Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Crafty Women are not Monogamous!

Help me!! I'm on the verge of falling prey to a darker instinct. It's like an addiction, pulling me away from peace and harmony and into a well of chaos. It is my horrible, terrible, secret urge to... craft.

The other day I was at a quilting store and I saw a GORGEOUS book of patterns for little girls' dresses. I want. I want BAD. But I told the wonderful woman who owns this gorgeous store that I can't buy it now because I'm trying to get through a quilt project so I must not start anything else. "Oh, you should start something else," she answered. "Every crafter has two or three projects going on at one. It's how you keep from getting bored!"

She's not the first to give me this advice. I think every woman I know who loves to knit, sew, crochet, bead, spin, weave, draw, paint, refinish, make cards, etc has told me that they have six or seven projects on the burner at once. Things get started, then the boredom sets in and they go into hibernation for a bit while the hottest new thing starts up. After a while you either finish the new and return to the old, or grow tired of the new and find a new new while the new old and the old old wait patiently. Project ideas reproduce like bunnies and before you know it, you have 15 projects and you can't finish any.

This is why so many crafters see UFOs. Un-Finished Objects haunt us in our sleep, waking us up in the middle of the night to beam us aboard the mothership and torture us. We're all one project away from going over the deep end and wearing tinfoil hats. "Excuse me, miss, but why are you wearing that football helmet?" "It keeps the UFOs away!! Want to join my knitting group?"

Sigh. I'm doing so well in my quest to finish Kaylin's quilt. I'm partway through quilting the fifth of nine blocks. It's adorable. I love it. I'm so pleased with it, because it's not just cute but it's also my first hand-quilted project. But it's sort of repetitive and I'm getting antsy. Someone yell at me and help me fight the itch! Remind me of my deadline, which is only one month away. Don't let me forget that this thing is GOING BACK TO RI WITH MY PARENTS IN APRIL and it will be best if it has binding on the edges, don't you think? Appeal to the sense of monogamy that makes my marriage so easy to maintain.

Or just confiscate my sewing machine pedal and my knitting needles until I finish.

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