Craft or Bust 2010 Roster

Here be the official roster for Craft or Bust 2010 (in alphabetical order). Please e-mail me if you see something wrong with it ... Thanks much. :D

Supercrafter	Found at	Goal(s)
Amber	Blog Twitter	My goal is to knit one project (don't have to finish, but must work on it) a week, and to spin 4 yarns a week. oh, and I'm also wanting to do a sweater a month.
Angie	Blog	My goal is to get my etsy shop up and running! I made the stuff, just haven't taken the pictures. I also want to clear out all the UFOs and manifest some long-held-off ideas.
Anna	Blog Twitter Etsy shop	This actually helps half of my new years resolutions, so I will be trying to go for the whole 52 week stretch! :)
Carmen	Ravelry Blog 1 Blog 2	Goal: Make 1 item a week.
Carol in Canberra	Blog	Goal: Too easy==craft every day. I'd have to sit on my hands not to.
Courtney	All sites currently being revamped — coming soon!	Craft or Bust goals: 1) Complete six quilts in 2010. 2) Experiment with new bag patterns. Complete at least one a month. 3) Get creative with knitting projects. Don't just stick with favorites even though patterns are comforting. 4) Create a new meal every Sunday 5) Start a window garden.
Crystal (Silver)	Blog (this blog!) Twitter Web site Etsy shop Ravelry	Craft or Bust Goal: To craft every single week of 2010 and thereby keep my crafty productivity flowing. This should help me make another goal — feeling like a Real Creative Person.
DeAnne Knapp	Blog Etsy shop	To get off my jewelry making ass and do a better job of photographing all the work I do finish so my etsy shop will have new stuff.
Diana	Blog	My goal is to write up every original design.
Elabeth	Blog	To better document my crafting in 2010 and to make lots of rad stuff.
Helen	Blog	Goal: Let us be creative and keep crafting!
Jessica (the Knitting Linguist)	Blog	My crafts are knitting and cooking/baking. I think that my goal will be to knit six pairs of socks this year. I don't know what king of goal I could have in baking because I already bake every weekend.
Joni Rae	Web site Twitter	My Craft or Bust goal: craft more often in 2010 and to get my goddess dolls onto my etsy store and get that going...
Luna	Blog Twitter Ravelry	I love this idea and it is just the kind of external accountability that I seem to need. I dabble in a broad array of wool related arts and crafts mostly spinning and felting related. I'm also interested in collage with fabric and paper, doll making, jewelry design as well as digital photography and web design,, ...yeah I'm all over the place and have a hard time organizing it all and focusing. And worse documenting it. My goal is to organize all of these around wool by experimenting and exploring the qualities of wool in all its forms using various methods (knitting, crochet, felting and sewing) and photographing it for documentation in my blog And finish designing a real website to market it all through. I must document the process at least every week through 2010.
LunabudKnits AKA Steph	Blog Etsy Facebook (also search for Stephanie Stratton ... although there are several of those ;)) Twitter	Craft or Bust Goals: My first goal is to finish all UFO's on my knitting needles. My second goal is to clean, card, spin and knit a sweater out of the BFL fleece I bought last year. My third goal is to really hunker down and finish spinning my friends Alpaca fleeces so that her sister can then crochet them into a blanket for her.
Melinda Wright	E-mail Blog	I want to be more intentional in my crafting. I want to learn techniques that move me forward instead of just learning to learn. I want to apply what I already know to a purpose. And I want to finish things instead of always beginning and leaving half done.
Meredith C	Blog	I haven't blogged in a LOOOOng time, and one of my goals is to blog weekly. This will give me the motivation. My first blog of the new year will be announcing my participation in CoB. Another goal is to try out crafts I'm intrigued and maybe a little intimidated by, like Nuno felting. And I've been perfectly awful about capturing pictorial evidence of my craftiness. So learning to take pictures that I'm not embarrassed to post must be on the goals list.
Michelle a.k.a. Halloweentango	Blog Twitter Ravelry	1. To craft, or better yet, create in the physical form the visions residing in my head and dreams. 2. work on various knitting/crochet/sewing/needlework projects that are in my storage bin in particular a twenty year old cross stitch. 3. Actually upload pieces to my Artfire store. Blog writing happens about once a week for me anyways so that part is natural.
Nic R	Blog	something new a week, be it a new recipe or a scrapbook page
Rhonda	Blog	My goal is to work on and complete at least one large project every 30-60 days and to finish at least one small project each week. Both of these can be in fiber, painting, metals etc. Sometimes it might encompass learning a new recipe and putting my "stamp" on it to make it mine or it might be completing a simple scarf and leave photographic evidence on my blog.
Sarah (Armillata Designs)	Etsy shop	This year I want to explore metal working techniques like stamping and cold joins, and find ways to green up my projects with more reclaimed items or sustainable sources. I'd like to begin blogging. And of course, make sure I'm finishing a new project every week.
Susie	Blog	Goal: Hmm... How about... to learn/ perfect one new sewing technique a week, +++ craft/ produce one new unusual thing (unusual for me!)
Velma / velmalikevelvet	Blog Twitter Ravelry Web site Etsy shop	My goal is to do all 52 weeks, & to finish or frog all my pre-2010 Ravelry WIPs.
Vickie	E-mail Blog	I'm going to work on staying consistent with crafting as I seem to craft in fits and starts...finishing some things would be nice.... completely abandoning other things when they just don't work out for me would be ok too - pass it on and let someone else take in to completion.

Craft or Bust Week 1 check-in and roundup

Doh! Today hasn't gone completely as planned ... not in a bad way, just in a running-behind sort of way. ;) (The best laid plans of mice and crafters, and all.) So for those of you who want to check in for Craft or Bust, do it here. I'll come back and edit this post later this evening to include the roundup of last week's stuff, the roster, etc. This post has now reached enlightenment and is closer to the form it should have been in earlier. ;) Ahem.

Welcome ... to the very first full Craft or Bust roundup! WOOHOO! PAR-TAY!

Fourteen lovely and slightly mad (in the “batty in a good way” sense) people are officially craftin' (not bustin') along with me as of right now. Welcome again, siblings in endurance crafting.

In case it wasn't clear from my oh-so-wondrous original instructions, each Sunday’s post will consist of two main parts:

1. a roundup (a.k.a. summary) of the previous week's check-ins and crafty progress, and
2. a check-in, which I’ll start by posting about what I’ve done since the last check-in; then you guys will post your comments about what you’ve done since the last check-in.

So whatever you posted about in last week’s check-in, I'll talk about it this week for people who didn’t go back and read all the comments. (A little like this week's paycheck is for the work you did two weeks ago...) Note that what goes in the check-ins is what definitely shows up in the roundup, so if you want me to post something, make sure you include it in your check-in comment. It would be convenient if I were so on the ball that I had time go to everyone’s blog posts and summarize them myself for the roundup — but I probably won't be that on the ball ... and dude, what if more people decide to craft with us? Imagine if there were 50 of us — there would go all my Saturdays. ;) And I will think on some level that I should go and summarize, even if my logical brain disagrees — so be nice, save a girl some neuroticism, and make sure to share in your comments what you want me to share with everyone else. ;)

So! For this week’s roundup, then, it's time for introductions of the people who joined last week, and their Craft or Bust goals. I declared sign-up week Week 0.5, since it was only a partial week and the Craft or Bust Project hadn’t started yet when I posted about it first. Ready for the first round-up? Here goes (in approximate order of sign-up ;)).

The Week 0.5 Round-Up: Introductions

Velma wants to craft all 52 weeks of 2010 and finish or frog all her pre-2010 Ravelry works in progress.

Elabeth wants to better document her crafting and make “lots of rad stuff.”

Diana wants to write up all her original designs.

Anna wants to craft all 52 weeks of the year.

Sarah wants to explore metalworking techniques, make her projects greener, start blogging, and finish a new project each week.

DeAnne wants to "get off her jewelrymaking ass" (go, sista!) and photograph more of her finished stuff so it can go into her Etsy shop.

Meredith wants to blog every week, try new crafts, and learn to take photos she’s willing to show other people (a good skill for playing on the Internet).

Vickie wants to craft more consistently (me, TOO!) — to finish things if possible, but to be able to let go of projects, too, if they just aren’t going to get finished.

Melinda wants to craft more intentionally, learn techniques that move her forward and that she can apply to a purpose, and finish things instead of leaving them half done.

