A Last Stitch Effort

A Warning to All Who May Read This Blog

Beware, dear reader. This blog will be full of twists, turns, and blood.

We will look deep into the human psyche and examine my damnable hubris.

Today, dear reader, we talk about crafts.

The Crafting Ritual

I treat crafting books like I believe most people treat cookbooks. I check them out with every intention of making something, anything, from the pages. I pore over photographs and sticky-note my favorite pages. Then, the books inevitably end up in a stack somewhere in my house until someone places a hold on them, and I bring them back. I take up this behavior with a near ritualistic precision. The selection, the sticky note, the stack of doom. Over and over and over. 

Maybe you are a more evolved person than I am. Maybe your home is filled with finished craft projects. Your fabric stash is minimal, only containing what you really need. You are a rare unicorn of a human with incredible self-control and discipline, staring down on us mere mortals and our piles of craftly shame.

I am not you, dear unicorn. My sewing room is a Zoboomafoo closet. Like many of you, when it comes to the end of the year, I start having delusions of grandeur. I promise myself that in the new year, I will fix every single thing I dislike about myself. A magic will take place between December 31st and January 1st that will FIX ME and my bad habits. In a hint of this delusion earlier in the year, I promised to do a blog post about actually making things from books in our collection. When the time came to present the blog post, I had, of course, forgotten entirely. 

Instead of admitting fault, switching gears, and writing anything that took a little less work, I decided I would make three projects in less than a week. Thus began my journey. I started with three goals:

1. Make three items
2. Learn something new, and
3. Only use what I have at home.

I picked three books for this blog that had previously been through The Ritual. (Translation: I checked them out and then didn’t make anything.) I decided to start with the medium that I assumed would take the most time, cross stitch.

The First Craft: Cross Stitch

This first project was supposed to be easy. Even though any kind of hand stitching takes time, it shouldn’t have caused me any issues. I picked Designer Cross Stitch Projects as my book of choice and opted for the Pac-Man design found on page 18.

I am truly awful at predicting how long a project will take me, but this book gives the reader an estimate on how many hours each design takes to create. If you’re looking for a project but need a little more guidance on how to budget your time, this might be the book for you. I might need to check this book out again in the future and try one of the more ambitious designs. I’m really partial to the butterfly on page 84!

The Second Craft: Amigurumi

From there, I moved on to the project that actually ate up the most of my time, amigurumi. I picked Kawaii Crochet by Melissa Bradley. Something I really love about this book is that each design is divided up by the color of yarn it needs. While the book does have a specific brand and type of yarn they recommend, I went ahead and used some leftover red acrylic yarn that’s been in my stash for so long, the true origin has been forgotten. It worked just fine.

I picked the apple pattern (page 14) and got to work. Instead of the safety eyes the pattern calls for, I opted for button eyes. I have named him Apple Baby. I love him very much. I had a blast with this book. I think the patterns are good for an advanced beginner and onwards. Overall, the designs are fun, the patterns are well-written, and there is additional info in the back of the book if you need a refresher on any stitches. I highly recommend giving this one a try. 

The Final Craft: Punch Needle

Last but not least, I decided to dive into a craft I’ve only tried once: punch needle. If you are a denizen of the internet, you’ve seen the very impressive rugs people can make with tufting guns that cost more than I’m willing to spend. Punch needle is like that, but you’re doing all the stabbing. Punch Needle by Arounna Khounnoraj was probably my favorite of the three books in terms of the level of detail. It’s also, ironically, the book I followed the least in terms of the patterns. This book is great to get started. She has a lot of information to help you troubleshoot your stitches and make your own designs.

I loosely adapted the coaster project (page 68). It also gave me the opportunity to break out the monk’s cloth I bought a ton of when Joann's was going out of business. This project came together the quickest, but I also felt like I knew the least amount about what I was doing. Proooobably because I skimmed the instructions more than I should have. Either way, I got a finished coaster and used up some bulky yarn I had laying around the house! It's wonky, but as coasters go it gets the job done!

Crafts Unleashed Upon the Library

This project, though rushed and almost forgotten about, was a lot of fun. While I don’t think it will completely break me of my bad crafting habits and get me to actually use every crafting book I check out, I think it was well worth the time and effort. Sometime after this blog goes up, I will hide some of the finished projects in the library stacks for anyone who comes across them. Except Apple Baby. He is my son and I can’t part with him like that. Make your own! I’m not joking, please do! If you have a favorite crafting book OR if you make something from any of these books, I’d love to hear from you! Also, sorry I lied about the twists, turns, and blood! I think everyone needs a little clickbait once and a while!

—Margo Moore is a Teen Services Librarian at Lawrence Public Library.