That's the reaction I get sometimes from friends and colleagues who don't know about my obsessive crafting. I don't blame them for not knowing, unless you live with me - like my great husband - you don't ever see me straining my eyes to bead a bracelet or crocheting myself a hat or drawing with pastels. I'm a big city type who prefers to wear black instead of coordinates. I have huge hair and lots of shoes. I cook but I prefer to go out and eat. I'm an activist at heart and love a good sci-fi novel. Honestly, I wouldn't think I was a crafter either.
I've been beading and crocheting - self taught by book and internet - since I was a little kid but rarely does my craftiness leave the confines of my home. You see, until now most of the craft projects I undertook, I didn't finish. I've got at least a dozen halfway done berets, scarves, portraits and little doll figures stuffed into totes all around the house. Every few months I go to the craft store, spend 40 bucks and start a new project only to never finish it.Some of these unfinished pieces show promise (I actually followed a pattern) and others are misshapen, missed sticthed Rorschach tests in yarn.
I craft to cope, to do, to make with my hands and to get myself out of my head. I'm an academic by trade and spend a lot of time reading big books, writing long papers and thinking much too hard about the fate of the world and other such minutiae. It used to be that when I picked up a crochet hook (and butcher a pattern I find online) the goal was just the process of crafting. The repetitive motion, the simple parts that grew into something larger - let me slow down my hectic life.
I have more unfinished projects than finished.
But that's all about to change.
We're moving to the suburbs of our already too small town (in my opinion), I'm busy with my career and we're having our first baby!!!!
And now is the time to craft. I have a nursery to decorate, appropriately quirky and radical toys to make, articles to write, and my sanity to keep. So, come along with me while I document my adventures of crafting a life in the burbs.
Wish me luck!
~Dee
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