Amber wants to work on knitting one project and spin four yarns every week — and finish a sweater every month.

Joni Rae wants to craft more often this year and get her goddess dolls into her Etsy shop.

Nic wants to craft something new every week, no matter what it is.

Luna wants to organize her super-variety of craft interests, focus more, experiment and explore wool in all its glory (and crafts ;)), photograph the process for her blog, design a Web site to market it all, and document the process every week. (Whew … Luna, you sound like me. ;D)

Angie wants to get her Etsy shop running — she needs to take some pics of her finished stuff! — clear out her unfinished projects, and take some ideas off the back burner make them real now.

You, my Craft or Bust buddies, are an awesome bunch, and I’m glad we’re all in this together. :D Having those extra eyes watching is keeping me a little more crafty than I am with just myself, a boyfriend and two cats to answer to. Feel free to go visit each other’s sites and get to know each other — it’s the Craft or Bust pool of inspiration! (Speaking of which, have you joined the Craft or Bust Flickr pool?)

Here’s a link to the full roster. If you don’t see yourself on there and you should be, make sure you’ve posted your information on the sign-up post, and if you already have but you aren’t on the roster, e-mail me or tweet at me and tell me I’m a slacker. ;)

Week 1 Check-In: What Have You Done Lately? (Jan 3–9)

To answer my own question, this week I...

• joined the Creative Every Day Challenge;
• took some photos and listed some items in my Etsy shop (the Silk and Seed Beads necklace, the Sea Cat's Eyes stitch markers, and the Imaginary Garden stitch markers);
• spun some art yarn using an art yarn generator on Ravelry (and wrote a draft of a blog post about it, but didn’t manage to get it posted … oops);
• joined the 2010: A Year in Pictures Flickr group/project and took some photos for it;
• joined the Slice of Life photography project and took some photos for it;
• started writing my morning pages (on my rather erratic trek through the book The Artist’s Way);
• started knitting a mug cozy with some of my handspun wool;
• voted to help name a baby alpaca; and
• started knitting a washcloth to go in a swap package.

Wednesday was my crap-out day, on which I got nothing done, but that’s not so bad … I got a lot more done during the rest of the week than I thought I would. :D

Your turn! Week 1 covers Sunday, January 3 through Saturday, January 9 — what did you craft during Week 1? Post your name, ID, crafty update, and any links you want me to share in my next roundup! (and don’t forget to post your pics to the Flickr pool)

Love and celebrate your fiber on Distaff Day

Today is as close as I know of to a yarn-spinners’ holiday. It’s Roc Day, also known as Distaff Day or St. Distaff’s Day — and it was an odd sort of holiday, once upon a time. That is, it really marked the end of the winter holidays in a lot of European traditions: The day when, after the twelve days of Christmas, people went back to work. Specifically, spinners got back to work making yarn to be woven into all the good stuff we like to use in polite society, like linens, clothing, and tablecloths. (Apparently, women didn’t traditionally spin during the Christmas holidays. Sounds a bit like school holidays today. ;))

The holiday (or un-holiday?) is named after the distaff used to hold fiber near the spinning wheel, a.k.a. the rock, or apparently roc — it’s not just a mythical creature any more! Traditional activities included plowmen setting fire to the unspun flax fiber — how considerate ;) — and women throwing buckets of water at said plowmen as a convenient way of putting out the fire. Funny. (And darn cold, since most of Europe at this time of year isn’t exactly balmy.)

No fire-setting or water-throwing for me today, but in honor of Distaff Day, I’m doing a little more of that window shopping I love so much. (Anyone else notice that “window shopping” completely translates to computers? As in, “Let me open a new window and visit Etsy?") And of course I’ll be sitting down at the spinning wheel, as soon as I can make up my mind which of my fluffies look the most like they want to be transformed into yummy yarn.

There's also a Roc Day celebration at Heritage Village this weekend. I tried to find the spinners there last year, but the darn place is big and fascinating and I got up late … so I missed the spinning wheels and the fiber. Hopefully the spinning gods (or the nonexistent St. Distaff) will smile on me this year.

Do you have a Roc Day tradition? Post comments, send pictures! Or start a new tradition! How did you spend your Roc Day?

Sources:

Roc Day PDF, Apple Leef Farms
Distaff Day entry, Wikipedia

I Dream of Handmade: a crafty-handmade wish list

It's January, and that means it's birthday month! Also known as The Month I Have to Wait After Christmas to See Whether I Got the Really Good Stuff on My Wish List. As if I'm that patient. Part of the waiting strategy is window-shopping for stuff I might buy myself if there's a gaping hole in my life still apparent on January 27 (the day after my birthday). I'm not dissing the things I do get; I appreciate being appreciated. It's just that I can always use more of the creative, inspiring and truly glee-inducing stuff.

So here are some things I would have put on my wish list if I had seen them in time. All handmade stuff, all crafty goodness. Nom nom nom.

• A custom painting from Emily Balivet
• Berry Patch, Black Coconut or Pearberry perfume from Long Winter Farm
• Aspen Lodge spinning batt from WoolyHands
• Singing Bowl Ring in size 5 by curlygirlglass
• Backstrap weaving loom kit by woolhandcrafts
• Threeravens eco-scrub and cleansing masque from threeravens.net
• 3-foot fine sett oak triloom from Hideaway Homestead
• French almond nougat candy from Kettle Confections
• Bamboo dragon flute from Savage Dryad
• A slotted spinning wheel cup holder for the Kromski Sonata, from FBNPlastics

Go ahead. Take a look. (I'll forgive you if you buy something I want. Probably. ;))

And what about you? Did you get everything you wished for this Christmas (or Yule, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Eid, or ... you know)? Do you buy yourself the things you don't get from other people, or am I a lone freak in that?

Kumihimo saves, mailbox fails

I crafted. And yea, the light shone down from above on the Land of Crafts, and the kumihimo gods declared that it was good. This, I did yesterday while watching the SO play Okami (a fun and rather Zen video game if I do say so — it has the awesome trait of encouraging you to do many small good things to help you build your skills; like real life, but, you know, praise is visible in the game ;)):



The cream is organic cotton and the green is wool. Not sure what it's going to turn into yet, but I was thinking necklace cord when I cut the yarn.

One cool thing about kumihimo is that it took, oh, 10 yards of yarn total to make this cord. Even the part of my brain that's stingy about using handspun can put up with that conversion rate.

Today was also the first mail day of 2010. (Anyone else notice that?) I have a rather late Christmas package on the way, so I wondered: What would the mailbox hold?


Alas. The answer: Only bills and spam.



Well. There's always tomorrow.

You're invited to craft your butt off ... or bust!

Velma beat me to it! That's a link to her inestimable blog, or rather, a link to her first Craft or Bust post ... and as you can tell from her Most Enlightening graphic, we're starting something COO.

Check it: Today's the first day of Craft or Bust 2010 — in which I attempt to craft every week for all the weeks of 2010, and henceforth maintain happy, juicy, snarkyfun, crafty productivity.

I hereby challenge myself:

• to work on at least one craft project per week in 2010;
• to capture photographic evidence of said work;
• to post a weekly blog update containing the above evidence and written testimony as to What Has Been Crafted.

Note that I'm trying to craft every week, not finish something every week. Finishing isn't the point, here ... just getting off my butt and crafting regularly is the point. Making it a craft habit, instead of a craft binge cycle.

Want to craft with me? (Or fall on your face with me? I might, you know — my record's not so sterling. ;)) Check out the rules, which basically say: Be free! Set your own goal, come and go from the challenge as you choose. Just check in here once a week on the Sunday roundup post with the info to show me who you are, and what you crafted. POOF!

This is the official sign-up post. If you haven't posted all your relevant info already, leave a comment here with it. I need:

• Your name
• The link/URL to an Internetty place of your choice that will identify you as you, like your Twitter account, your Web site, or your blog, etc. This will be linked to your name whenever it's mentioned.
• Your Craft or Bust goal: This can be anything, e.g., "craft for 12 weeks straight," "finish my grandma's sweater," "complete 10 paintings," "try a new crafty technique every week," or even "feel like a real creative person." Whatever inspires you!

Then I'll add you to the roster, which will be linked from the official rules page — a.k.a. the Center of All Info CoB-Related (and thus also the page you should link to if you need to send people here).

