A craft room clean for spring seems like a wondrous thing

So. I have not been crafting up a storm since my last update, but I have been decluttering the crap out of the craft room. I've never noticed that I have much of an internal clock for spring cleaning, but I guess it was time, and goshdarn if it doesn't feel something like spring here, so maybe my internal clock just took a really, really long time to set itself properly. Or maybe this is a coincidence.

And ha — "it was time," I say. Considering that I tried to tackle the Craft Room Rescue project in May of last year, maybe it's long past time.

See, I shared a teeny weeny photo of a shelf last year. That was all I was brave enough to share — the secret horrors of the rest of the craft room will remain known only to those of us who lived through it. ;)

About a day after my last blog post (or maybe that same day; I can't remember now), I got it into my head to crochet something. I can't remember what now, because instead, I ended up literally cleaning and reorganizing that entire bookcase.

Perversely, it looks just as cluttered now as it did last year. See?


Though this shelf doesn't look so bad — and all the pretty colors lined up so neatly inspired me to keep organizing:


The important difference between this bookcase last year and this bookcase Right Now is that it (and a small space on the floor in front of it) now holds all of my non-handspun yarn, and it is sorted by fiber type and weight, with an entire shelf just for projects in progress. There are no longer stray irons, knitting looms, or arbitrary plastic bags haunting said shelf. Last year there were just a bunch of disorganized bags full of assorted bits and scraps of projects and balls of yarn and notions and who knows what shoved onto all the shelves just to keep stuff off the floor. Then the floor got taken over by boxes and piles of fabric and such anyway.

Now, I can see the floor.

And that's only the beginning. In the past week and a half or so, I've also pretty much organized all my fiber tools, cleaned off my craft table so there's actual space on it (...a little...), and done a pretty thorough inventory of the slightly horrifying amount of raw fleece and random wool I have sitting and waiting for me to spin it.

I even excavated (and that is a technical term! ;)) my long-suffering serger from the double-decker fabric sandwich in which it has been waiting patiently (in its original box) all these ... mumblemumble — let's just say it's been a while since I tried to watch the video and it got stuck in the VCR, leaving me clueless about exactly where to start with this tiny-seeming sewing-machine-type-thing with teeth and multiple spools of thread. Lest you think it's been in hiding for even longer than it has, though, I'll say this much: The VHS format was absolutely not in vogue when I got the serger. I would have much preferred a DVD ... not least because it wouldn't have gotten stuck in the crappy VHS/TV combo I tried to watch it on, and then I might have actually used the thing right away. ;)

Anyway, being able to actually see the serger box suddenly made me want to peek at it. Upon opening the box, these thoughts passed rapidly through my mind: 1) Wow. It's a lot smaller than I thought it was. 2) Holy crap this thing is much heavier than it looks. 3) Why does the inside of this box smell like wool?

Bearing item #1 in mind, after wiping off the strange thin layer of woolly-smelling dust from the serger, I installed it happily on my vintage Singer sewing machine/table.


It seems to make more sense to have it taking up less space in a vaguely usable position than to have it inside a space-hogging box between a stack of thrift store fabric and a pile of clothing that needs various modifications. I haven't dared to plug it in or turn it on yet, much less applied foot to pedal, but maybe when no one is looking, I'll sneak in there and see whether it'll stitch for me. As long as no one watches me too closely — a watched crafter never serges, or something like that.

Besides, now there's fabric on the floor and — again, if nobody looks at me too hard or expects too much ;) — having the serger and the sewing machine both patiently waiting for me in plain sight may prompt me to spontaneously sit down and turn fabric into objects shaped like things that would be useful outside of a pile. There are tons of things in this little condo that would improve with judicious application of textiles ... and I've just realized that the massive amounts of questionable-for-spinning wool I have might make good pillow stuffing. Which means I need to make some pillow forms to stuff.

Just go ahead and have a cup of tea and read a book and pretend you're not watching me for a moment, will you? Of course I'll take pictures of any sneaky craft attacks that happen, I promise. I just don't want to frighten away my delicate, re-budding seamstress self, so I have to go quietly and carefully for a little bit. ;)

New art for the craft room, a tiny craft mess reveal, and more triloomy goodness

It's been mildly busy for the past couple of days, in a sort of ramp-up-ish way — like if I keep going, I might build up enough momentum to re-earn the name of the blog.

