Grow Your Blog!!

 My Short But Meaningful History 
of Really Bad Homemade Things Crafting

And Other Pastimes

Hello Out There!!!  Thanks so much for popping by!  Yes, I am participating in Vicki's "Grow Your  Blog Party" again this year.   I know there aren't many rules to follow, which of course I love, but I always feel just a little mismatched with the others who join this blog party, as you know, I'm  cannot make a damned thing not really that crafty and keep imagining that I am.  Somewhere in my average size brain I believe that I will, one day, find a craft that speaks to my soul, one that sings the same song as my heart (and without showing off by singing it better) a hobby that results in creations that no one suspects I made until I tell them so.

Yeah, so clearly my brain isn't quite as large as I imagined.

You crafters are usually very nice people, (well, except for that really disagreeable woman who works in the local fabric store) and so I know you will understand when I tell you that I haven't managed to find a craft I do well for lack of trying.  I have been trying for a very very very long time.  I mean, my trying goes back to the 70's.    It all started when I got this one Christmas:

 This is the "Sew Perfect" machine designed for beginners.  The name of this product raised the hopes of countless unsuspecting, ever hopeful children who longed to create something that others could identify.  Yes, I was one of those very sad, yet hopeful children.

 I had grown tired of others asking questions about my creations, questions such as "what is it?"   I mean, just once I wanted someone to exclaim "Wow, that's a beautiful scarf!!" without the addition of "That's a scarf, right?"  The Sew Perfect promised to fulfill this dream, you know, because of the word PERFECT in its name.  It was a machine, a sewing machine, and in my twelve year old brain, during a time when we were told that pretty soon, machines were going to run, and perhaps even take over the world, I believed this to mean that machines would do all the work and we'd just lay around doing nothing, or fly around like the Jetsons while a robot housekeeper cleaned our houses and made our dinners.

So, I imagined that this machine knew how to sew.  Yeah, you know, like by itself, and maybe once in a while, especially when there was an audience,  I would just in front of the machine with my hands looking like they knew what they were doing, maybe guiding the material through the machine or something, while wearing the toy eyeglasses I bought at Woolworths, because close work tires the eyes.


When I found out that this machine was not living up to the predictions of those who are supposed to know what the future will hold, I lost interest, but not until I made a apron that looked like something from the set of "Little House On The Prairie" and my father embarrassed the bejesus out of me by telling me to show it to a complete stranger and watching him struggle to find the words that would not hurt me, but not lie to me either.  He chose "That's quite good, considering the machine you are working with."  Apparently he wasn't fooled by the marketing hype. Sew Easy was anything but easy.

From then on, when it came to my wish list, it was the easy way or the highway.  One Christmas I asked for this priceless example of the latest technology.

No work involved here.  No end result to be criticized in the most polite way possible.  Just close and play.  So I slipped a record in and closed.  And waited.  And waited. And waited.  And got close to the floor and looked inside.  And waited.  It never played a note.  It went back to the store and never returned, but my mother came home with a new dress.


Next I moved onto the stuff all the other girls were doing at the time, stuff like jump rope and advanced double dutch jump roap, and then this crazy waste of time:

 Yep.  That's cat's cradle and at the time I thought this was related to knitting or crocheting. (I guess because it was done with yarn or string.)  Soon I realized that nothing was created by doing cat's cradle but it looked fun and besides, everyone was doing it.  And more importantly it looked so EASY!!! 

Yeah, how easy does THIS look?

 Yeah, okay, maybe for YOU, but for me I might as well be reading some ancient symbol language carved into a large rock on the tip of a mountain somewhere very far away, which was thought to be something that wasn't even a language, really, but some sort of symbol type communication left by aliens and likely held an ancient curse.

Yep.  it was at that point that I made the decision to stick with my footsie, otherwise known as a skip-it

Obviously not a craft at all, but while the others were sitting making things

I was jumping around burning calories, so at least I was accomplishing something.

When older, I would send a lot of balled up patterns and fabric out windows in frustration,  join craft classes in which I made mickey mouse earrings that were supposed to look like daisies,  and knit things I never finished. Lots and lots of things.

Until finally, later in life, I found that what I really loved to do more than anything was write.  So I created stories and poems and sent long story-like-funny letters to my sister in California and now I blog my  funny stories of my life right here.

 And that's why, on this fateful day we have met, and I hope that we will keep in touch.  Feel free to become a follower, and stop on by whenever you can to read new posts, and dig into the archives.


Sincerely,
Princess Stupidhead