I envy almost every Etsy user. Some of the things they make are absolutely gorgeous and makes the green-eyed monster in me say “I wish I could do that!” and then it subsequently bursts into tears.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to sew. Actually, I still do. I did make a quilt once, but I gave it to my ex-boyfriend with nary a picture. I guess I could ask him to take one for me, as we are know on an un-awkward speaking basis. And my mother has been getting on me to at least have a record of the things I’ve made. Most of which I have given away.

Back to the point. Sewing machines in dorms are like… a huge no-no. Of course, cranking your PS2 up to the highest volume to play Rock Band at 2am doesn’t seem to be, so I don’t see why I CAN’T own a sewing machine here, except for the fact that someone might kill me. You know, because someone’s crappy karaoke voice is better than the grating sound of the click-click-click of a sewing machine.

Anyway, before last spring semester, I decided I should pick up a hobby. I settled on crochet, thinking that it doesn’t take up much space. I mean, a buy the right crochet hook, yarn that matches the pattern, I use up all the yarn, and move on right? Little storage except for finished projects. HAH.

I didn’t anticipate that one could get addicted to knitting and crochet. My “stash” takes up a drawer of one of my dorm’s dressers and woe will be me when I have to pack that mess up at the end of the semester. Because I wasn’t really careful about storing the yarn, it has become one giant lace-weight/worsted-weight/chunky-weight yarn monster ready to eat me when I decide it’s time to clean.

Not only that, but I have yarn all over my room, to the point that my roommate, no matter how demure and Asian she is, is probably ready to poke my eye out with one of my own needles. And now I spend my time on Ravelry browsing all the yarns and the patterns and wishing I could buy more yarn. OR learn to spin yarn. Actually, my next itch is to start dyeing natural or white yarn and knitting/crocheting from those selections.

So, now, I have a yarn addiction. Which is not quite as harmful as a nicotine addiction, but it does hurt my nearly non-existent college budget. So I haven’t bought yarn in a while. And I’m telling myself I need to finish what I start. Of course, I have this terrible habit of not finishing anything that’s for me. Or, if I do, I don’t like it and I never wear it. Like this hat. Made it, liked it for two seconds after I finished it, and never wore it again.

But, of course, I want to sew again. Well, the onslaught of video game quilts has made me want to show me geekery in some way. But due to the aforementioned fact that a don’t really have a feasible way to keep a sewing machine, I would need to hand-quilt. And if I poke myself in the eye with an embroidery needle, that would hurt considerably more than a poke in the eye with a knitting needle.

In any case, I should finish my scarf first. It’s the My So-Called Scarf pattern in some pretty green and purple and lightish green yarn. I don’t know, but it’s making me happy. I just need to finish it before I return to the other thing which I was making… a sweater. Eep.

As to the scarf making, I made an observation. Somehow, finishing everyone else’s scarf was vastly easier than trying to concentrate on my own. So there you go… my lofty crafty ambitions shot to hell because my limited amount of space (okay, and my lack of an attention span).

Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by Joy
Filed under: College, Knitting | No Comments »