Confessions of a Craftaholic
When I sat down at my computer just a few minutes ago {okay, it's been longer than a few minutes}, I had no idea what I was going to write about. Like, my mind went totally blank. Should I write a blog post about period dramas and romances? A post about wine? Drink wine while writing a post about period dramas and romances? Clearly, my mind is going in a very strange direction.
Then I glanced around my room and noticed my knitting basket. For those of you who just laughed, yes, I have a knitting basket. In fact, I have two, plus a bag. One holds all of my yarn {or as much as will fit, hence the need for a bag}. The other holds my current knitting project so I can easily carry it wherever I want to go knit. I can keep my notebook {yes, I have a knitting notebook...stop laughing}, my needles, my scissors, my embroidery needle, the skein wrappers, and the current work in progress.
Right now, that smaller basket holds a wrap sweater I am knitting for a friend at work. I committed to knitting three and delivered my first one today! It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself, and a few of the compliments I got on it got me thinking. Those thoughts inspired today's post, so there you go!
Confession #1: Nothing is ever as easy as we say it is.
I have owned a Cricut for at least seven years, I think. I've knitting for about ten years, and I have scrapbooked since seventh grade {I refuse to think about that number}. Non-crafters often look at things that are finished, give a compliment or two, and generally, I reply with something that negates the amount of time or effort I put into it. I don't know why, and I think that is an overall crafter problem. But let's be clear: things are NEVER that easy. Stitches get dropped. Yarn gets tangled. I once had my knitting needles break when I was 2/3 of the way through a blanket....they just broke, and months of work almost unraveled in the process. The material moved on the Cricut mat. The setting was wrong. The iron-on backing wouldn't come off easily. The paper cutter wasn't straight. The frame wasn't big enough. That cute shirt we Cricuted? We say it didn't take long, but the amount of time it took to figure out the settings, to create the project on the software, to actually do the cutting, to weed the material, to place it right on the shirt, to iron it on, and to let it cool down {all while not accounting for any mistakes made in any of those steps}...it wasn't easy. Even if I say it was, it wasn't. Because that shirt is the product of hours and hours of trial and error on other projects. That pair of socks is hours and hours of mistakes and restarts. That scrapbook is hours and hours of cutting and gluing and placing.
Confession #2: Crafting = cussing.
It just does. If you think that cute pair of earrings you're wearing didn't inspire the said crafters to say a lot of really bad words, then you are kidding yourself. That cute wine glass you're drinking out of? That vinyl was a bitch to weed. That scarf you're wearing? Those needles are a pain in the ass and turn my fingers gray. Crafters may look sweet and innocent...but they're sailors underneath all that yarn and glitter.
Confession #3: At some point in the project, we hate the project.
You hit a point in every single crafting project where you start to question why you even started it. Maybe it's an extra tricky part. Maybe, if you're me, it's when you have to sew the ends in while knitting {I hate sewing in the ends...it's necessary but I still hate it}. We are excited at the beginning. We are proud of the finished project. But dammit, somewhere in the middle, it made my life hell.
Confession #4: Nothing ever turns out looking like the pattern.
I shouldn't say nothing, but a lot of things. Especially in the age of Pinterest, where we get to see the cute finished products...we don't see all of the mistakes. A lot of things end up #pinterestfails. Sometimes, the difference is slight. Sometimes, no one else will notice. But we notice. I can see that the words on that sign I made you are the tiniest bit uneven. I can see the single row of stitches where I purled two and knitted one instead of the other way around, and it stands out to me like a flashing red light.
Confession #5: We have this thing we do when we go anywhere.
This thing doesn't have a name, but I want to come up with one. It's not "crafters' envy," but it's something like "crafters' confidence," maybe. We go into a store, see a thing, and think, I could just make that for half that price. And actually, sometimes we can. Sometimes, though, it is just easier to buy someone else's work....see #1, #2, and #3. And #4.
Confession #6: We are terrible at guestimating how much time something will take.
Or at least I am. I know a few things, like that I can knit a stocking cap during the time it takes to watch a televised football game. I can knit a sock in about an hour and a half. One sock, not a pair. But I have an absolutely awful time predicting how long something will take. I allot all day, I'm done in twenty minutes. I only have an hour, I don't even get the project done.
