Craft Rage

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. I am an idiot. This was the dumbest idea I've ever had. This, dear reader (assuming there's someone reading this other than me, which there probably isn't, because who wants to read the blog of a jackass who's chock full of dumb ideas and can only write in run-on sentences), is an idea strained through the Crap Sieve. A perfectly great notion - gosh, I wish I had more space, turned into a small slice of the seventh circle of hell - let's completely swap two rooms, but not empty them first - we'll just move things from room to room one lousy piece of shit item at a time. My new craft room floor is layered with about six inches of junk I should never have kept. I'm writing this post in order to avoid the inevitable horror of sifting through it all.

Plus, I stepped on Smooshy. She's fine - in reality, I felt her fur with my foot before I put any weight on her at all - but really, it could have gone very badly. So once again, I can only look at the bright side. I still have four live cats in the house. Which reminds me, I need to clean the litter boxes. Maybe I'll do that instead of going back to my sewing room.

Labels: sewing room, smooshy

This sucks. This really, really sucks. I lament this crazy idea of swapping rooms between my office and craft room. What was I thinking? Did I really need the extra ten feet of space in my craft room? Why does it look like this now?

I think my soul just died a little bit.

I keep thinking - "It's worth it, it's worth it - you'll have access to all of your machines, you'll be able to put your stupid dress on your stupid dressform, you'll be able to dance a jig and twirl in circles singing 'This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!'"

Cripes. Who needs a jig. And I frigging hate that song anyway.

On the happy side, Smooshy is still Smooshy, not Unspeakable Stain. Sort of a bad news/good news type of thing!

Labels: sewing room, smooshy

So I ended the last post saying that I'd be cleaning up my sewing room. As it turns out, I lied.

Not only did I NOT clean up my room, I actually made it worse. There's a method to my madness, though. Either I'll make such a terrible mess that the Punishment Fairies my mother warned me about will come and take away all my lovely fabric, or I'll be moving everything from my smallish craft room (8' x 7') to my larger (10' x 7.5') office.

I don't really need very much floor space in my office - it's only my desk and all my assorted printer tables and filing cabinets, however, I need as much floor space as I can get for my sewing room, because I have a sewing cabinet, a large folding cutting table, a dress form, and nine hundred thousand million clear plastic totes full of fabric. Okay, maybe not nine hundred thousand million, but lots.

The reason for the move is scary/exciting. You see, I went ahead and fulfilled Johnny Paycheck's dream, and told my boss to Take This Job And Shove It. Well, realistically, I was more polite than that, and I even gave two week's notice, because I'm only a little bit of a jerk, not a total jerk.

In any event, I need to completely reorganize my office and clear out all the sewing stuff that's taken up residence in the larger room. Since there's actually no room for it elsewhere, I'm going to consolidate all office stuff in the room that used to be my sewing room, and all my sewing stuff in my old office. And boy, are you ever bored with my oversharing!

Anyway, I'm going to do the complete swap tomorrow. With any luck, I will not drop another sewing machine on my foot (won't matter, I'm wearing steel toed boots just in case), I will not set the house on fire, and I will not accidentally step on my new kitten. Of course, I made a bunch of promises at the end of the last post and they didn't turn out so well. We'll see!

In the meantime, meet Smooshy the Kitten, who will hopefully make it through tomorrow without a name change to "That Strange Stain On The Carpet By The Sewing Room"!

Labels: sewing room, smooshy

My name is Rachelle, and I have moderate Craft Rage. I'm 34 years old, and I have a fully equipped craft room, in which I can sew, knit, scrapbook, or make paper, among other things. What I usually end up doing, though, is cursing under my breath and trying not to trim off the tips of my fingers with my rotary cutter, then pouring myself a Bailey's and coffee and going to my office to read other people's blogs.

Why do I have Craft Rage? Well, most of my craft rage comes from my complete inability to finish one project before moving to the next. I have eight or nine things on the go RIGHT NOW, and a million ideas for other projects I want to start right away!

The reason I never finish anything is because I have a complete lack of technical skills, combined with a strong desire to teach myself everything, instead of acquiring any of the skills I need through traditional methods like classes. 100% of my craft rage is my own fault. It's not because I lack a sense of style - it's because I know that the smartest thing to do is to get lessons, use a pattern, count stitches, measure carefully, etc. But I seldom do any of those things. I tend to "wing it" a lot. I'm a fan of figuring things out for myself, either through trial and error, library books, or by reading blogs.

Exacerbating the problem is my "crap sieve" - that's the filter between my brain and my hands, where perfectly good ideas turn into junk that a three-year-old would be ashamed to claim as her own. Sometimes I start out fine, and everything is going along wonderfully, when suddenly, without warning, my crap sieve kicks in, and I awake ten minutes later to find myself in the midst of gluing glitter macaroni to the hem of the dress I was working on.

And lastly, the other reason I have craft rage is because my craft room is constantly buried under nine feet of crap that doesn't belong there. I'm going to fix this today, come hell or high water. Pictures to follow!

Labels: craft rage, crap sieve