Annie’s Alligator, hey that alliterates!’ That was the day that I realised that while I had prepared her for the life of a word nerd I hadn’t prepared her for the blank stares that sometimes follow such word nerdery.

So when I was thinking for a name for the book club I wanted it to alliterate because what the hell else could I do? Use just any old word? Don’t be crazy. So here we are, Badass Book Club. I don’t purport to be a badass but I’m hoping maybe some of you are to make up for my lack thereof. If not then maybe some of the books we read will be.

Welcome to our first official book. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (who I think is absolutely badass, ticked that box early!).

According to the blurb there are streets under London filled with “monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet.” I’m a fan of this genre so I thought I’d start somewhere a little familiar but we are by no means staying with this genre throughout. Every month I’m looking for suggestions from you guys and we’ll pick one and go with it. I’m looking forward to being taken out of my comfort zone.

Keep an eye out on Tuesday the 15th of September, I’ll post a blog about what I thought of the book then at 8pm ACST pour yourself a glass of wine or make a pot of tea, put your feet up and take to facebook where we can have a chat about what you thought and we can get all book clubby and shit. Can’t wait. Hope you can join me.

Arlene
xo

That One Song

Music. It is one of those universal forces that can evoke a variety of emotions and memories in all of us.  It doesn’t discriminate on race, religion, gender, height, weight, build, or whether you can burp the alphabet or not (don’t try that at home, it doesn’t end well).

We all have that one song that when we hear it we go somewhere amazing. It takes you to your happy place, or becomes a melodic time machine and transports you to a particularly awesome time and place.

I have a number of songs that I can name, however, the big one is the song that changed my life forever! When I was 10 years old my brother brought home Rattle and Hum by U2, and when I heard the live version of Bullet the Blue Sky and the noises that The Edge was getting out of his guitar – my mind was officially blown. From that day forward I knew that I was going to play guitar until my dying breath. Before that moment I was just a normal kid. Five minutes and thirty seven seconds later I became awesome.

What is your song? What is that one song that helped to define who you are today?

Greg
Rock on.

The Dawning of a New Blog

After much crippling self doubt, swearing at my computer screen and a shitload of writer’s block (you have no idea how many times I’ve written this bloody welcome page), I present to you, Punch Drunk Funk.

This place is going to be an eclectic bunch of ideas, stories and anything else myself and my rag tag team of creative friends feel like penning at the time. It’s going to be great collaborating with these guys, you’ll love them. All of us are very different and have different interests which makes for a more interesting read, rather than hearing my lone voice whining on my blog week after week.

Anyone who has read my old blog has heard of Fist Pump Friday, I’m going to continue with a version of that but everything else is shiny and spanky new; including Badass Book Club. I’ll talk more about that in the next post, but get keen because a book club for one is just a sad state of affairs.

So stick around, click the like button on the side there and stay in touch and see where we are going to take this, because frankly it is going to be a bit of a surprise to us too.

Arlene
xox