Blah, blah, blah....

It seems I might be hosting a craft night for me and some friends in a couple of weeks! If it turns out well, I might try to make this a regular thing. Crafting can be such a solitary thing that it's nice to occasionally do it with other people. Plus, it will hopefully give me the opportunity to sit down and teach a friend to knit.

Another friend who is learning to crochet wrote a post on her blog about finishing her first scarf and why she likes crochet so much, and it made me think of ....well, why I love to knit so much. I find it soothing at times and intense in others, mainly depending on the project. My friend likened it to meditation and it is in its own way. Knitting quiets the nerves and unravels the mind. I can remember times when I have poured myself into a project because of feelings I couldn't or didn't want to express and, strangely enough, it helped.

Also, I feel this special sort of happy whenever I bind off the final stitches or weave in the last end-- that accomplishment that comes from knowing I just made something out of a very long piece of string. I like that, with a little math, I can alter a pattern from being kind of what I want to exactly what I want.-- when I actually have the discipline to use a pattern anyway. And it's pretty rocking to receive a compliment and reply, "yeah, I made that."


It's been a bit since I've posted any pictures here, in part because the batteries in the camera are kaput again, but also because none of the current projects are in photo-friendly stages. Ultimately it's not that big a deal since virtually no one knows about this blog yet, not even my friends! (I wanted to actually have something to show before I started telling people, "hey, look at my craft blog!")

But I digress. I do have one project with decent pictures, and it's been the biggest one of late. A few months ago, I realized that I was starting to lose my creative spark. I hadn't made anything in months and really only had one or two good ideas for things. I made all these excuses for it, like lack of time, lack of space, the weather-- but realized they were pretty much all crap and, more importantly, easily fixed. So I made myself a to do list that went as follows:

1-commit to carving out time for arts and crafts
2-create a dedicated workspace (one that will include storage and a place for my sewing machine)
3-surround myself with things that motivate and inspire me

1 was the easiest and 3 will always be an ongoing thing, so the big one has been item 2. And this is the work in progress....

BEFORE

What a crappy, useless, messy as hell, blah room.

AFTER
I started with paint, then some rearranging and even those two things worked wonders. We are still lacking in storage-- a fact that the angle of these pictures manages to hide-- so the next thing is shelves, both for my project supplies and for my boyfriend's.

Either way, I find that I've already been more creative since I started this! That pristine uncluttered desk is now full of yarn, beads, a sewing machine, airbrushing stuff.... you name it. And I actually find myself sitting down and making stuff, even when I'm not planning to. Organizing beads turns into making a bracelet and seperating yarn by fiber becomes sketching ideas for a sweater. And all it took was a little bit of inner and outer rearranging.