Made by Misa

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This Redhead Creates - please join me there!!

The first Take It Further challenge was this: The key concept for January is a feeling we have all had, the feeling of admiration for another. Ask yourself who do you look up to and admire? Why? What is it you admire about them?

Immediately, I knew what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure it would "count", but then, the more I thought it over, the more I realized that Sharon's pretty big on interpreting things in your own way. So, with that being said, what I did this month didn't involve stitching. At least, not exclusively for the challenge.

Instead, I thought about how part of what I love about the stitching blogs I read is not only getting to look at all the beautiful work, but how freely people share their knowledge. I don't know anybody offline who stitches (read: does embroidery or crazy quilting). My mother used to do cross-stitch from time to time when I was quite young and one of my sisters did for a short period of time but didn't keep up with it. None of my friends do embroidery, however. And I wish that I had a stitching group that was pretty exclusively embroidery and/or CQ or something along that lines. Or even ONE friend to do it with. But, the fact of the matter is that I don't. So, I get all my "Hey, see this neat thing!" from the stitching blogs I read.

I still consider myself new to stitching. I've been doing it for a while now, yes, but I jump around from that to various different arts and crafts. So, some of the people who might, in fact, have been stitching for less time than I have, might actually be more experienced than me. And while it's nice to know how to do so many different things, it also means that I never get particularly good at any of them.

Every time I start to stitch, I fall in love with it all over again. But, I also get slightly frustrated at times because of my lack of experience and knowledge. So, I do what I always do when I'm frustrated: I go hang out on the internet. Usually, I'm reading blogs. I've looked at a LOT of stitching and a LOT of crazy quilting, but I haven't actually done much of either. No good.

So, here's the deal. I've decided to concentrate more on my stitching/crazy quilting. I plan to do this for the next six months (at least) and excluding a lot of things that I would normally do. I'm very nervous about that - I always think "Well, what if I was actually better at _____ or enjoyed it more? What if I'm missing out on that?" This is why I've decided to say "just for six months".

I might also overhaul my art/craft blog, quite possibly separating out the needlework. I've considered moving over to wordpress for that because it seems to have a bit more customization options than what I'm currently using (Blogger). I do know that I want to work on actively posting to it more, but I've not decided exactly what else I'm going to do beyond that. We'll see.

I was also going to make a list of stitching blogs that I love to read and say what I liked about each individual one. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch that I like. I like them for different reasons, and yet, I think, the main reason that I'm drawn to all of them is the passion each stitcher has for what she does.

And, in trying to figure out what "styles" I liked the best, I found something interesting: I liked several and, in many ways, they contradicted themselves. So I thought about it some more. Some of my favorite works are ones that I think "Oh, I could never do that!" These are both the ones that have strict protocols (for instance, some of the intricate blackwork I see) and ones that are completely spontaneous. I think that maybe what that is saying to me is that I don't "push myself" with my needlework enough. I enjoy what I'm doing, but when the going gets tough, I back off. I think I'm afraid to mess up, which is silly: it's just thread and cloth. So, I need to work on being willing to make mistakes.

Now, I know that most people have actually done stitching or created a design for this month. That's what we were supposed to do. But all this "thinking" and percolating over my stitching is, I think, more valuable to me than anything I could have stitched for this month's challenge would have been.

Labels: Take It Further

One of the blogs that I read daily is In A Minute Ago. It's a fiber arts blog and this post is about something mentioned on there, but please don't turn away, even if you're not a fiber artist. This doesn't apply just to fiber arts only. The specific thing mentioned on that post is "slow cloth" but this is relevant across the arts and crafts fields, really. If you don't care about the cloth part, fine, scroll down to the bottom. I've talked to people. I know that a lot of people feel the same way as me in what I'm about to talk about.