Confession #7: We love making things for people!*
Obviously. But do you see the asterisk? People who ask for projects to be done generally fall into two camps: people who understand how long something might take, how much materials cost, etc., and people who don't. It isn't their fault; they just don't understand how things work, and so they tend to take it for granted. If you ask for a crafter to do a project and say you'll pay them for it, do not balk at the price. If you hired someone to mow your lawn, and they charged hourly, you would pay them that rate with no problem. But people tend to take for granted the amount of time crafters spend doing things.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you bought a picture frame, and you want a cute quote cut out of vinyl and adhered to the frame. Here are the steps I took {assuming you bought the frame and gave it to me}: went through my vinyl to see what I already had, possibly went out and bought more vinyl, opened Cricut Design Space, typed in your quote, played around with fonts for a good hour or longer, centered the words, moved some words closer together, recentered the words, changed the font again, reconfigured the words, got out the Cricut, put the vinyl on the mat, loaded the mat into the machine, had the machine cut it {fingers crossed that you didn't lose any letters in the cutting process}, weeded the quote {removed all the negative space, like the empty vinyl around the words and the centers of the o, a, g, e, d, b, q, k}, got out my transfer tape, adhered the vinyl to the transfer tape, placed it on the frame, moved it, recentered it, removed the transfer tape {fingers crossed that you didn't lose any letters in this process, too}, looked at it, looked at it again, had someone else look at it, and then finally gave the frame back to you. All you see is a cute frame with words.
I wasn't lying when I said crafters love making things for people! If someone asks me to make them something, unless I really don't have the time to do it, I'm going to say yes. It's a skill that I have, I have the means to do it, and I enjoy sharing that gift. This wasn't a rant attempting to get people to leave crafters alone--on the contrary, ask your crafting friends for help! But please, please, please do not take for granted the time and effort put into your project. If someone says they don't have time to do your project, they don't. And bonus confession: we don't like doing crap work. If we don't have the time to do it well, we won't do it.
If you have crafter friends, take good care of them. Take them to Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and JoAnns, and let them roam around. Let them touch all the fabric and yarn their little hearts desire. Buy them coffee {or wine or pop...whatever their poison is}.
AND SPEAKING OF COFFEE!!!! It is time for me to announce the winner of the first every giveaway on my blog!!! I used a very sophisticated method to choose the winner...I put everyone's names in one of those random name picker wheels and spun it. And the winner of the bag of Highlander Grogg coffee {you lucky person, you!} is.....
MOLLY!
Yay Molly! And thanks for playing, everybody else! I'm planning another giveaway soon, with lots more opportunities to win, so stay tuned!
Then I glanced around my room and noticed my knitting basket. For those of you who just laughed, yes, I have a knitting basket. In fact, I have two, plus a bag. One holds all of my yarn {or as much as will fit, hence the need for a bag}. The other holds my current knitting project so I can easily carry it wherever I want to go knit. I can keep my notebook {yes, I have a knitting notebook...stop laughing}, my needles, my scissors, my embroidery needle, the skein wrappers, and the current work in progress.
 |
| Knitting Basket #1 {and bag} |
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| Knitting Basket #2 |
I have owned a Cricut for at least seven years, I think. I've knitting for about ten years, and I have scrapbooked since seventh grade {I refuse to think about that number}. Non-crafters often look at things that are finished, give a compliment or two, and generally, I reply with something that negates the amount of time or effort I put into it. I don't know why, and I think that is an overall crafter problem. But let's be clear: things are NEVER that easy. Stitches get dropped. Yarn gets tangled. I once had my knitting needles break when I was 2/3 of the way through a blanket....they just broke, and months of work almost unraveled in the process. The material moved on the Cricut mat. The setting was wrong. The iron-on backing wouldn't come off easily. The paper cutter wasn't straight. The frame wasn't big enough. That cute shirt we Cricuted? We say it didn't take long, but the amount of time it took to figure out the settings, to create the project on the software, to actually do the cutting, to weed the material, to place it right on the shirt, to iron it on, and to let it cool down {all while not accounting for any mistakes made in any of those steps}...it wasn't easy. Even if I say it was, it wasn't. Because that shirt is the product of hours and hours of trial and error on other projects. That pair of socks is hours and hours of mistakes and restarts. That scrapbook is hours and hours of cutting and gluing and placing.
