I have been doing crafts, I promise

My crafting has been lacking.  Thought I would do the usual and shame myself into keeping it moving by posting here.  I am so determined to finish projects, well, I just can't even say.  It is so much fun in the beginning.  And then it gets boring fast.  I have to be mindful of that while I'm conceiving of projects.  I am terrible at editing and always want to do more.  But I'm tired of leaving half completed projects. 

My California scrapbook project is painfully slow going.  Its fun to work on it when I have nothing else to do and need something mindless and crafty, but I am determined to get the darn thing done this month.  We're going on another trip and I am already hatching something scrapalicious to do for it.  As always I have no clue what I'm doing.  Its so big that I've added a hundred pages and posts, and still have like three sections to go.  I still question what the purpose of this is, but love it and ultimately don't care.  Posts below show a finished page, a page in progress, and a page with random stuff ready to be used.  I think my next challenge is coming up with a better way to document our next trip.  All I have right now is a moleskin notebook and a big fat book on England.  Hmm.

The Winter 25 Scrapbook has also been hard to complete.  I really enjoyed the Fall 25 Scrapbook, but not so much with the Winter one.  The Fall one was novel, whereas the Winter was not.  While the Fall one did the trick to ward off the Winter blues, they still showed up in small little ways.  With the Winter one, I wasn't into the to-do items in the same way, and didn't do them with the same creativity.  And so, it lacks the pizazz of the Fall one.  I completely replaced multiple items, and half did others.  But some things were lovely:  finishing my quilt, capturing Spring and taking a very cold walk along a frozen Charles River all rocked (photos below).  I'm also determined to finish this one by the end of the month because I REALLY want to get started on my Spring/Summer one!

This is all I have for the Spring/Summer album so far.  Its a different size (5.8 X 8) and has a binder inside.  I have a list of to-dos (mostly things to explore in New England - a total road trip all summer!) but don't want to follow them in the same way, if at all.  For the Fall and Winter, I documented according to the items, but for the Spring/Summer, I want to make dividers for each month and document chronologically.  For example, for the month of April, I have a date night, the Boston Marathon, and pictures of the spring.  I want to put together a narrative and somehow document it all together.  And for May, I already have our water adventure that I'd like to put together with a story.  I've been gathering and taking photos, so we'll see.  I have no idea how this is going to work out, just that it needs to be different from the Fall and Winter ones.  Hopefully it will keep me invested and exploring and doing things.

So I promise, I am doing things.  Just very very slowly.

Changes to come...

I have been feeling for awhile that something is about to change.  I could guess as to what it might be, as several things are in the works, big monumental things.  A house, a family, maybe a job change.  Even my horoscope agrees.  Today I saw a rainbow that solidified my belief, and gave me a great deal of peace over things that have been confusing and scary. 

These past few days have been especially difficult.  Our entire area was under a boil water order due to a broken water main.  It continues to come as a surprise at how many things we needed that water for.  Laundry was completed during visits to open houses outside of the zone, and dishes piled up, and piled up and piled up.  For some reason this whole thing made us very agitated, but the truth is, the agitation has been growing anyway.  Every weekend we've been going to open houses, finding scary basements and even scarier mortgage payments; struggling with the concept of "home" and not finding it anywhere.  We've both been frustrated at work, wanting more and working hard, but mainly just holding steady.  We are faced with having to make it work, all by our little selves.  Yikes.  Something had to give, right? 

I've noticed that when things need to give, they tend to give way via water.  For me, water brings change.  A water main break asks us to consider our daily tasks and challenges us to do them in a different way.  Big sweeping storms clear the air in fireworks and bangs, and leave us to breathe more deeply and think more clearly.  Something is about to shift, I am hopeful and watchful. 

Another completion

World, meet Squarey.

Squarey is not my creation - the recipe is from this book.  I started Squarey shortly after the completion of his sister, Spherey....two years ago.  Poor Squarey sat in a ziploc baggie for years, a backing, a leg, and two arms.  A friend gave me eyes.  And finally I started the final push, completing the stripes and working my way up the back.

At the same time I decided it was time to take the test for my license.  Over the past month and a half, I've been studying like crazy.  And today I passed.  Let me restate that:  Today I PASSED.  So, in a year of bringing things to completion:  done and done.

A seven year quilt

I did it!  On this President's Day, I finally finished this crazy quilt.  I sewed up the edges on the binding, laid it out over my bed, and stared at it in something like amazement.  My husband smiled over the quilt and said, "too bad it doesn't have a story," and I said, "but it does!"  In fact, this quilt was subject of my first blog entry...a year and a half ago.  Started during a major snowstorm that shut down all of Maryland precisely seven years ago, it felt timely to finish it while Maryland dug itself out again.  I feel far away from Maryland up here in the north, and needed a way to feel connected again, while also re-examining the separation. 