Pretty stuff first, so my ugly pictures don't scare anyone off. A while ago, I started knitting a "Tinker shawl" for someone's Wheel of Time costume. That didn't end up panning out, but I wanted to finish it anyway, in hopes that maybe someone else would want a really loud bright blue, red, and green shawl. Hey, weirder things have happened. ;)


But I needed red cotton yarn for this week's themed project(s) — I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm doing a themed collaboration with Megan of Late Night Design. This week's theme is "pirates." So I ripped out the red part of the shawl in the above photo, and with the aid of my trusty new triloom, I whipped out another triloomed triangle and crocheted an edging on. Voila! A piratey new head scarf for the Etsy shop! I don't have good photos of it yet, so it's not up yet — it's hard to photograph your own head. ;)


New piratey cotton head scarf on the triloom.


I warned you that it's hard to photograph one's own head. Please kindly ignore the open medicine cabinet. ;)
Then I dashed off another quick cotton triangle in variegated ocean colors, just to see what it would look like.


Piratey head scarf + ocean-colored triangle, yet without purpose. Maybe it'll be a head scarf for me.
Then today I popped onto Twitter and got a hint from Darrah of Darrah Parker Photography that Something Special was up with her blog post today — her first vlog, by the way! I went on over and saw that today she did the drawing for her birthday/blogiversary giveaway. There was a drumroll from the invisible man as she picked a number out of a hipster hat. Ta-da!


Commenter #15 is the one!
And guess what? I won! Look, here she is, announcing me as the winner — see my blog address down there at the bottom?


What you can't see, because this is a still shot, is that she's doing a cute little eyebrow-quirk with her former-actress self. You should go watch the vlog so you can see it in all its glory, and hear her talk about the crafty business owner's journey, too.
So now I get to pick a photo print from her Etsy shop, to go up with the other bits of art that will decorate the craft room, helping to inspire my creativity and remind me to keep dreaming and all that. Of course, first, I need to get off my butt and clean the craft room so there's a nice place to put up said art.

And finally, because some people have been threatening to clean their rooms before I can see their crafty mess to compare it to mine (I'm talking to you, Jackie!), I'm posting a very sneaky peek at part of my craft room mess here. Yes, I suffer from crafty mess syndrome (something I'll probably go into more in a future post), but I've recently embarked on a compassionate decluttering journey to recreate my craft room in the image of — er, the image of Creativity Embodied, I guess. ;) So this is a "before" shot — I'm being brave by posting this, so be nice to me, if you can bring yourself to!


The first shelf I'm tackling in the craft room! The mission: to replace the plastic bags and cardboard boxes so that my yarn and projects reside in hand-sewn washable fabric storage boxes. This will also help reduce my obscene fabric stash.
And that's all for now, folks. More soon in the crafty adventures of the Quicksilver Crafter. I'll let you know which of Darrah's lovely photos I pick to adorn my up-and-coming crafty studio space!

Real-World Crafting

A lesson for today: Living, crafting and creating do not occur in a vacuum.

Intellectually, I've always known that — but there have been times when not having a clean enough work space has kept me from feeling inspired, and I know I'm not the only one who has that problem. But something must be different right now.

Today, I noticed the craft room smelled a little odd. Thinking about it, I realized it had the day before, too, but I had chalked it up to the changing smells that naturally invade rooms right by a kitchen, and by a bathroom that serves both humans and kitties. Some rather unappealing smells occasionally seep into the room, but even the strongest usually go away after a day or two, and they don't stick to my crafting things, so I don't worry about it too much. So I left the door open to air out the room.

Later, I noticed a little damp spot on the knee of my pants. I'd climbed on the kitchen counter earlier to get a bowl from a top shelf ... but the counter wasn't wet. I'd also knelt on the floor of the craft room earlier to take a photo of some new spinning batts. And yes, indeed. The craft room carpet was damp. Had the cats gotten in? No; the room smelled odd, but it would have been more obvious if the kitties had left me a note.

Then I remembered that the bath tub has a leak. Two days ago, the boyfriend had thought it was only leaking into the area between the tub and the wall, but I'd noticed it leaking out the side of the tub.

And the bath tub is on the other side of the craft room closet.

...And yes, indeed. The craft room carpet was damp all the way from the closet to the front of the sewing table.

