Crafty Update

This has been the summer of craftiness for me. I've had a lot of unaccustomed free time, and when I'm not reading outside I'm working on something indoors. The first thing I wanted to do was get something up on the bare, soulless white walls of our apartment.

Then I stumbled on this.

It seemed an easy enough project, so with judicious application of some birthday money, I obtained the supplies. On this expedition, I also found these. For only $1 each.


I may have felt like a horrible person when I ripped the first one apart. I've never destroyed a book before and it was a very traumatic experience for me. After I recovered from the shock of ruining literature, I followed the guide and came out with a fairly satisfactory product.

Yes, I shamelessly copied the design of the example. I have no art skills.

They're now hanging above the mantle. I'm planning on making another, across three canvases, with a giant octopus attacking a boat. I'm not sure how well this will turn out.

That was the most successful of my crafty endeavors.

Next we have the cross stitch from hell. Remember this? From a year ago? Yeaaah. Still not done. I've made progress though!


The doom sweater has been knitted and now needs to be put together. It's currently lurking in the depths of my knitting bag - I haven't had the courage to confront it.

And now we come to what is currently the bane of my existence. My mother gave me her old sewing machine last year, and after making an eight foot squid pillow and a disastrous attempt at a shirt, I put it away and refused to think about it.

Until now, when I have tons of free time and nothing to do with it.

I'm trying to make a dress. This dress. And, like the cursed shirt, the pattern claims to be easy. It's not. It's ridiculous. (Or, more likely, I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing and am blundering along in the dark).

This is a week's worth of work.

I've become intimate friends with my seam ripper.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to look awful when it's finished, but even if that's the case I am going to wear the hell out of this dress.

I'm not stumbling, lost in this dank forest of confusing instructions and mindless re-sewing for nothing.

Why do the people on Project Runway make this look so easy?

The Doom Sweater

This is the doom sweater.


It's also known as Darcy, designed by Kim Hargreaves, and out of the book Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection. While it looks lovely and stylish, and early inspection leads one to believe it will be a fairly quick project, I cannot emphasis enough how insane this sweater has been for me. It's done in moss stitch, otherwise known as knit one purl one. Which takes an eternity.


I started this sweater last summer. I'm now on the sleeves. I feel like Sisyphus, people. This sweater will never end. I'm going to be 95, blind, deaf, and I will still not have finished this sweater.


Today, while I was diligently knitting and purling, the doom sweater proved to be too much for my poor bamboo needle. It wasn't happy with my soul, sanity, or manual dexterity - the cursed thing had to take down my knitting needle, too. Luckily, I had some electrical tape handy so I could perform triage.

This sweater is actively trying to prevent itself from being finished.


This? This is a cedar chest full of yarn for projects that I will never get to work on. Because the rest of my life is going to spent on this sweater that doesn't even want to be finished.

Craftyish

For nearly as long as I can remember, I've watched my mother at her various crafts. She used to make most of our clothing and has always ardently quilted, knitted, cross stitch-ed and just about anything else involving needle and cloth. I tried my hand at imitating her, but I can't muster up the focus to do such minute work, nor do I have the patience to create something with that level of repetitive work. That said, I've occasionally tried cross stitch. My first experience was mildly horrific - I did a simple sampler and ended up moving a little house seven times. SEVEN.

It didn't help that this was before we realized I needed glasses.

That ordeal turned me off the whole process for a good while, but when I found a pattern covered in sea creatures and boats I decided I'd give it another shot.

This is what it will look like when finished. If that's at all possible.

I start with burgeoning optimism. A few hours in, I have nearly completed a sail. Such a worthy project, so helpful in keeping my hands busy! Surely this will be enjoyable all the way through.

Two hours later. Despair is setting in at how ridiculously long this takes.

I succumb to vice.

Finally I give up and die alone, to be eaten by dogs.

Stupid cross stitch.

- SqueezeBox