My info would look like this:

Name: Crystal (Silver)
Identifying link: http://quicksilvercrafter.blogspot.com; Twitter account: Impstar (I'll assume that if you leave more than one piece of information, the first one is your most identifying piece.)
Craft or Bust Goal: To craft every single week of 2010 and thereby keep my crafty productivity flowing. This should help me make another goal — feeling like a Real Creative Person.

Signing up today counts as your check-in for what I'm going to call Week 0.5 of 2010. ;) If you've done something crafty in 2010 already, go right ahead and talk about it in your check-in — I'll mark it as "bonus points" for supercrafter effort. Added to clarify: Anything you do from now through the approaching Saturday-which-has-not-happened-yet will count toward Week 1. /end clarifying additional stuff

Mumble: I'm off to a great start, what with other CoB players posting in their blogs before I do the official kick-off, aren't I? ;) Well, begin as you mean to go on — and I'm beginning by going on anyway, even if my aim's a little off.

You know, someone basically asked me on Facebook what the point of this is — don't I craft every day already? To which the answer is an emphatic "I wish!" If I'd gotten into the habit a long time ago, I probably would. But other things have taken precedence for most of my life — school, work, other people's drama. You know. So this is about being dedicated to Me Time and to feeding my crafty soul for purposes of being a better crafty businessperson.

(Still haven't read the rules? If you were waffling earlier, here's the link again, just in case you changed your mind. ;))

Bonus Craftigoodness for Today:

I fell into Craft zine yesterday while fanning my crafty flame, and found a bunch of things I want to try during Craft or Bust 2010:

• Salted orange caramels
• Sweater into shrug
• Tank top totes
• Big button-down shirt into dress
• Recycled sweater jewelry
• Bra strap into headband
• Undies from t-shirts
• Crochet a mended patch
• Cereal box lights

Other inspiration/useful links:

• Make your own lace knitting charts
• Toner transfer for embroidery
• Embroidery + computer chips
• Ceiling fan blades + fabric
• Flip flops + towel = spa slippers

Coming next week: My first tutorial! What will it be??? Your guess is as good as mine — really...

Craft or Bust 2010: The Official Rules

Proclaimeth the Quicksilver Crafter: All info on Craft or Bust 2010 shall be set down here for posterity, yea, verily, and it was good.

What the heck are you talking about?

The Craft or Bust Project is a weekly creative endurance challenge*. The rules are simple:

1. Join whenever.
2. Stay as long as you like.
3. Create, check in, be inspired, show off your craftigoodness, feel good.

Any art or craft (with one exception) counts: knitting, sewing, wire wrap jewelry, mail art, writing ... Heck, if there are creative bakers, gardeners, or sky-writers out there who want to play along, join up! If you have something creative you'd like to do every week, I'd be happy to have you. :D

You can work on any art/craft projects you want. You can work on a different one each week, or the same one the entire way. The heart of this challenge is to learn to craft regularly; finishing stuff is icing on the cake (and a fairly likely side effect even without trying too hard, I think).

The exception to "any craft counts" is blogging, by itself. While blogging can be a creative act, my intent is not to turn the weekly update into a list of who posted what to their blogs. ;) There are other places on the Internet solely dedicated to that sort of thing, so I don't need to redo it here.

You can blog about your CoB projects, though, and I'll happily link to that. And redesigning your blog template or layout would also be a totally fine CoB project, if you're doing it yourself and you're going to be doing it over more than one week.

Why should I play this silly crafty game?

If you're like me, you should do it because sharing your progress with other people is fun, and will make you at least a smidge more likely to work toward your goal. If you're not like me, maybe you should do it anyway: for fun, for pride, to challenge yourself, to keep yourself accountable ... or even to promote your own talents, blog or crafts business. (But please no soullessly spammy advertisement-like behavior. Be a person first and let the business promo come naturally, fellow crafty business-owners.)

How to join:

Go to the original sign-up post and post a sign-up comment with the following information:

• Your name
• The link/URL to an Internetty place of your choice that will identify you as you, like your Twitter account, your Web site, or your blog, etc. This will be linked to your name whenever it's mentioned.
• Your Craft or Bust goal: This can be anything, e.g., "craft for 12 weeks straight," "finish my grandma's sweater," "complete 10 paintings," "try a new crafty technique every week," or even "feel like a real creative person." Whatever inspires you!

Your information will be posted to the public CoB roster, so make sure you want it where everyone can see it. If your goal is private, you can always say "My goal is private." ;)

How to participate:

• Be creative. For each week you're doing Craft or Bust, do something crafty. It should probably have to do with your goal, but if not, no worries — the point is to just craft, already!
• Check in every week. On Sunday, there will be a weekly roundup and check-in post here on Quicksilver Crafter. Leave a comment on this post with your name, your identifying link (so your participation gets credited properly), an update on what you did in the previous week, and any related links you want to be included in the next week's roundup (blog posts, pics in the Flickr pool, etc.).
• If you blog about Craft or Bust, please tag your posts with "Craft or Bust 2010" and link back to the CoB rules page (located here) on your post — or even add the link somewhere on your blog, if you feel so inspired. Include links to any CoB-related posts in your weekly check-in.
• If you take pictures of your Craft or Bust projects, add them to the CoB Flickr pool, tag them "Craft or Bust 2010," and include a link to the related Flickr page(s) in your check-in.

Check-in format

Kindly format your check-in comments something like the following, to help save me-the-organizer some time while doing the weekly summary:

Name: Crystal
ID link: http://quicksilvercrafter.blogspot.com
Week 2 check-in: This week I crafted lots of stuff. I knitted two blankets and saved an old lady who was crossing the street from a rampaging tangled ball of yarn. You can read about it here: http://quicksilvercrafter.blogspot.com/saved-that-lady.html.

What happens next:

Each week's Craft or Bust roundup and check-in post will include your updates, links, pics, and whatever other crafty stuff you guys post in relation to CoB. Come back every Sunday to read and enjoy the plethora of crafty updates (I write hopefully — that is, I hope you'll join me in testing your craft endurance so I have something to talk about aside from myself ;)). I'll also keep a tally of the number of weeks you've participated by your name in the roster.

If you've set a finite, reachable goal, make sure you note when you reach your goal in your weekly check-ins, so I can update your status in the roster and put you on a list to receive any special goodies that come up for CoB winners. ;D

What's that about special goodies?

I'm thinking stuff like free craft project instructions, patterns, tutorials, e-books, and coupon codes. I'll probably donate some myself, for anyone who happens to be following along while I craft or bust. And if anybody crafts-or-busts along with me, I'll make sure there are extra goodies just for you. :D

If you want to donate some giveaway goodies for The Craft or Bust Project, send an e-mail to crystal@starncrossbones.com and let me know. (I promise I won't keep them for myself.)

Speaking of goodies...

It's the Craft or Bust RAK List!

Not a traditional giveaway, but a way to get goodies nonetheless!

RAK = Random Act of Kindness, and in this case that means sending of wish-listed goodies to each other. If you send someone something, it's out of the goodness of your heart, no strings attached. :D The idea of RAKing is to spread general positivity and enable other people to do things they wouldn't have been able to do without your help.

If you want to be added to the Craft or Bust RAK List, do the following:

1. Make a wish list of things that would help you achieve your CoB goals. It can include crazy and extravagant items (you never know) as well as "easy" stuff.
2. Fill out the short and snappy RAK List registration form below.
3. Send your form and wish list to crystal@starncrossbones.com.
4. Check the RAK List (which will be linked here as soon as it actually exists), and get RAKing!
5. Every month, you should get an e-mail and/or a reminder on the CoB check-in post, to update your wish list/contact info. Keeping things current makes RAKing better. ;)

Further notes:

• I, Crystal the Organizer, pledge to personally send at least one RAK a month. Just FYI. If I slack, get on my butt. ;)
• Just to make sure this is clear: This isn't a swap, so it's not one-for-one. You send people stuff because you're just that darn nice (or in the interest of destashing, or whatever ;)), and they can choose to send stuff back, or pay it forward, or do whatever they choose with your gift.