Now, this isn't the newest condo. It's had problems before. We're currently borrowing someone's backup air conditioning floor unit because our central air stopped cooling anything in October, and while it was repairable as of then, supposedly it won't be for much longer because the parts are getting hard to find. Since we don't have several thousand dollars to replace both the inside and the outside unit, we were air-conditioning-less until B's father rescued us with his borrowed floor unit. (For reference, this is all happening in the amazingly humid and hot land of Florida, home of happy mold spores and ants that ignore traps.)

Another example: Last year, the closet shelves tried to fall on me one morning before work because the upstairs condo had a leaky bath tub. Their leak meant our drywall had gotten not so dry, and when that happens, drywall screws don't like to continue supporting heavy shelving. So we ripped out and replaced the drywall in the closet AND the bathroom and, in fact, we still need to re-tile that shower.

So. This condo has had its share of quirks. Another one isn't unexpected. But at times, fixing this sort of quirk has absorbed all my creative energy, leaving me wholly focused on cleaning up at the expense of creating.

This time, though, I checked to make sure nothing was visibly falling down, cracked the closet door to make sure the humidity could escape, made a mental note not to take any more baths until we fix the leak, and continued thinking about spinning yarn. I even took a photograph of some batts I've had stashed for a while, that I was considering resurrecting:


And even though there were five (@#$*!) ants in the kitchen today, after several (extremely welcome) weeks without any, I didn't get discouraged. I just moved one of the magical liquid ant baits that we discovered the ants don't ignore, and went back to putting together the EtsyFEST catalog index.

This seems to part of my brain to verge perilously on apathy about running a shoddy ship, but on reflection, it's a relief not to feel like I need a sterile environment in order to create. Because really, there's no such thing as an utterly sterile living environment. (Some people's houses come off as sterile, but that's a different monster.) There will always be crumbs. There will always be bugs. There will always be dust. I can live in denial about it, and freak out when I get proved wrong ... or I can remember that I'm part of a larger ecosystem, and that nothing I buy, no matter how tightly sealed its plastic wrapping, was created, inspected and delivered by spotless, germ-free robots directly to the point where I encountered and acquired it.

Things are dirty. Things are germy. Things will get dirty. Things will need cleaning.

And the aim isn't to fixate on completely avoiding the dirt. The aim is to minimize the negative impact of life-generated dirt on creating beautiful things — including memories — and to be able to efficiently clean up a mess when it inevitably happens, without letting it keep me from doing things that make me happy.

In celebration of living with and through the mess, I present this lovely photodump of things I have created, and things I have bought from other creative people, since my last blog post here. Ta-da!

Cotton Candy batt from Spazzy Yarns


Blue alpaca/wool yarn spun from Holly Birch Fibers


Organic yarn spun from a SpinSpanSpun on Etsy batt


Purple Schmurple handspun bought from Spazzy Yarns


Beaches handspun bought from Simply Twisted on Etsy


Sea and Sand handspun bought from Spazzy Yarns


Mishmash yarn, from a SpinSpanSpun organic batt


Proud Peacock yarn, spun from Gale's Art Fiber


More organic yarn spun from a SpinSpanSpun batt


Cheers.

On sick leave

I haven't been feeling particularly well, and having all my stuff in boxes stuffed into the spaces between assorted furniture isn't really encouraging of a super-creative feeling, so I'm falling behind on some things ... wheeee. Add to that the fact that I no longer have a printer due to the move (it went with the No Longer Significant Other), which means I have to find some other way to print my clues for the Mystery Stole 3 KAL, and the fact that there hasn't been a place to hook my computer up, which means I don't have easy access to the files that make swapping and arting and writing go smoothly ... No surprise I haven't been very creatively productive. ;) I'm starting to feel better, though, and the darling Brian got a bunch of things moved around yesterday, which made a little more space (and uncovered more arbitrarily-placed palmetto bugs; I don't understand where the things are coming from and why they like this place so much more than any other house I've ever lived in -- maybe Brian attracts them?). Now, if only we can figure out a way to make the in-progress craft room smell less like a storage room which formerly contained a cat-marked leather chair...

Work on the craft room begins and a recycling tangent

It's not something I'm making personally, but Mythic Yarns has very cute recycled-textile meditation stuffage -- zabutons and zafus and such. Good inspiration stuff.

