Updated: 03-01-2021
© Christina Coutts 2007


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About the
Idle Hands

"Simplify your life; purge your stuff." (John December).

Must I?
I mean - my life's pretty simple after all. It's just me and my hands most of the time, (and, no doubt, the Devil). ... but I do have Stuff.

Don't get me wrong. The Stuff does not control me. Mostly we rub along nicely. It's a sort of symbiotic relationship.
It's just that lately.... well... lately it has sort of started to interfere with my heavy program of idling, to the extent that it seems to be trying to exclude me from my own workroom.
A simple life starts to sound attractive.

"Reduce the amount of stuff you have by examining each item you own and asking yourself if you really need it."

So... I look at the Stuff.
And it gazes sentimentally at me, and.... I have to face it: a simple life is just not a possibility.

My Simple Life.


I am a medium-aged lady from Surrey* - well, everyone is aren't they? That is: not all ladies from Surrey presumably, but "medium-aged". I live in a quaint house with plenty of room for the Stuff and the Idling.
I share the house with George, whose only drawback is that he is in possession of a large amount of junk, (which he erroneously calls Stuff), and should start simplifying his life right away, if you ask me.
Here we are enjoying the evening sunshine on the balcony after a swim, (not in Surrey, and sometime in the previous millennium).

[* I have to point out that I wrote all this when I first started the website more than a decade ago, and we are all quite a bit older now, albeit probably not any wiser - and not any lighter stuff-wise].


Along with George, I acquired a step-daughter, who is both cute and talented. So much so, that, given a chance, I would pretend she inherited it all from me, if it were not for the implausibility of such a notion. She is well on her way to a lifetime hoard of Stuff, and has the advantage of having two residences in which store it.

Here she is giving a clear idea of her opinion of me; her Father seems equally impressed.



I have also got some charming and talented friends who are slightly more interested in my web enterprises.
My friend Alison, (finally returned to the UK after 20 years in California), who shares most of my interests.... except probably she has less of an inclination towards Stuff I have noticed.... especially my Stuff.




And there's my ex-husband, Rob. Here is a man who really knows about and appreciates Stuff; in fact, he is still housing some of mine if I remember rightly....
He has retired from his life as a lecturer in theatre studies at a Higher Education college, but he is still constantly expanding his artistic knowledge and capabilities, (and his Stuff).
Here he is regarding me with the usual degree of suspicion during a day out in London to see the Sultan's Elephant.

 

IDLEHANDS
ravelry

 

MORE STUFF:

China Dolls
Creative Fibres