As my husband and I have been posting on our photo blog, I've found myself posting a lot of photos of the crafts I've been working on. So I decided to dedicate a separate blog for crafts.
I try my hand at a wide variety of crafts. Especially as we head towards Christmas, when I make new decorations for our Christmas tree every year. Most of my endeavors involve fiber crafts of some sort. Right now, I happen to be doing a lot of crochet. Also on my list is free style embroidery, cross stitch, temari, shisha embroidery, needle weaving, tatting, a variety of beadwork and the like. You won't find knitting here, though. I've tried knitting and can get the basics down, but have never been able to get the hang of it.
What I'll be doing with this blog is posting about projects as I work on them. I'll detail the materials I'm using and, as much as possible, photograph the progress in different stages. If I'm following a pattern and have made changes, I'll explain those as well.
I tend to buy or borrow a lot of craft books, so I'll most likely include book reviews as well.
My attitude towards crafting tends to be very experimental. When I try something for the first time, I usually make sure to follow the instructions explicitly. After that, all bets are off.
When following patterns for, say, crochet, I rarely use the exact materials recommended, and frequently adjust the patterns. There are reasons for that. First off, I'm cheap. Many patterns recommend materials that are quite expensive, and I just can't justify paying that much money for something when some other brand or similar material works just as well. I can barely convince myself to pay more than $3 per ball of yarn as it is. When the patterns recommend yarn that sells for more then $10 - sometimes a lot more - for the same size yarn, I just can't do it.
So most of my materials are the sorts of things I find in the clearance section, exchanges, and re-use centres. There are a few things I am not willing to skimp on, but to be honest, I can't think of any right now. If there is something like that on a project I'm working on, I will specify why.
Another reason I change things is availability. Simply put, many of the materials recommended for crafts I've tried, I simply can't find locally. An example would be shisha mirrors. I have yet to find any locally. So I worked with regular craft mirrors. I've also experimented with large sequins. I could probably find real shisha mirrors online, but without a credit card or Paypal account, that's not really an option.
For other things, I have no choice but to adapt the patterns. Clothing patterns are a good example. Patterns for clothes are almost universally designed for thin women with an hourglass figure. I am neither thin, nor do I have an hourglass figure. Even when making items for my daughters, I have to adjust for things like bust size, shoulder width, etc. Any changes like this, I will explain.
I hope you enjoy the various crafts I'll be featuring on this blog, and that maybe I'll even inspire you to try something.
Happy crafting!