Also, the craft room creation process finally begins! We defeated the Leather Chair of Doom with the help of a borrowed circular saw; we hauled furniture too large to force into our cars with the help of a borrowed van; and we've packed our cars full of boxes and assorted loose odds and ends for the past eight days with the help of my benevolent mother. At last, yesterday we hauled the final bits of furniture with the help of a borrowed truck and an old friend -- and the last piece of relocated craft room furniture is here. The boxes engulfing our house now begin their journey into the Room of Craftiness...

Big thanks to everyone who helped, emotionally, physically, mentally, etc. ;) I still have one more trip to make, to pick up the last non-crafty randomnesses that were hiding in corners and closets and neglected cabinets and drawers, before I'm done moving out, and I'll be glad when all my stuff is out of that place and I don't have to worry about it being accidentally taken by the evile roommate, but the craft-related parts are all here. Cheers.

Oh, and my KnitPicks yarn for the Mystery Stole 3 KAL looks like it will arrive tomorrow, only a day after the first clue went up. Woo. I may start semi on-time. ;D

Easy sewing projects and crafty babblage

Totally Stitchin' has some neat free projects -- I think I may try the off-the-shoulder top, the sarong wrap pants, and the tiered peasant skirt once I get my sewing stuff organized over here. They're easy enough that even if I don't feel like testing out the older sewing machine, I could make them by hand. Exciting. ;D

Currently estranged from the art stash, the jewelry stash, and part of the yarn and fiber stash; I made a forced move last week to make room for my replacement*, but didn't manage to rescue all my crafty things, so I'm suffering their absence rather ungracefully at the moment.

Brian's refinance is also pushing me around, but in a more productive way: The appraiser, after making up some nonsense about the answering machine not working (well, I suppose it's possible for the answering machine to successfully accept several messages a day except from the appraiser, against whom it has some kind of personal vendetta), deigns to inform us that he (she?) will honor us with his (her?) company on Saturday, unless we want to wait for the next available free space. Despite the World's claims on the middle bit of this Saturday (my father's company picnic, and a Cutthroat Entertainment's special-needs kids boat ride that I found out about yesterday), it seems like a good idea to just go ahead and let the appraiser take it over. The faster the refinance goes through, the better. ;D So Brian and I did some preparatory reorganization last night, and the closet in the craft room exists in a slightly less dubious state containing less empty space, less flotsam, and two more boxes of Christmas decorations. That means the thing-meant-to-be-a-linen-closet-but-nowhere-near-the-place-we-use-the-linens no longer contains said Christmas items and is ripe to be stuffed with something craftier; and since a portion (a sadly small portion, considering) of my fabric/clothing to alter stash is eating the condo at the moment, and fabric stacks better than fleeces or yarn, into the closet the fabric must go ... preferably today. Whee.

If I remember, I ought to stop by the scrapbooking store, too, and see if I can do something silly like picking up a single sheet (maybe two...) of card stock. ;) I only need to make a postcard, and possibly some ATCs, and I can do that much without the bulk of my arty things...

*Annoying reference to personal-life nonsense that no one needs to hear about. ;)

Mail, mail, mail

Not that it really deserves that many repetitions, but mail in for today is "Things I Wish I Said" from storylaura, and the same swap will soon go out -- I'll put it in the mail today, but it might not get postmarked till tomorrow since I don't know yet if I'll make it to the post office in time for their last pick-up.

Not much progress on anything actively crafty -- I've been shifting the craft room from one location to another, or rather, shifting my morass of random craft materials into an actual craft room here at Brian's, but it's fairly slow going ... mostly because there's a Vast Squishy Leather Chair taking up like a sixth of the room at the moment. We still haven't quite fabricated a plan for getting the thing out of there so sensible craft thingies can move into its place, but once that happens ... poof! Up goes the fitting mirror we gleaned from Brian's grandparents' house! In go the sewing table, the serger, and the First Sewing Machine! (There will be two in that room ... and I should check whether the Second Sewing Machine works, so that if I like, I can sew here in the meantime -- but it makes such a charming table...) By then I'll probably have all my yarn here, and all my fiber, and who knows when the jewelrymaking stuff will come over ... Possibly today. ;)

In fact, I think I'll go put together the little scavenged end-table and see if the lip on it is large enough to clamp things to, like the drum carder and the ball winder and the swift and the knitting machine ... whew. ;)