CoB RAK List Registration Form

(We're doing all contact by e-mail since it's more secure than just posting all our information on our blogs. Cross your fingers and maybe we'll have something fancier and more convenient soon ... ;))

Name:
Contact E-mail:
Wish List URL (if you have your wish list on your blog):
Your Mailing Address (if you want people to be able to RAK you by surprise, or you just want me to take care of giving out the address):
RAKing Preferences (pick one of the below):
1. I want people to e-mail me personally for my mailing address.
2. I want people to e-mail the organizer for my mailing address.
3. I want to let my RAKers have the option of e-mailing me or e-mailing the organizer, depending on whether they want to surprise me.
Wish List: (Insert your wish list here. It can be an actual itemized list, or a paragraph, etc.)
Other Notes (allergies, etc.):

Related Links

Pssst — all the CoB links are officially collected on the Craft or Bust page here. Check it out for CoB graphics and an index of all the roundups so far!

Craft or Bust Flickr pool
Craft or Bust roster

*And I'll do this by myself regardless, but I thought I'd open it up to everyone in case there are people out there who, like me, think a little group encouragement might be a good motivator.

52 weeks to go: The Craft or Bust Project

Once upon a time, I loved challenges. (It was Long Ago, before the age of bloggers was a twinkle in the Internet's eye.) Mmm, fresh new-challenge smell. The feel of challengey wind in my hair. The youthful certainty that I Could Accomplish Anything — even when, in the end, there were items left forever on the to-do list. Because even as a young thing, I knew that feeling ubercreative and uber-me meant a challenge was a Win.

But I dislike failing at challenges; it makes me volcanic, in the pre-eruption, suspicious-steam-from-the-vents sort of way. And failing at challenges is what I usually do now. Oy (to say the least).

This has to do with the others-before-self problem I acquired once a certain movie beamed human-specific compassion capability directly into my brain. Hint: Avoid this if you like your personal space the way it is.

Aaanyway. I've been, frankly, crap about keeping to my personal goals for a few years now. This is Very Un-Me and Needs to Change. But joining other people's challenges just doesn't feel right this year. Maybe another moment of this year will be more right for it.

Until then, I have one choice: Start my own challenge.

And lo, the Craft or Bust Project is born.

I hereby challenge myself:

• to work on at least one craft project per week;
• to capture photographic evidence of said work;
• to post a weekly blog update containing the above evidence and written testimony as to What Has Been Crafted.

Notice that I'm not saying I'm going to finish a project a week. I'd like to ... but the only requirement for the project is that I keep on crafting. This is about creativity and craft endurance training, not instant gratification. Any art or craft counts — knitting, wire wrap jewelry, painting, artist trading cards, you name it. To me: Just craft, already. (Or as my friend Beckka would say: Craft, dammit!) The one craft exception is blogging; see the rules page for why.

And because it's always more fun if multiple people are stressing out (in a good way, of course) over their challenge entries simultaneously, I invite you to join me.

Game rules:

1. Every week, on Sunday, I'll post a new Craft or Bust update. Check in by leaving a comment on the weekly CoB post with the following information:
   
   • Your name
   • A place where I can link to you — your Twitter account, your Web site, your blog, your Facebook page, etc.
   • What you did that week
   • If you blog about Craft or Bust, post a link or links to your CoB-related posts. Make sure you tag your posts with "Craft or Bust" and link back to the CoB rules page (located [here — this spot to be linked once the link exists ;)]).
   • If you take pictures of your Craft or Bust projects, add them to the CoB Flickr pool, and include a link to the related Flickr page(s) in your check-in.
2. Every week in my CoB update post, I'll include a roundup of the previous week's check-ins.

Whatever you link to in your check-in, I'll link to it in my roundup. So if you have a blog, this is a semi-sneaky way of getting exposure and visitors. (Rather like a blog carnival...) If you don't have a blog (or even if you do!), you can upload your photos to Flickr and I'll post them here, so people can see your craftigoodness in all its challenge-inspired glory.

And who knows? Maybe there will be prizes along the way. (Anybody want to donate something? Creativity-enhancing materials? Classes? E-books? Tutorials? Cheesecake?)

Tomorrow will be the first Sunday of Craft or Bust, so for tomorrow's check-in, my compatriots in crafting, give me a heads up in the comments area with as much info as you think is relevant, your reasons for doing Craft or Bust, and your ultimate goal. (And if you haven't yet, check out the rules page to make sure you have everything covered.)

Afterthoughts

This post inspired by Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique and now A Novel Yarn (that's her new physical yarn studio ... wooeeeooo!). She wrote a couple days ago about year-long craft challenges, which made me think about what challenges I would tackle this year.

And hey, I even used this post as an excuse to flex my New-Year's-lessons-learned muscles, specifically the one on which is written: "It’s all right to take risks, and do what you think you can’t do." Crickets may chirp, I may craft on alone ... but what the hey.

Fun with goal-setting: dreaming resolutions in haiku

I had good intentions. I wasn't going to spam the blog today. I was going to produce something physical, tangible — maybe spin yarn or paint a treasure box. Really. And I told myself I would try to save my "resolutions" post for when I had something really meaningful to say.

But the super-long blogospheric grapevine sucked me in and spat me out on the doorstep of Fashion Incubator's funny make your resolutions in haiku idea. And how could I resist? Inappropriate poetry is one of my favorite kinds (and haiku are almost as funny as limericks).

So here are mine. My "resolutions," let it be known, are not of the "do this or else feel bad" variety. I don't hold with the "resolutions are bad, goals are good" idea that some people have. I think resolving is a fine, admirable act.

Merriam-Webster online says it's, among other things, "the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones," "the act of answering: solving," "the act of determining," and "firmness of resolve." Those are all good things in my book. Even the jargony definitions hint at positive action:

• "The point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out." (Wouldn't it be nice if this were the point at which complications vanished in a flash?)
• "The process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object." (Breaking down a problem or goal is a good step on the way to achieving it.)
• "A measure of the sharpness of an image." (Sounds like a poetic way to point out that your resolutions can measure how sharp your goal focus is.)

Ahem. Anyway. Seriousness aside, here are my haiku-ified resolutions. Can you guess what their un-haiku-flavored versions might be? And what would your resolutions look like in haiku form?

#1:
Oy! Too much fabric!
New rule: stuff into three bins.
Otherwise? Use it.

#2:
The globe is calling.
I’ll visit a special place
because I said so.

#3:
Savings are good stuff,
So I’ll add one thousand bucks
to my stash this year.

#4:
Come hither, my friends!
My Web traffic must increase,
or else I’ll go broke.

#5:
Spruce up my products:
Back to myth and magic roots
I go; dream with me.

#6:
I’ve been a slacker.
Now I must check off five goals
from the waiting list.

#7:
Site needs revamping,
So with my new diploma—
Poof! pretty layout.

#8:
Biz charity rules,
and thus I must rule this year.
Good-will projects, go!


#9:
Feeling dull lately.
Brighter: art, mysticism.
Ahhh. Soul feels better.


#10:
Need identity!
Myself, my skills and business
will show off our cool.

#11:
I love green and clean,
But my Web host needs greening.
Research, then save Earth.

12 New Year's lessons for a meaningful 2010

Reflections were a-flying last night, across the Internets, the blogosphere, the Twitterverse, etc. Lots of people had a lot of good thoughts; it would take a seeming eternity of blog posts to write about them all. As endless maundering isn't really what this blog is about, hey presto! I present here the lessons I gleaned from a few of the thoughtful word-packets released into the universe yesterday. You're welcome. ;D

From Build Your Online Empire with Connie Ragen Green

• Do what you believe can’t be done.
• It’s all right to take risks, and do what you think you can’t do.

From Christiane White on Twitter:

• Remember to pamper yourself, dress up, and otherwise indulge in treats and special treatment. Everyone deserves to experience feeling special.

From Tara of The Organic Sister:

• No situation or person is completely naked — so reserve judgement, because you don’t know what information you’re missing.
• Your choices make a difference. Even small choices can lead to big change, and small changes can add up to a movement.
• Try your best to do and be what you dream of, try even though and when it’s hard ... and have the courage and strength to realize when it’s time to stop spending energy on something.
• Possibility is powerful. Remain open to what may come.

From Bill Walsh of The Slot:

• Even though 2000 wasn’t the beginning of a new century or millennium, 2010 is the beginning of a new decade (because, silly humans that we are, we don’t count decades using the same system we count centuries or millennia).
• ...But I’m still going to make up a new word to differentiate “decade” and “10-year period counted from the beginning of a century or millennium.” Pbbt.

From Bonnie Jeanne at PostMuse:

• Projects that have lain dormant can still be resurrected into fulfilling and inspiring new(ish) projects. Don’t let unmet expectations and hopes turn a project negative for you; cherish it until it’s ready to be reborn.
• Don’t be afraid to keep hold of things that other people think are meaningless — as long as they bring positivity to you, that’s what matters.

