Crafty summer projects

Besides making zines and music, I also enjoy doing some crafts once in a while…

This summer I’ve been making some new buttons with my button machine (see previous blogpost) as well as sewing a lot of patches on clothes and bags. This was inspired partly by a present by my friend and writer Evelien Victor and by a big online order of patches that arrived from zine pal and queer artist Yori. I also participated in a virtual workshop by another zine pal and artist Seleena Laverne Daye (organised by Andro & Eve) where she taught us participants how to make self-portraits out of felt (Seleena also gave a workshop about the zines in July). Mine aren’t finished yet though… In the photo above you can see that I’ve been sewing a new face mask too. With the ongoing pandemic and some of my masks getting a bit worn-out, it seemed like a good idea to make a fresh one. Finally, I’ve started doing some more embroideries but those are still a surprise! You will find out more about them soon on this blog.

More photos of the crafty projects I’ve been doing this summer:

New craft projects

Here are some things I’ve made (or repaired) in the past few months that aren’t zines, drawings or music… 🙂

One year since confinement – crafty projects as a means of survival

It’s almost exactly one year ago that the covid-19 pandemic started being taken seriously where I live and that a (semi)lockdown was instated. So it’s a good moment to reflect on that past year. A scary year, a difficult year for most people, with a lot of loss, loneliness, fear, frustrations, sadness, anger, and grief, and some beautiful moments in between. I’m happy I decided to start drawing about what things were like more or less since the beginning because I tend to forget things so fast, like everyone else probably. So much has happened and so much has changed since then. It’s important to document this time for so many reasons. That’s why the “quaranzines” that were made all over the world are so valuable.

In this blogpost I want to focus on one of the positive things that happened to me during the past year: the crafty projects I created in the early days of confinement. Somehow I got really busy and energetic in the first few weeks/months of staying at home. Partly it might have been the stress of the whole virus and lockdown situation. I couldn’t sit still and just relax, I had to keep doing things. Even watching tv shows and films was hard – no worries, I’m back to normal binge-watching mode now 🙂 … In those first weeks and months I started writing several songs and worked on several of my own (quaran)zines as well as contributed to compzines (compilation zines: zines with contributions by several people) about the corona virus (I’ll write more about that in an upcoming blogpost). I also created fabric panels or curtains for some shelves in my living room, made face masks, and sewed patches on clothes. Finally, a bit later on, I made my own oracle card set. I’m so lucky that my body and mind reacted in this way in this scary, stressful, and sad time.

Read on to find out more: