Sunday, June 24, 2012

A (Craft) Room of One's Own

I first got really into knitting in 2003, and when my craft interest expanded to spinning in 2008 and then weaving in 2011, I've expanded and broadened my interests, but also my equipment and supplies.

At first, I purchased a lot of commercial yarn, but in recent years, since I started to spin, making my OWN yarn is what has given me way more satisfaction and pride in my work than anything else. So the wheels, spindles, looms, not to mention fibers etc. have been growing in closets, spaces, and areas all over the house. In fact, my family sometimes rightfully comments that my crafty stuff has taken over spaces in nearly every room of the house. But I've had no centralized place to keep it all, not to mention work with it in an easy to access place. I longed for a pleasant, calm place to just hang out and find my tools in a neat, organized and pleasant central place.

So in the past year, I've been destashing stuff I don't really love or want to work with, and focusing in on the things that are more of my craft focus. And I'm at a stage in life where I have space to have my own craft room. So during the past two weeks, we've been clearing out the guest room to make way for a craft room of my very own!

Isn't that great? I'll still have a cute little twin size daybed for sitting on and for a guest to visit. But I finally have a room just for my craft stuff and I'm so excited! We painted the room a beautiful light shade called "Lavendar Mist." Then we bought a rug on sale and things are slowly but surely coming together in there. Yay!

I'll post a photo when I have everything set up. It's still a process, but an exciting one. Eventually, we want to sort, organize and make every room of our home more useable.

Friday, June 01, 2012

I'm Still Here . . . . Slowly Spinning, Knitting and Hanging Around

Wow, Blogger has totally changed their format. I've been avoiding getting back on here and figuring it out for a month because I wasn't sure that I still knew how to use it with all the changes and didn't want to take the time to learn it. I'm too busy learning some other new software at work and sometimes learning one more thing is just too much. Glad I finally bit the bullet and got on here, though. Like most things in life, it doesn't seem as bad as imagined. I am currently working on a shawl for my Mom - boy, it's taking forever. I'm getting so sick of it, but I think she will like it. There are all shades of green, some handspun and some glitzy commercial yarns.
Also working on some Patchwork Socks using some Blackthorn DP needles - love those. They are made from carbonated steel, I believe? I am getting a kick out of using up a bunch of different sock yarn and making my own funky socks. There is a Patchwork sock knitalong going on right now over on Ravelry.
It occurred to me that . . . do I even need to blog anymore, or is it an outmoded form of communication? I've decided to continue, because I get a real satisfaction not only in communicating this way - but it's an electronic journal, a way of keeping in touch with others, and myself, without getting overly personal or introspective. Hopefully you all still occasionally enjoy hearing from me . . . and as long as I enjoy it, I will probably continue. I'm not into Facebook, so this is my way of reaching out. Now I'm going to try to publish this and see how it works.