Am I Crafty?

I am not a big-time crafter, but I have my moments. My longest-lasting craft interest was always cross-stitch. I have done a few substantial pieces and had them framed.

This cutie is enough to make me break out the floss!

When I was a kid, my grandmother taught me traditional embroidery. In the past few years, I’ve seen nostalgic iron-on embroidery transfers back in the stores, so you can now “ironically” embroider your tea towels with smiling cupcakes or dancing strawberries.  Or maybe a skull and crossbones, just to update things!

Just what my Nan’s generation would have made (except they could iron better than this!)

I’ve tried needlepoint, but not crewel. One of my friends, impressively, does Hardanger embroidery. (You actually have to cut holes in the piece you just spent hundreds of hours on!)

Hardanger embroidery: stitch and snip!

I know how to knit and purl on 2 needles, but not 4 (or round needles) and I’ve never knit anything from a pattern. My skills probably end at a square or a scarf! I never quite got the hang of crochet. Maybe I was intimidated because my mom is a genius crocheter. She has made me two gorgeous crocheted tablecloths with fine cotton.

My mom knows her way around pineapples like these!

I have never shied away from hand sewing – I can darn and hem and take things in, if they’re uncomplicated. I’ve always fought with sewing machines, and there is no love lost between us. I can cut and follow a simple pattern, but machine stitching is not something I enjoy. As a result, even though I love quilts and especially art quilts, I never got into quilting. But if someone made me a quilt, I wouldn’t mind quilting it by hand!

My sewing is utilitarian

I’m a lot more inclined toward paper crafts. I have enjoyed card making and journal making and a little bit of scrapbooking – although I bought WAY too many supplies! I even have some patterns hanging around for scherenschnitte!

In my dreams!

My kid, Link, got into origami in a big way and impressively made 1000 miniature paper cranes. I learned a few techniques so I could make these:

I know 3 or 4 origami patterns

Some of the crafts I’ve enjoyed over the years were trends that have come and gone, like fabric paints that were applied in dots, and ribbon braiding, and quilling, and rubber stamping (I loved using embossing powder!)

Embossing is playing with glitter!

Why am I writing about this? Alas, the time has come to clean out my crafts room and “face the music.” There are supplies in there I haven’t used for 20 years. They all enjoyed a second life because Link and I did every kid craft under the sun. I don’t feel terribly sentimental when I look at a cross-stitch pattern I wanted to do in 1992 and never got around to! I don’t want to be one of those people whose idea of themselves is 20 years out of date, or worse yet, still has a country kitchen decorated with a goose motif, LOL!

One of those ubiquitous goose wallpaper borders (1980s?)

There’s no chance I will go out and buy supplies to start 20 new crafts, and fail to get around to them either. Although lately I’m thinking that working with mosaic tile would be cool…

I could get into this…

Are you crafty? What is the average age of your craft and sewing supplies?