And from both Tara at Blonde Chicken and a casual tweet from author Elizabeth Bear:

• Begin as you mean to go on.

Happy 2010. :D May it be more useful and meaningful than not.

In the final hours of 2009, Silver stands alone

Ah, December 31. Day of blog posts that sum up the year or anticipate the coming year; day of writing and sharing and tweeting and talking about the past and future, what was and what's to be.

You won't find any of that here this year. I'm blogging — briefly — about the present.

New Year's Eve is an extremely personal holiday for me. For me, as for many others, it's a time for introspection and reflection — two things I've always held dear, as part of my core self and as among the most useful tools in my personal bag of tricks. That self-identification with quiet inward thought is why I have nothing to share here about what I'll be doing next year, and nothing to share on how I felt about 2009. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will have something to say to those outside my head about what was and what and where I'd like to be. Or maybe it will take a few weeks. Maybe it won't be until my birthday in January that I post here what others are posting now; or heck! Maybe I'll wait until the Chinese new year (I am half Chinese, after all).

New Year's Eve is a time of meditation, peace, and self-acceptance for me, in which I begin the process of digesting and understanding where and how to lead myself in the coming year. It's a little like hibernation — but even more like the chrysalis stage of a caterpillar-turning-butterfly's life cycle. It looks like I'm doing nothing, but invisibly, on the inside, things are moving, reshaping themselves, transforming. When I emerge on the other side of the year-change, there will be change inside me, too; but unlike with the butterfly, my transformation will remain invisible. And I'll have the rest of a fresh new year to bring those changes into the light, where others can see them.

And I'm not much different from anyone else in the basics of the holiday; we're all thinking about change, progress, making things greater and better and more wonderful.

So happy transforming, dear butterflies. Let there be peace on Earth and in everyone's hearts, for as long as it takes to gather the strength for the future. See you on the other side.

Business success with the Blonde Chicken

Tara at Blonde Chicken Boutique did a teleconference today for crafty small-business owners, in which she talks about how she quit her day job, how she organizes her business and finances, where she got her experience, the rise of Blonde Chicken Boutique, branding her business, designing a product line, books and software that help her run things smoothly, friendly marketing ... and tons of other stuff. Seriously valuable information for people who own their own crafty business or who are considering starting one, straight from someone who's grown her own successful crafty business from scratch.

You can still go download the recording for free ... Why not? It's full of sensible advice and, you know. It's free. ;)

S&C gets a little greener with the 350 Challenge

Check out that freshly-placed button over there in the right column — you know, the one that reads "My Blog Fights Climate Change." That means this little captain's blog here is responsible for offsetting 350 pounds of carbon, in cooperation with the kindly Brighter Planet and 350.org campaigns. According to Brighter Planet, "that's like flicking off 100 light bulbs for a day, or going two full weeks without your car."

If you're not sure what a carbon offset is, the technical definition is clogged with legalese, but at the root, it means someone out there is running a project meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and if you've purchased or otherwise spawned a carbon offset, you've decreased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the Earth's atmosphere.

Whether you believe global warming is a problem isn't the issue, either. We humans are fallible, with limitations to our understanding of how we impact the world and the people around us. The world is a complicated place. But it's a reasonable, logical, testable idea that if we change something, it will bring about change elsewhere. And the global increase in carbon emissions as cultures across the world adopt new technologies is definitely a change.

So until we do understand exactly how our carbon emissions are affecting the world we live in, it makes sense to minimize them.

If you want to help, you can visit the 350 Challenge and get your own badge, and your own carbon offsets. All you need is a blog and a little willingness to contribute to positive forward motion and thoughtfulness.

Emergency creative unsticking (4 ways to escape a rut)

This morning appears to be full of what Debby (of Starbaby Readings and Gems) would call serendipity. Maybe the world is sending me a message, or maybe my internal whinging has finally activated my info-magnetic powers. The theme this morning: Unstick yourself, so you can go out and do great things.

First I came across Fabeku Fatunmise's free sacred sound download, which he entertainingly calls "From ack! to awesome in less than 10 minutes." The mere act of listening to his free-but-not-skimpy sound clips is supposed to make events MOVE again, and they're free, and I could use a little forward motion, so what the hey — I'll give it a go, and I'll post here with my results. (It's actually a little scary imagining that listening to drumming would loosen the giant mess of stuck that I currently live in. If it really were that easy, that would be mind-boggling.) That's Unsticking Method #1: Listen to good music.

Not half an hour later, I found the Destuckification Station through Victoria Brouhard's latest blog post, on how it's not good to do things just because they're "good for you" (with which I completely agree, on principle and also because I know better but maddeningly keep doing things for the wrong reasons anyway).

Normally, I'm turned off by the "big long Web page of why you should buy this more than $50 product" marketing tactic that Destuckification uses ... but! Ms. Brouhard credits them with preventing "major freakouts"; their pitch isn't 10 pages long; the sales copy is written sensibly and is well-edited; the Web design is pleasant-looking; and there's a buy-back guarantee. No, I haven't bought the package, but I'm seriously considering buying it as a gift for someone who could use rescuing from some serious freaking out. ;) (I assume that "If you don't love it, I'll buy it back" would apply in the case of "He loves it so little he isn't using it at all.") That's Unsticking Method #2: Spend time in good, unstuck company.

The above two links popped up while my boyfriend and first-mate-in-business was writing his "morning pages" — three pages of stream-of-consciousness to get the crap out of his head and into a place where he can start to sort things out that don't normally want to come to light. It's part of the creativity-growing process outlined in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way — a book about unsticking yourself if ever there was one, although it's about powerful results rather than instantaneous ones. The "morning pages" technique, by itself, seems like it would go a long way toward bringing a stuck person closer to becoming a sane person, and it takes maybe an hour a day, which is a small investment for a big payoff, if it works for you. So that's Unsticking Method #3: Write your heart out, and don't worry about getting it "right," being appropriate, or being coherent.

And while I was writing this post, my Twitter stream kindly tossed me a 90-second clarity exercise from Gaiam, meant to help us become more comfortable with our uncomfortable feelings by accepting them as real, valid parts of our lives — part of the experience of being human. So that's Unsticking Method #4: Accept yourself and your situation, so you can have room to breathe.

So okay. I wanted to get a lot done this morning. Instead, I just might be building my toolkit for getting a lot done in the next weeks, months, year — years?

If things continue like this, I may even start an Unstick-Along. You know, like a knitalong, but in the end, instead of having a nice, fuzzy, handknit object, you have a nice, fuzzy, warm feeling of empowerment and creativity. ;D

Help us win a grant, and you could win $250!

(Possible) money for everybody this holiday season! ;)

Here's the deal: Help us win a $5,000 small business grant, and you could win a $250 Visa gift card. Is that cool, or what?

The rules for the "Love a Local Business Holiday Challenge" are so:

1. Nominate a small business for the grant. (Okay, you don't have to nominate us — you can nominate any business you like! We'd like it if you help us out, but we won't be mad if you don't. ;))
2. E-mail the business with a link to the Love a Local Business contest page and let them know you nominated them — and don't forget to CC Intuit on the e-mail.
3. You'll get a confirmation message from Intuit letting you know you're entered.

Pretty easy! So head on over to Intuit and make your nomination! If you do help us out, search for Star and Crossbones in Palm Harbor, FL. We won't show up on the Google map since we don't have a physical store (...yet?), but we're in there!

The Holiday Challenge ends on December 31, so you might as well go over right now while you're thinking about it, right? ;)

Hollywood creativity needs an upgrade (part one)

Today, some commentary on the interesting brand of creativity that Hollywood and the big-budget entertainment producers send out into the world. This is part one; I have another link to blather about, but it didn't seem to fit here, so I'm saving it for another post.

First, there's a thoughtful review of Avatar on io9 that says the movie’s plot is basically the old “enlightened white people selflessly sacrifice popularity in their own culture to save the natives whose culture they’re destroying and become popular in the other culture” cliché — with the novel addition of “in SPACE!” ;) You may want to avoid the review if you're a spoiler Nazi who hasn’t seen the movie yet, though most of the "spoilers" are pretty darn general plot descriptions that should come as no shock to people familiar with American speculative fiction and adventure movies. Anyway, it's worth checking out.