It just does. If you think that cute pair of earrings you're wearing didn't inspire the said crafters to say a lot of really bad words, then you are kidding yourself. That cute wine glass you're drinking out of? That vinyl was a bitch to weed. That scarf you're wearing? Those needles are a pain in the ass and turn my fingers gray. Crafters may look sweet and innocent...but they're sailors underneath all that yarn and glitter.
You hit a point in every single crafting project where you start to question why you even started it. Maybe it's an extra tricky part. Maybe, if you're me, it's when you have to sew the ends in while knitting {I hate sewing in the ends...it's necessary but I still hate it}. We are excited at the beginning. We are proud of the finished project. But dammit, somewhere in the middle, it made my life hell.
I shouldn't say nothing, but a lot of things. Especially in the age of Pinterest, where we get to see the cute finished products...we don't see all of the mistakes. A lot of things end up #pinterestfails. Sometimes, the difference is slight. Sometimes, no one else will notice. But we notice. I can see that the words on that sign I made you are the tiniest bit uneven. I can see the single row of stitches where I purled two and knitted one instead of the other way around, and it stands out to me like a flashing red light.
Confession #5: We have this thing we do when we go anywhere.
This thing doesn't have a name, but I want to come up with one. It's not "crafters' envy," but it's something like "crafters' confidence," maybe. We go into a store, see a thing, and think, I could just make that for half that price. And actually, sometimes we can. Sometimes, though, it is just easier to buy someone else's work....see #1, #2, and #3. And #4.
Or at least I am. I know a few things, like that I can knit a stocking cap during the time it takes to watch a televised football game. I can knit a sock in about an hour and a half. One sock, not a pair. But I have an absolutely awful time predicting how long something will take. I allot all day, I'm done in twenty minutes. I only have an hour, I don't even get the project done.
Obviously. But do you see the asterisk? People who ask for projects to be done generally fall into two camps: people who understand how long something might take, how much materials cost, etc., and people who don't. It isn't their fault; they just don't understand how things work, and so they tend to take it for granted. If you ask for a crafter to do a project and say you'll pay them for it, do not balk at the price. If you hired someone to mow your lawn, and they charged hourly, you would pay them that rate with no problem. But people tend to take for granted the amount of time crafters spend doing things.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you bought a picture frame, and you want a cute quote cut out of vinyl and adhered to the frame. Here are the steps I took {assuming you bought the frame and gave it to me}: went through my vinyl to see what I already had, possibly went out and bought more vinyl, opened Cricut Design Space, typed in your quote, played around with fonts for a good hour or longer, centered the words, moved some words closer together, recentered the words, changed the font again, reconfigured the words, got out the Cricut, put the vinyl on the mat, loaded the mat into the machine, had the machine cut it {fingers crossed that you didn't lose any letters in the cutting process}, weeded the quote {removed all the negative space, like the empty vinyl around the words and the centers of the o, a, g, e, d, b, q, k}, got out my transfer tape, adhered the vinyl to the transfer tape, placed it on the frame, moved it, recentered it, removed the transfer tape {fingers crossed that you didn't lose any letters in this process, too}, looked at it, looked at it again, had someone else look at it, and then finally gave the frame back to you. All you see is a cute frame with words.
I wasn't lying when I said crafters love making things for people! If someone asks me to make them something, unless I really don't have the time to do it, I'm going to say yes. It's a skill that I have, I have the means to do it, and I enjoy sharing that gift. This wasn't a rant attempting to get people to leave crafters alone--on the contrary, ask your crafting friends for help! But please, please, please do not take for granted the time and effort put into your project. If someone says they don't have time to do your project, they don't. And bonus confession: we don't like doing crap work. If we don't have the time to do it well, we won't do it.
MOLLY!
Yay Molly! And thanks for playing, everybody else! I'm planning another giveaway soon, with lots more opportunities to win, so stay tuned!
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