Confessions of a Craftygrrrl

Anna-Beth, a SERIOUS crafter and one of the buyers at Pacific Fabrics & Crafts, has a confession for us today:

I’m getting a little worried about my sanity as the crafting bug continues to spread. There’s not many crafts I don’t dabble in – I quilt, sew, knit, crochet, mosaic, needlefelt and bead. I’ve dabbled in embroidery, cross-stitch, stained glass, tie-dying, candlemaking, textile painting, and scrapbooking.

I see ideas everywhere. Flying in an airplane, I look down to see fields as patchwork, mountains as trapunto quilting. Taking a lovely dayhike, I think of how I might use batiks to make landscape quilts of all of the sights I see. Admiring a friend’s wool sweater, I wonder if it would felt, and what I might make out of it. After seeing some adorable needle felted sushi, I picture all of my food reproduced in cuddly, fuzzy form.

My friends and family notice this fixation. My boyfriend walked out of the last James Bond movie with memories of explosions, stunts and gorgeous women. I walked out thinking of how great the opening credits graphics would be if it were a fabric line.

My mother, an avid gardener, asks me if I have my onions and potatoes planted. Alas, I tell her, no gardening, but I have three quilt tops done, a scarf and a hat half knitted, a jacket cut out and I’ve made six necklaces this month. My tiny house is bursting with fabric, yarn, interfacings, beads, wool roving, and various tools and notions.

There are some major upsides to this mindset – for instance, I am not tempted to buy expensive clothes or accessories – instead, I examine everything to see how it was made and find inspiration rather than temptation. Later, I make the garment, then a purse to coordinate, then a necklace, then perhaps a hairclip, with yo-yos and beading, all for a fraction of the price of the original, and all more distinctively suited to my taste and style.

The gifts I give are often unique and perfectly specific to the recipient: I will never forget the tears in the eyes of my goth friends who opened the machine-embroidered bat-and–rose themed quilt I made them at their bat-and-rose-themed wedding, or my bubbly happy Leo friend who delights in the eco-friendly shopping tote I made her of bright flowery fabric with lions drawn on it. I know every night that my mother, father, and my five closest friends are sleeping under quilts that I designed and sewed just for them.

There are worse obsessions to have – I could be taking home my 32^nd cat, or living with stacks of decades-old grocery-store mailers. Instead, I am productive and inspired. But I know it’s not normal to “have to” knit during a movie, or to daydream about machine quilting stitches, or to think it might be nice to take up tatting to add to my ridiculous repertoire.

Luckily, I know that I am not alone in my lack of normalcy – I can go to my local Pacific Fabrics store, or slip into a Quality Sewing to drool on the serger of my dreams (sorry about the drool, I’ll clean it up before I leave) and find others who are as crafty, and as obsessive, as me. With friends like these, who needs normalcy?

Comments

[EmmyLou]

OMG!
I am not alone! I trully enjoyed your comments "confessions,..." as I too are like you.
Now if I could only buy time,...oh my! The crafts I could do!

[Patricia Watson]

wonderfully creative, great things come from your hands(and heart) --and usually a few songs are in the air too