Although I haven’t seen the movie yet, the review points up the fact that even as Hollywood tries to push the known boundaries of technology, methodology, and special effects, they tend to get into plot and idea ruts.

The article is interesting to me on several counts: I studied anthropology in college, I have an interest in diversity, and I’m half of non-Western descent. I’m also interested in creativity, whether it’s the creativity of famous directors, yet-unknown indie business owners, or amateur artists who never intend on showing their work outside their home.

If the review is as correct as I think it is, it makes some pretty important points. For fans of diversity and fans of creativity, both, it’s worth noting that Hollywood could use a fresh infusion of cultural awareness … and since the super-visible mainstream has been taking a lot of cues from the indie world lately, there’s a niche to be filled here, people! Go forth and be culturally diverse, create a multiplicity of perspectives, and market them well, so when the big-budget companies catch on, you can proudly point to your work and say, “I did it first!” ;)

Also, this is probably a good time to bring up Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels, in which Le Guin has outright said racial diversity is a crucial element. The Slate article linked in the previous sentence talks about the bizarre white-ifying of her main character in the Sci-Fi Channel Earthsea miniseries, but more importantly, it talks about successes and lost battles in trying to get the entertainment industry (in which I'm including books) to stop being afraid of non-white characters. Her experiences support the idea that there is a real tendency in American filmmakers and entertainment marketers to try to cater to an audience that supposedly won't understand the world unless it's framed by a white person's perspective.

Not that white people's perspective is valueless — but it's pretty ludicrous to let one perspective dominate our entertainment choices in what’s supposed to be a “melting pot” country.

And come on, entertainment industry. There's no lack of money available to big Hollywood producers and directors, and there's a lot of complete drivel out there to show that you're willing to throw money away. Why not go ahead and invest in something that really deserves buzz words and phrases like "bold," "daring" and "like nothing you've ever seen before"?

There are probably some good movies, books, TV shows, etc., out there already that show a genuinely non-white perspective, too, with non-white main characters moving through a plot that isn’t based on “one culture destroys another” (or the ever-popular “look how different we are but we’re really the same” theme). Recommendations, anyone?

Part two of "Hollywood creativity needs an upgrade" coming soon in another blog post. In that one, I'll write about the strange, creative vision Hollywood has of the human body.

ARTpool art/craft/vintage show + yarn + a preview

Here's what the sky looked like as we drove to the ARTpool art/craft/vintage show on Saturday morning:



The day was forecast to be rather cool for this area, but it turned out as wishy-washy as the weather in St. Pete usually is: It alternated cloudy/cool and sunny/warm. The turnout for the show was pretty good, compared to the other shows we've done this year, and we made lots of contacts and new friends, including Jennifer Wunderlich of iWunder on Etsy. Alas, your dear captain was too enchanted by the pottery booth across the way, the discontinued fabric sample books, and the other sparklies and pretties at the show to remember to take any pictures. Doh. Suffice to say it was a really fun show, and we hope to do a bunch more shows with ARTpool in the future, if they'll have us!

I did spin most of the singles that turned into this yarn while I was at the show, too:


And while we're talking about fluffies, here's a preview of the fiber that will turn into the yarn that will turn into the magical wristwarmers pattern I posted about here a couple weeks ago:



Tune in again soon for more babbling on creativity. I've got a few future posts bubbling in the back of my head (and in still-in-progress Word documents).

To save the world, create

The latest installment of Holly Lisle's TalysMana, a novel draft that she's writing "live" and sending out to subscribers, made me laugh because it mentions fandom, although not by that name. I've wanted to do that in a piece of non-fanfiction since shortly after I learned what fanfiction is, so ... good on Holly for doing yet another thing I've been wanting to do. ;) Aside from writing and publishing books, TalysMana itself is a bit like an idea I've had knocking around in my head for a while — but, you know, it exists. I just had some vague notion of combining writing and jewelrymaking, but she and her daughter are actually doing it. (And soon I'll be launching my knitting+fiction project, which has a similar bent, but that's for another post. While I'm on a tangent, though, go visit TalysMana and subscribe. It's just getting juicy and you have six chapters to enjoy while waiting for the next.)

The main reason I'm writing this post is that in the latest chapter of TalysMana, the talented Ms. Lisle also touches on an idea I once supported (or at least considered reasonable) — but until tonight I'd forgotten why I ever thought the idea made sense. The idea: The universe is locked in a forever battle between entropy and creation, and generally speaking, as creatures of life, for us, entropy = bad.

I know why I forgot how to believe in that idea; I forgot to believe in it because I started thinking of entropy as a purely scientific concept, or more specifically, a thermodynamic concept. Entropy is involved in the melting of ice, to use Wikipedia's example, and ice melting isn't exactly a villainous act. So I forgot why entropy had ever = bad, and the concept started to seem completely melodramatic.

But tonight, Holly Lisle's novel-in-progress reminded me that what we create is part of reality — quite literally. What you think in your head, what you write in your journal ... Those things may be private, but they still exist, and if you think about all the negativity that people nurture in themselves, in others, even in private ... It does start to seem like there must be an enormous amount of negativity out there. Now, if you believe that every act of imagination is contributing to the current reality, then self-help starts to seem like a bigger deal — "Your focus determines your reality" turns into "Your focus helps determine everyone's reality," and goshdarnit if creativity doesn't start to seem like a power to wield with responsibility.

The idea of collective mood isn't that far-fetched, either — MoodViews tracks Livejournal moods and creates a collective mood report, and I seem to recall a collective mood widget for the Mac OS Dashboard, that took the form of a strangely mesmerizing, color-changing glowing dot...

Anyway. Tonight I re-realized that entropy = bad is really the flip side of creativity = good. Creativity, if you mean it in a certain sense, contributes to collective positivity. It adds something good to reality. It makes the world a brighter place. Even if no one sees what you do, your creativity still exists, and if you believe in a higher power of any kind, or if you believe in the Whole in a sort of Zen way, your creativity matters because it's visible from a distance as a building block in the Grand Scheme of Things. If enough people choose to create, then the universe is a more creative place. If enough people choose to destroy, the universe becomes a more destructive place. Heck, don't stop at the universe — all of Existence is built of these wee molecular structures, and to a large extent, you can choose what your addition to the Whole looks like.

So there's a good reason to go ahead and create, even if someone else has been there before you; even if you don't think anyone will care; even if you know no one will ever see it.

Create because it is good. Create because you are giving life to something positive. Create because you choose to give the gift of something beautiful, or meaningful, or fun, to the whole of reality. Create because you live, and your life needs to be spent in some fashion, and when it comes down to it, would you rather have spent it negatively? Or would you rather be able to look back and say, "I brought something good to this place, in my own way, as best I could"?

That's what it means when people say "Only you, of all the people in creation, can do what you do."

You can create, or you can destroy. We all do a little of each, but when you have a chance to shape your little part of the Whole, which one will you choose to do?

By the power of blogging...

...I am He-Man?

Okay, I'm not, but I am joining Connie Ragen Green's 30-Day Power-Blogging Challenge. The challenge: to write at least 30 blog posts between December 7 and January 7.

This will hopefully assuage my grumbling ego, which is annoyed that I wrote a measly one day during this year's NaNoWriMo. (Seriously. Sailing through NaNoWriMo the first year has been really bad for my subsequent NaNoWriMo productivity.)

One of the requirements for the blogging challenge is that only posts of 100+ words count toward the goal of 30. This is having an odd effect on me, as I don't want to cheat, so I'm actually editing words out of my sentences to avoid feeling like I'm padding them.

Similarly, I'm pretty sure completely fluffy posts fall outside the intended scope of the challenge, so I may be less inclined now to post completely random, spastic content. You're welcome?

By the way, today is the last day to vote in the poll over there on the top right. Feel free to go click a couple of times and give me some valuable insight into you, my very important visitor. You matter, because the collective "you" now pay my paycheck. Vote!

Looking for gamers to get free stuff!

Are you a gamer? Would you like some free stuff? We need one intrepid player of D&D, or any other game that involves rolling dice to get character stats, to volunteer their character information ... and in exchange, you'll get a completely one-of-a-kind knit object or accessory. Still not sure? You get to help us decide what kind of knitthing you get.

Come on. You know you want it. You know you're curious. You KNOW YOU WANT IT!

