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In an effort to organize my life a bit . . .

I'm killing off my craft blog and reorganizing over here a bit.  Bear with me, I'm sorry about the mess.

To write. . . to write. . . to write. . .

This is among my biggest personal commitments in 2012.  I need to write again.  I was strolling through old e-mails and happened upon some old poems and oh my goodness.

They were solid first drafts of poems that could become so much.

Additionally, I have my NaNoWriMo pieces from 2009 (or was that 2008? Gosh, I can't even remember) sitting in a folder here that need to be revised and compiled.

And a universe that could benefit from my spending less time screwing around online and more time making things - creating things - crafts, poems, baking.  Whatever that is - whatever it is that needs to be created - that's where I need to put my energy.

And so I shall.  But I promise I'll stop by here and let you all know how it's going.  :)

A few new crafts. . .

I am committed to crafting this year and have been trying to do something every day or two.  Using the pattern from the last post, I made another knot bag with some remnant fabric from Denver Fabrics.  I LOVE this fabric - it's a strange and inexplicable obsession, but I love love love love it.  

However, I hate to sew with it.  Blech.  Must get back to the fabric store and get some interfacing.  THIS bag is currently living in Lilly's room.  

My next design was one of my own - using the top section from the bag above, I made a circle to use as the bottom of the bag, then did some mathmagic and voila - new pattern.

 Using a very old remnant from a wall hanging I cut up to make into a sling 10 years ago and a skirt I got from the future Mrs. Matt Mason when she was travelling through town doing poetry. . . I made my new FAVORITE bag ever.  I LOVE it.

 And so does Darth Vader.  It's the perfect size.

I then got bold and decided to resew a pair of jeans.  So I ripped them apart.  Everywhere.  Turns out, I don't really know how to resew jeans.  These were a failure of epic proportions.

January 1st craft. . .

Starting out small but strong!  I used a pattern I found online for a Japanese knot bag for my buddy AO. . . I'll modify the pattern for future bags, I think, but this was a good start:

Outside of the bag

 It was an interesting experiment for me - the design of the bag allows for a little peak of the interior fabric, so I wanted it to be interesting -- I chose two fabrics with some complimentary colors but they were very different. The outer fabric is a sort of peacock pattern and I loved the way it was mottled with a lot of black at the top.
The inner fabric is a very bright floral - it didn't have the yellow like the outside, but instead has a purple highlight in it.  They look quite nice together, I have to say.

I wasn't exactly happy with the pockets in the bag, though - they are very shallow and I doubt they'll provide much in the way of benefit.  Next time, I think I'll make the pocket as deep as the bag itself and only put a single divider in, making it a little bit bigger.  Perhaps big pockets on one side and smaller pockets on the other, I don't know.  Still, it was a nice little project that ate up a few hours of my day.  Next time, I imagine, I'll stretch it over a few days as well - hard to block out such a large amount of time for sewing!

2012: Year of the Crafts

Okay, okay, not really.  Or really. I'm not sure.  I'm trying hard to dedicate MORE time to making things and LESS time to slack-jawed web-surfing.

My first craft on this new kick was to refurbish a sweater/shirt I had - it was covered - and I do mean covered - in sparkles.  I've only worn it once in the whole time I've had it. . . and, sadly, that was it.  As I was removing the beads I found dozens - and probably made more - of holes.  So it's. . . gone.  I invested 1 hour in removing the beads only to decide that it just wasn't the thing for me!  It's OK though - I tried!

Bye Sweater: You will be missed. 

I've also committed to doing much more sewing this year.  I have a machine and gads of fabric downstairs - but so far I haven't made a thing in months!  Time to pull out the ole machine and get busy. . . but first off to Denver Fabrics -- 2 days *before* their big 30% off sale. . . 

(That's today. I'll be going back!)

Here's my haul: 

Can you tell someone barely left the blue table?

What are YOU up to this year?  What crafting will you be doing?