9 May 2001
Last year: There's nothing quite like a "Wow" to brighten a writer's day, even if I'm only a writer when it suits me.
When I was growing up, I can remember two enormous boxes that Mom kept in the cabinet under the bookcase. (Both before and after we moved, in fact: the boxes were under the living room bookcase.) The boxes contained all the various craft supplies Mom had collected over the years.
Clothespins (both kinds), paints of all sorts and colors, artists' pastel crayons, thread, yarn, pipe cleaners, felt, button eyes, beads of all sizes and materials, needles, string, glitter, glue, embroidery hoops, cross-stitch cloth, scherrenschnitte paper and patterns, and a whole jar of assorted buttons. That's not even counting the whole bag of scraps of cloth in the back room by the sewing machine.
My mom never stuck with any one hobby for very long. She'd finish a project or two, then drop it for months or years or for good. Her craft leavings are scattered all over the house: clothespin people decorated our Christmas tree; embroidered and cross-stitched pictures hang in bedrooms; elegant paper-cuttings adorn the dining room.
I always suspected that "normal" people picked up a hobby and stick with it for years at a time. And I don't know if I'd be like that if it wasn't for my Mom. I know my hobby skipping drives Matt a little crazy.
There are piles of yarn behind my chair at home, waiting for me to get back to working on Kris' afghan. There are two pairs of pants, a shirt, and a stack of cloth and patterns in the guest bedroom waiting for me to sit once again at the sewing machine. There's a box, also in the guest bedroom, filled with cross-stitch thread and a half-dozen half-started projects. And on the bookshelf in the upstairs hall was a sketchbook and pencilcase, until I took it downstairs last night to play.
Now, keep in mind that I'm almost entirely self-taught. My Aunt Rose taught me the basics of crocheting, but I had to re-learn it from a book a couple of years ago. I taught myself to knit from a book. I did take a costuming class in college that taught me a lot about how to use a sewing machine, but I'm still not very good at cutting out patterns so that the pieces fit together afterwards. I'm a fairly good cross-stitcher (it's not that hard - you just have to be able to count), but I have no patience for the finishing touches. We probably shouldn't even talk about my awful drawing ability - my brother is definitely the visual artist in the family.
I keep thinking about signing up for classes for some of these things. There's a craft store around the corner from us that occasionally offers knitting classes - I'd like to learn what I'm doing wrong and how to go faster. I'm sure if I looked around, I could find a class in 2-D foundations that would help me learn to draw better. Once upon a time I took a calligraphy class that was a lot of fun.
But every time I think about taking an arts class, I wonder - why bother? I'll lose interest again in a few weeks or a month, and not pick it up again for a year. On the other hand, what would it hurt? I spent fifteen minutes yesterday standing in the downstairs bathroom, holding my hair away from my face with my left hand while with my right I tried to draw an ear that didn't look like either a leech or a badly deformed butterfly had attached itself to my figure's head. Maybe I should take a class. But would I have any patience for the "boring" foundation subjects?
Aah, I don't know.
I'm out for an all-day meeting again today. The weekly trip to Fort Lee to try to coax useful information out of our customer. Y'all feel free to say hi.
Word of the Day:
gadfly - any of various flies (as a horsefly, botfly, or warble fly) that bite or annoy livestock; a person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism
Currently Reading:
- assorted comics
Current Projects:
- garden