Okay, maybe not. But if you want even a smidge of a chance at a nifty free thingie designed just for you, hop on over to the Star and Crossbones Facebook fan page and leave us a comment or a wall post. Or, if you absolutely must use the e-mail, then drop us a line at crystal (at thingie here) starncrossbones.com.

Come to the knit side ... We have warm fuzzies...

The importance of limitlessness

I came across an article on SparkPeople today that points out something that's been a personal peeve of mine for years — since before it even applied to me, even. I've seen adults doing it since before I officially counted as one, and it bothered me as much then as now: We encourage kids' seemingly limitless potential but neglect to recognize our own. It's as if we believe that as we get closer to dying, we become narrower people. (That's a funny thing to believe simultaneously to "The older I get, the wiser I am than those kids are" alongside "Kids have innate wisdom," but humans are nothing if not contradictory ... Anyway, I digress.)

Dickinson writes in her article that one possible reason behind this self-limiting attitude is our corner-of-the-eye awareness that we have responsibilities and duties — which kids don't have yet, so they're free to dream of anything while we're shackled to reality. Sound familiar? It should, because I hear it all the time, from virtually everyone, mid-life crisis sufferers excepted: You gotta do what you gotta do. If I didn't have a wife and kids, I'd be out there following my dreams. Today the money has to go to bills; maybe tomorrow there will be some for living.

It's the creed of the modern adult, although some people manage to escape it.

And that's what ties this all in to creativity and small business. I started Star and Crossbones, I even named it for pirates and an age-old symbol of dreams-as-in-goals, as a way to remind myself that I am in control of my own destiny, that I have the potential to do anything I choose to do, that I shouldn't let myself be shackled by the weight of responsibility and duty and social or moral expectation. No, I never meant "Screw ethics and morals, I'll do what I want." A pirate can follow his own moral code; but he writes it for himself, and be damned to anyone who doesn't understand it or see it. No one else has to see it for it to be real.

That's what I've been missing for the past two years — or few years; I may even have been missing it from the moment I chose to go to the college my father wanted me to go to, the moment I chose to stay close to home rather than leap into the risky unknown (unknown except that even my father knew the far-away place was perfect for me. I wonder, if I had gotten into Yale, would he have said that, too, was too expensive?). Maybe I was even missing it before then, too; but I remember having it at some point — the feeling that I have potential and it's not just my right but my primary duty to chase that potential down. For the past few years, but especially in the two that I let myself be chained to a soul-eatingly irrational office job, I've been missing that feeling, that I can do things greater than what I'm doing now, and that in those things lies the ultimate pursuit of happiness.

I've even been missing it in the past few months, since I quit the aforementioned ill-fated office job. I left that place with the intention of seeking out and finding all the spirit I'd lost, and life has done its darnedest to throw negativity and obstacles in my way — emotional ones rather than monetary ones so far, but the dreams I'm really chasing in this return-to-self/return-to-creativity business are emotional, not financial or physical. And I've let those obstacles drag me back down into the feeling that I have to deal with my responsibilities first, even if it means once more delaying my happiness and fire-hearted dream-chasing.

What a shame and a waste! writes Dickinson.

Yes. It is a shame and waste.

And I am not, of all things, built to be either shamed or wasteful.

If we were limited to the gifts and talents we developed as children, many of us would never discover the wonderful things in store for us, Dickinson continues. During the next few weeks I challenge you to break that pattern of self-destruction.

I can't, as she suggests, use my children as inspiration; I don't have any. But I want to take her up on her challenge — I need to meet it. I need to break my own self-imposed limits. I need to explore the world again, and feel like my exploration matters for the sheer positivity that exploration embodies. And I need to start as soon as I can — no waiting for the mythical "right moment," no waiting for just a little more inspiration to hit.

So. If I go crazy, if I throw out erratic, creative, artistic, non-businesslike ideas and run around like a chicken with a paintbrush, if I disappear for weeks on end and then re-emerge with a fully-grown, certifiably gargantuan project in my hands, and ignore all my carefully-laid business plans for the sake of being me again and learning to dream again, recognize that for what it is, and maybe take a little of the crazy home to roost with you.

Because even if it's unbusinesslike, my personal creed and the force that drove me to start this business in the first place both demand that I take the time to be a little nuts — or a lot nuts. An elephant-sized mound of nuts. Because when it comes down to it, if in the end I fail — at making a living, at having a successful business, at becoming rich and famous, at being financially solvent and having a big house with a room for every craft — I'd rather fail because I was busy following my heart than fail because I was too miserably busy to listen to it.

Get this ship ready to sail; we're going a-pirating.

Vote on our next big project!

For those of you who are on Facebook, there's a new poll up on our fan page that will help me decide what structure to give the fiction + knitting project idea that's knocking around in my head right now. If all goes as planned, it should be released in January — and your vote will tell me what I need to do with the project to make you guys happy! Check out the poll on the fan page's wall.

For those of you who aren't on Facebook or who just don't feel like heading over there, there's a version of the poll at the top of the right sidebar, over here ---->.

Now goooo ... Vooooote ... ;) ::swings yarn ball back and forth hypnotically::

The Moody Crafter Gets Out Her Problem-Solving Brain

Artists and other creative types are notorious for being moody. (Okay, so humans in general can be moody, but creative people seem to get the stereotype, for some reason … Probably because they honestly express their feelings in their art or craft. Don’t you love it when honesty kinda backfires? ;)) A couple of people on a mailing list mentioned how crafting can be both their source of positivity — when they do it — and their source of frustration and a reason to get depressed, when they don’t create.

One person said the only way she can escape the cycle is to just work on something, after which her enthusiasm returns and she wants to work on everything!

Me, I tend to get down on myself when I stop creating for a few days, but it doesn’t really start nagging at me until I see other business owners creating and selling their awesome stuff successfully. Then I start to question the value of my own contribution. Why am I even trying to sell my crafts when I can’t even make myself do them consistently? There are plenty of other people out there to fill the public appetite for fun, creative and beautiful things. (Good thing I don’t think this all the time — I would never have bothered even trying to sell my stuff.)

Like my fellow mailing list member, I can only get out of this unproductive cycle by getting off my butt and forcing myself to work on things — although sometimes I don’t start to feel better until I’ve worked my way through several projects. That to-do list doesn’t get any smaller while I’m whinging to myself, after all. ;)

And breaking the cycle is more complicated now that business is involved. Crafting isn’t purely for personal satisfaction any more; it’s also part of my livelihood. (I think this way even though crafting isn’t currently supporting me financially, because I need to take it seriously enough to have it support me someday.)

When I was just crafting for myself, the moodiness could be cured like this:

Negative feelings: Why aren’t you crafting, you slacker?
Me: Look — I am crafting! ::waves knitting needles with partial sweater attached:: I vanquish you, so shut up already!
NF: Noooooooo! ::poof::

But now that I have a business to run, it goes more like this:

Negative feelings: Why aren’t you crafting, you slacker?
Me: Look, I am! Shut up already!
NF: That’s not for selling. That’s someone else’s pattern!
Me: Yeah, but it’s practice!
NF: Why don’t you practice knitting your own patterns?
Me: I will! Once I finish writing one.
NF: See? You can’t even finish that!
Me: DUDE, that takes time. I only have a certain amount of time, and right now I’m trying to be productive by practicing. Okay? Leave me alone!
NF: Excuses, excuses. Excuses won’t get you through THAT! ::points to long to-do list::
Me: Ugh. Now I feel like I should be doing something else. I don’t even want to finish this sweater, now. It’ll take so long, and I have SO MUCH TO DO!!!

Which probably makes me sound like a neurotic freak, but, uh … ::points to artist stereotype:: I’m supposed to be! ;P

Anyway, theoretically, owning my own craft business is supposed to free me from being weighed down by other people’s negativity, not give me an excuse to feel negative about myself. ;) Since the endless to-do list is a reality that can’t be instantly vanquished, though, I have to add another weapon to my arsenal to make the negative vibes shut up.

Solution: Write down the crap I can’t deal with right away, along with suggested ways to handle said crap once I get to it on the list.