This quilt really represents our journey from Maryland to Massachusetts, the beginning of a large endeavor set aside until I could figure out my new life here.  Just finding a way to focus on an art activity, much less find space to do work, took effort.  Tackling the quilting took a herculean feat of strength, similar to the intensity of figuring out a big city, going to school, finding a job, being away from home.  After all that work, today I concentrated on the detailing, the binding, the edging, the clean up:  and that is representative of where we are now.  Similarly, today I registered for my licensure test, the culmination of three years of graduate school and two years before that, two internships, over 60 credits, one and half years of work and almost 2,000 hours with clients.  I'm coming to the end of a long cycle.  This quilt says that we live here now, the ending of this seven year journey.  And the truth is, I am still homesick, and I am glad to be coming to the end of all this work.  This has been a tough seven years.  But I did it, and its beautiful.

25 Things: Winter

I'm still wrapping up my Fall 25 scrapbook, and one of my last tasks is to complete my Winter 25 book. Finally finished it tonight! I just need to print some more photos from Shutterfly, and my Fall 25 will be done.

The Winter 25 is the same format as the Fall 25, with the title printed on a transparency and layered over scrapbook paper attached to a index card divider. I picked pages of blues, a smidge of red, green and gold, with some snowflake-like graphics.

I've since realized that the to-do list is a work in progress, so this will change over the next few months, which is totally okay with me. As long as I'm doing and making, I'm good.

Dogbot: One done!

This is the first one in the book. Fairly easy, but finiky, with lots of pieces. Any hints on how to tuck in all the little pieces and get them to stay?

To finish the other two, I need random bits like sequins and certain size beads. And springs and screws. Hmm, we'll see if they ever get done...

Amigurumi

I've recently become re-interested in crocheting. Last year, I got pretty good at knitting, finishing a pair of mittens and finally becoming thwarted by socks. Many years before that, I had spent lunch breaks crocheting a massive blanket and several hats. A woman at work taught me how to crochet a circle, and has opened up this whole new world of crochet projects, particularly amigurumi, the art of crocheting or knitting little creatures. I picked up this awesome book called Crobots, and over Thanksgiving, rocked out some of these creatures. To be stuffed and accessorized asap.

This is a knit project started maybe two years ago. When finished, it will be an awesome pillow with arms, legs, eyes and a warm smile. Intended for my brother. Thought that by posting it here, I would be shamed into finishing it.










And two books that are kicking my ass. I'm determined to learn how to crochet smooth, flat hexagons and join them together into a blanket or even a scarf. I've been practicing at night and then throwing the little circles across the room in frustration. And that is the socks book that made me put down knitting. But I'll be back.





I'm looking forward to a snowy winter. Plus, just got a huge bin of yarn from my mother-in-law. Now let's see if I can finish a project.

CA: Scrapbook Update

My California scrapbook has been another ongoing project that has been really enjoyable to stick with. One weekend, I got inspired and stamped and painted the front page for the scrapbook plus the daily front pages (not pictured). I used a gold paint tinted black and then wrote the location in script, using a sharpie marker. Just having fun laying out pages, trying to tell a story, and pointedly ignoring the critical voice that says "why are you doing this? why are there so many pages? what if you aren't scrapbooking like you're supposed to?" Who cares? It feels good to do after a long day at work, and that's all that matters. Images below.

25 Things: An Update

The 25 Things To Do scrapbook has ended up being one of the best creative ideas I've been able to pursue. Not only has it actually worked in keeping my mood up, we've been able to do some really cool things over the past several months! I've been taking lots of pictures, collecting random stuff, and having fun scrapbooking it all together. It keeps me actively creating, its easy to do, there is always something to work on.

To make the whole collection a bit more cohesive, each task has a long label with the task number stamped and the task handwritten beside it. Each page has a round label with the date stamped on it. I used silver and black sharpies to write all over everything, and used all the random stuff collected to help dress up the photos. If a task only used the front of a page, I used the back to journal about it. Tags and index cards work wonders for this. And who cares if its cheesy. So no laughing.

25: 8 down, 17 to go

I've been working on my Fall 25, and found that there are some that just aren't going to be possible, or some things that I want to do that I didn't put on the list. Its my list, so I went ahead and made some changes!

The biggest "change" was to include getting cupcakes from my local favorite cupcake place. I had to validate it somehow...