Creative Projects
I loved a good craft project as far back as I can remember. I was about 13 when I took home economics and made a dress. I actually wore it to school (just once) even though it was far from perfect. I have never been one for exactness but have got a bit better with age.
During that year I figured since I know knew how to sew that I should try my hand at other crafts. I taught myself to knit, crochet, needlepoint, rug pull, and embroider. Unclear how I did that considering YouTube didn’t exist. Each of these now obvious hidden talents had a project around them. None of them except the embroidered rainbow on the pocket of my favorite pair of cutoff jeans ever made it out of my bedroom.
Fast forward to my time home with two kids and then three, I returned to the crafts. It kept my mind semi-focused on something while I could focus on other things. We had no cash and I wanted to create bedrooms for the kids that felt warm, cozy, and their own so I took it on myself to decorate them. I made a twin-sized comforter made out of bandanas. I actually had to wash them, iron them, make the fabric by sewing them all together, and then cut into the pattern. It was quite the project. I also made decoupage tissue boxes, sewed curtains, painted furniture, made stencils from a fun animal book, and painted them on the kid’s bathroom wall. This doesn’t even include the amount of pickling and jelly making I did. Then I returned to the work world and my projects were put on hold.
At one point about 12 years ago I decided I should knit a blanket. I cut off way more than I could chew and the project is still in a box. Then COVID-19 showed up. I am spending time thinking about how I want my career life to look so projects just seemed like the natural addition to my day. You can only read so many books.
It has been a fascinating dive into the web as well. I have learned everything on YouTube. The videos and websites are endless. There are a bunch of stars in that world too who are building their sites, users, and status in the yarn world. My next project is an attempt to return to the sewing machine and make a quilt. I am excited to see the people, the websites, the tutorials that come out of the quilting world. It’s a whole different world.
An education in creative projects from bottom up.