Example:

Whiny problem: I’m not producing enough every day to stay visible on Etsy/with customers.
Quickly brainstormed ideas that might help:

• Reward myself for making items and listing them
• Set up a regular schedule of brainstorming and production
• Use a theme or themes for regular inspiration
• Spend more time making crazy items that I love, but that I don’t necessarily know if anyone else will love (this will at least make me produce! And people will probably like it more than I feel they will)

Then I might take the brainstorms and expand them into a series of steps to follow, to keep myself in line — or really, to keep myself from starting to work on something and then going, “Wait, I lost my train of thought/inspiration. What do I do next?” and wandering off. ;)

Potential solution #1 (The Disciplined Solution):

1. Get a notebook and designate it the production notebook.
2. In the notebook, list items that can be made in under an hour; put stars beside the ones that sound like the most fun to make.
3. Gather the materials for these items where I can easily find them, but where they won’t be in the way; place production notebook in the same place.
4. Every day, make one item off the list, in addition to anything else I might be working on for the business. This can happen at any point if I’m inspired, or if I’m not inspired by a designated time in the day, then at that time, I will sit down and make something off the list.
5. Write down the materials, colors, and at least two other descriptive words (.e.g, “bright,” “elegant”) that describe each item in my production notebook right away.
6. Reward myself by letting myself read for 15 minutes for each small item I’ve created that day.
7. Every two days, gather what I’ve made so far, and photograph it — if I can’t get outside to photograph, I can still photograph against my mini-white-backdrop.
8. List anything made so far. Use the notes in the production notebook to write item descriptions; spend no more than 15 minutes writing each description (to keep from getting stuck writing and rewriting so much I get tired of it).

If I start to feel twitchy about the first solution I come up with, well, I can come up with another!

Potential solution #2 (The Crazy Artist Solution):

• Designate a production notebook, as above.
• Every day, as soon as I wake up, write down the most fun thing I can think of that I can make in under an hour with the materials immediately on hand. (If there are a lot of things immediately on hand and confusion starts to set in, grab four random items and use those.)
• Write down the items being used in the production notebook.
• Set a timer for one hour and make something before the timer goes off.
• Immediately write down three descriptive words inspired by the item.
• Immediately after this, photograph the item and write a blog post about it, even if the post is one paragraph long with one photo.
• If one is available, look at the item I produced this way yesterday. Decide if I want to put it into the Etsy shop. If so, list it. If not, no worries; the blog post about it will help keep me visible at least in my customers’ eyes (and will also prove to me that I’m producing and brainstorming).

Then I can use either one of those strategies, or another one I think of later, to try to keep myself producing and visible — and even before I start using the solutions, that problem can stop bothering me and making me feel negative, because now I feel equipped to defeat the evil problem.

I can also use the brainstorm-and-expand technique to set up a plan for dealing with anything: a disorganized craft room, not knowing what products to focus on making, etc. Every problem will need a different solution, but that’s good, in a way — doing the planning forces me to think and be creative.

Which is usually a reinforcing cycle of its own, but in a positive way. ;D

Sooooo … For you intrepid souls who are still with me, what do YOU do to beat down the negative feelings? Not everybody is like me, and I’m sure there are tons of other ways to deal with feeling depressed and uncreative. Go on, share already!

Wristwarmer waffling: opinions needed!

Edited 8:12 p.m. Eastern on December 7: Now with new pictures! (You know, it's hard to photograph my own wrist at a non-funky angle when the camera needs to be on a tripod for stability...) Also, since they seem to show up brown on some people's screens, these are actually gray.

Here's a sneak peek at some wristwarmers I'm designing. (This will be one of my first publicly published knit patterns ... If I can convince myself to finish it! Writing fiction was never this waffle-inducing.)







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(Bottom)


What I want to know: What's your gut reaction to their appearance? Do you look at them and go "Eh" or do you go "Hmm, that looks pretty decent"? Or do you go "DUDE I WANT THOSE"? I doubt that last one, but hey! Anything is possible.

Also let me know what your normal style of knitting is, so I have some context. I don't really expect people who love the look of smooth stockinette knit in silk yarn to like these, but that doesn't mean I don't want your opinion. I just, you know, should understand where you're coming from.

I wanted to make these a relatively quick knit, but I didn't want them to be overly simple — a little contradictory, but not as much as it might seem ;) — so they're done in worsted-weight yarn but they have a kind of stupid amount of texture. I should have knitted the test in a lighter color to show the texture better, but I used what I had on hand, and now I'm wondering if I should reknit this exact design in a lighter color, or if I should tweak the design first and then reknit in a lighter color.

That's why I need your opinions. If the design isn't appealing enough as-is, then I'll rework it before I reknit it. What do you think?

The holidays are coming! (plus, shopping for shoppers)

Star and Crossbones has booked two more craft shows in St. Petersburg (the captain's hometown and birthplace, doncha know): Art Attack on November 21, right before Thanksgiving, and the ARTPool art/craft/vintage show on December 19 — right before Christmas. That sounds like it should be exciting...

We may also be attending another Daytona Beach event on December 5, if we can get the logistics right (i.e., if Brian's family in the area have finished remodeling their bathrooms so we have a free place to stay).

The event we did over the weekend, at the antique flea market, was a bit silly for us, really ... which I thought it probably would be, from the way things were the last time. But it rained on and off all day during the last one, so I thought I'd give it a second try. But it looks like my feelings were right: The people who shop antique flea markets (or at least, the people who shop at that antique flea market) don't seem to be the same people who look for quality handmade items, which points up the importance of finding craft shows and events that fit your products — it's like the need to advertise to the correct audience. Meaning it doesn't matter how great your stuff is if you're marketing to the wrong people. (People who only read literary poetry aren't going to buy Harry Potter, no matter how many times they see the gimongous display at the bookstore.)

And if you don't find your market, you could make the mistake of thinking your products aren't marketable or good enough. From reading along on mailing lists as people try to find good shows, I gather it takes trial and error and word of mouth — or luck, lacking those two things — to find your audience, so for those of you out there trying to find your niche, keep trying. I certainly don't intend on giving up until I've given it a good run.

And hey, I got a nice bamboo barrette-thing out of it, from the other artist who had a table at the event:



I also got a lopsided tan, from sitting in one direction all day ... but them's the breaks when you dare to sit outside in Florida.

Halloween doings: a craft show and some piratical sewing

We spent Halloween in Daytona Beach this year, doing our first "real" show as Star and Crossbones. A few months ago we had a table at an antique shop's "flea market," because a friend of mine who works there asked us a couple of days before it to fill a spot — but we didn't have a banner or business cards or a Web site or ... yeah. We had us, some homemade displays, and whatever we happened to have in stock at the time.

The Daytona Beach Hallowgreen event was the first event at which we set up a tent, had a banner, and passed out business cards. We even had a receipt book ... OooOOoooo. Here I am sitting in our booth (and knitting):


And for good measure, here's a photo with Brian and a close-up of our table — I took this one early in the morning, as soon as there was enough light, so I couldn't forget to take a picture:



It was a fun show. The organizer has told us we'll be welcome back next year if we're interested, we met fellow Etsy FEST member Cory from Aquarian Bath, whose lead we followed in order to get into the show, we got to visit Brian's family in the area, and we gave out all but I think three of our business cards — so even though we only sold a couple of things, I think it was a pretty successful show. (I do wish I had gotten the fabric labels done in time to sew them into the scarves, though. Oh, well. Next time.)

And actually, we're doing the antique shop's "flea market" again this Sunday. We still won't have our normal business cards, since the new batch hasn't arrived yet from the printer (alas...), but I'll just have to whip some up and print them out myself, because we can't just have nothing. ;) And this time, we'll have a table. And chairs. And more of a clue about what we're doing. And the all-important receipt book. Wahaha. (Come see us at Memory Lane Antique Mall in St. Petersburg, if you're in the area.)

Oh, and the other thing I had to do for Halloween was sew a pirate shirt for a guy Brian works with. In the last entry, I was going to try cleaning my sewing machine with Citra-Solv, so that, you know, it would actually work so I could sew the shirt. I should have documented the battle, but sitting on a tile floor for four hours unscrewing tiny screws and using two billion paper towels and a pair of tweezers to remove 10 years' worth of gunk from a bunch of metal gears didn't inspire me to take photos. Suffice to say, the machine now runs. Not perfectly, mind you, but I didn't kill it, and it didn't kill me. I declare this: A WIN!

And look, I was a good girl and sewed the placket facing on the commissioned pirate shirt before I sewed the front piece of the shirt to the back piece:



Wins all around. Except for the fact that I've been suffering from post-craft-show out-of-it-ness — or maybe I'm catching a wee bit of something. But I can't let that stop me, as Star and Crossbones must sail on...