My crafty coming-out

I can't draw.

I took piano lessons for 11 years and I still can't manage to play with two hands unless I make up the left-hand part myself.

And I'm pretty sure a career in bomb-diffusing is NOT in my future.

Hand-eye coordination? I don't have it. In spades.

So it makes no sense that I would be a crafter, because most crafty activities (knitting, crocheting, carving, jewelry-making, etc.) require some part of your brain to connect with your hands. And as my childhood piano teacher will tell you, that just ain't in the cards (sorry, Jan).

And yet, I have this:


An entire closetful of tried and mostly-succeeded-in but nearly-always-abandoned crafting efforts.

See that sewing machine in there? A gift from my lovely mother-in-law. Never been used. Don't know how to work it. There's a whole bagful of beading supplies, slightly used. 500 skeins of yarn, because I can't pass a yarn display without buying some, but I also can't manage to finish a project before I either get busy and don't have time to finish it or get distracted and just move on to something else.

Because I have the attention span of a gnat.

This vacation, I was determined to finish something.

I have two current projects. The first is a knitted blanket for my niece's new baby brother (although not my nephew). When my niece was born, I made her this blanket:

Which quickly became her must-have-or-won't-sleep-a-wink-GIMME-BLANKET blanket:

Her mama asked if I'd make one just like it, in blues, for her new baby boy. Here's what I have so far:

Considering it took me at least six months to make the first one, I think I'm doing pretty well so far. But there's no way I'm finishing it in the next week and a half because...I don't want to spend my entire vacation knitting.

I was, however, determined to finish project #2.

A few months, back, I spotted a lonely denim jacket on a clearance rack at the mall. Marked down to $5. Five dollars?! Is it made of asbestos? Why the disdain for this lovely specimen. Upon closer inspection, I saw the problem:

Rhinestone buttons. HUGE, gawdy, sparkly, no-need-for-lightbulbs-cuz-we-got-these-here rhinestones. In every place you'd put a button and in some places you just shouldn't. Perfect for boot-scootin'. Not so perfect for Ms. WP.

But: five dollars.

So I plunked down Mr. Lincoln and started scouring craft stores for appropriate substitutes. And you know what I discovered? Craft stores A) charge too much for buttons and B) have a really crappy selection. Plan B: I went to Goodwill, found an old jacket with some cute, wooden buttons, paid three dollars for it, cut off the buttons and, voila!

The new jacket didn't have quite enough buttons for the transplant, so I foraged in my own tiny button collection and added these to the pockets:

I think it came out super-cute!

And, more importantly, it's done. :)