Sharon, of In A Minute Ago, recently posted a post about "Slow Cloth" but also called it "Slow Craft". And here's the gist of this: what has happened recently is that craft has become cool. BUT a lot of people take this in the same way they take the rest of their lives: in a very hurried pace. What this means is that we're seeing the proliferation of "Last minute handmade gifts - in 15 minutes!!!" kits. The person goes out, buys a kit, and makes the same exact thing that fifty other people made. Most of them change NOTHING and very little thought is put into this. Now, if a craft truly only takes fifteen minutes, but you selected the parts yourself and truly thought about what the person you are giving it to would like (or, if not got a gift, something you'd love to have), I think that could probably be considered slow craft. What we're talking about here is pre-made, might as well have bought you that ever-present butter-cheese-caramel-popcorn-in-a-tin kits. Where very little thought or time commitment is involved on your part. Slow Craft is the opposite of this.

“Do you think we need a craft philosophy that celebrates the handcrafted object made with care and meaning without regard to time?” - pulled from Sharon's blog.

Yes, frankly, I do.

For instance, one of my big pet peeves is Scrapbookers. (I've instantly gotten myself hated by a lot of people, I know, but this is how I feel and I'm not afraid to say it.) I'm not talking about people who make real scrapbooks. I'm talking about someone who announces herself (it's usually a her - though there are men who do this) as a Scrapbooker and goes to her Scrapbooking meetings and groups where they all make the exact same layout. Or worse, she goes to the Scrapbooking store and buys a completely pre-made layout, takes two minutes to shove it in her scrapbook, and then sticks the appropriate picture in the appropriate box. I even saw one that, in the white space where the photo goes, said "INSERT PICTURE OF SON PLAYING FAVORITE SPORT HERE." Ok. How much less thought do you need? ARGH. I remember when scrapbooks were exactly that - books of scraps. You had pictures in there, sure, but you also wrote little bits, and attached memorabilia, ticket stubs, playbills, maybe the napkin from your wedding, or a small map of where you went - even if it was just your route from home to work - and various other things that had meaning to you. Things nobody even thinks of putting in their scrapbook anymore. If I never saw one of those "Scrapbooks" again, it would be too soon. Why do people even bother? Why don't they just stick the picture in an album? Or, even better, why don't they design a page THEMSELVES, without the use of premade pages and die cuts? Maybe even, I dunno, make their own background? What bothers me the most is that these people who put so little thought into it suddenly call themselves "Very Creative". Argh. These people COULD be being creative. It isn't hard. But, instead, encouraged by the idea that these things are creative, they stick with that. They don't expand. I'm frustrated for them.

It isn't so much about the time, but about the thought behind it.

And, if you're wondering where the term "slow cloth" came from, it follows in the tradition of Slow Food.

Labels: slow craft

"I'm not that ill. Bad moments come, but they go. Some days are fine. Some a little bit harder." - Eva Peron, in the musical Evita.

I get sick all the time. Almost every weekend and a lot of weekdays. I try to suck it up and deal, but... days like today really wear me out. I just spent a good hour or so coughing stuff up, so much so that I lost my dinner. (I often feel like my lungs are attempting to revolt.) So that "healthy red glow" to my cheeks? That's actually the result of all the "work" of throwing up. Fun.

Day 7 of my year-long self-portrait party.

Me and Joey... doesn't he look thrilled? ;P

I have done so many different types of crafts, so many different types of art, that when somebody says "I want to do this, but I don't know how", for a lot of things, I can at least show them the basics.

But I struggle with this. I love doing so many different things, but I don't feel like I'm GOOD at any of them. The avid crazy quilter, for instance, is often really good at doing CQ. The cross-stitcher might be able to whip out a piece ten times faster than I can, and mess up far less. And the painter can blend and smooth colors a lot better than me.

And I want to be good at something. I want to hunker down and focus on one thing, just letting little bits of other things creep in. However, when I force myself to do this, I'm thinking "I'm really going to miss doing ______". And as I'm doing whatever it is that I've chosen to focus on exclusively, I think to myself "I wish I were doing ______ instead."

But when I let myself have several different things to do, I become overwhelmed and find myself unable to do any of them because I can't choose. Or, if I do choose, five minutes later, I decide to do something instead.

It's frustrating.

You guys have to see this. Click on the board and it will take you to where you can see more close-ups. This is a mosaic of the 1978 editions of the Candy Land board game. Using seed beads. I cannot even begin to think about how much time this must have taken. I, personally, would have been very frustrated.

But, really, it's really cool.

Check it out.