Adventures of an ADD crafter

Have you ever started a project?  You know the feeling, you find a new craft, or get an idea online, or in a magazine or something that you would like to do, so you run out and buy all the supplies and get to it?

This is a feeling I know all too well.  Unfortunately I have trouble with distraction and often with finishing things.  I was going over the list of projects I have to complete for the Pearl, and our upcoming camping trip, and it made my husband's head swim.  Some of these will look familiar, and are ongoing projects.  Take the afghan I started about 6 years ago and am still needing to finish for my now 13 year old.  I chose this project because my Gramsy used to make these and it was the only crochet pattern I liked at the time.  It's a very time consuming design though and sadly I decided to make it entirely too big (I started this before I had at least two of my kids) so I am at this point completely bored with it. I will force myself to finish it, I have to.  The boys have had their own for years.



 Remember these??   I had mostly finished this pennant banner for our last camping trip, however since I do things without measuring it was slightly too short.  Partly because when I do a project I usually go big and I wanted it to hang on two sides of The Pearl.  Most people make them to hang on one long side.

Here it is, it would have hung the length of one long side
but I wanted it to also be on the front.  I thought it would
look better along the whole side of the easy up so I
decided to extend it.  

so I finally finished that one...  

 here you see one of my other ongoing 'projects'.  Pointe shoes.

 I tend to juggle my laundry and clothespins when I hang my laundry on my clothes drying rack outside.  I try to be a good 'homesteader' so I get out to hang laundry and take care of the chickens and ducks.  I saw this cute clothespin apron online somewhere and decided to make not one, but two. I could whip these out in a day right.  Plus it was laundry day and I would have lots of use for them. Here you see a partially finished one, that project is sorta stalled out because it rained all week and I couldn't hang laundry outside anyway.  Plus once again ran out of rickrack and had to get to the fabric store.





 I did this to one of the drawers that was offensive looking... It went pretty quickly.

So I went to work on this fine piece of art....

Ideally it was going to resemble this beautiful birds nest I saw in Cloth, Paper, Scissors to go in the Pearl for my teeny collection of stuff from our travels.  IE: rocks and stuff.  I know, it looks like a mess.  It seems pretty straightforward building a birds nest, well let me tell you I have a whole lot more respect for our fine feathered friends after taking on this project.  How they accomplish this feat without two hands and thumbs is beyond me.  At one point I wanted to throw it.  (One of my girl's got the job of making the bird, I was over it by then).

Then there was the french memo board I have wanted to make for about 10 years, maybe longer.  But now the Pearl has a place for one so I decided to tackle it now.  Guess I should have ironed the fabric though, and I ran out of ribbon so that went on hold.  

Then I saw these darling little owl's on Pinterest.  Aha, the Pearl needs one of those!  I thought.  So I whipped this one up in one evening.  It's hideous and chubby, but those are my Gramsy's buttons from her button jar that I used for the eyes so she has some sentimental value.  

And no, that's not a cute pink smile, it's a beak, but I couldn't find my yellow embroidery floss.  Could you imagine if I was ADD and a perfectionist??  I think I'd drive myself mad.  A couple of my girls ended up loving it and now want me to whip up a couple more.  

It looked cute when I cut it out. 

stuffing it made it not so cute

 

Oh yeah, and just for kicks, in all my spare time I decided to take on crocheting a granny square a day.  Here is my progress.  The internet maybe should be kept away from ADD people....

This is the granny square afghan I started also for The Pearl.  This Vintage trailer project sure has given me a lot of other projects to add to my ever growing list.  And a new found love of all things vintage.  Since I don't get out much and have no one to go antiquing with I end up fashioning a lot of things myself.

Finally, got out to the store for more ribbon, and was able to put the finishing touches on the french memo board.  Gramsy's buttons.  Are you noticing a theme here?

Again one evening on the internet I came across embroidered items.  Hey, my Gramsy taught me how to embroider about 30 years ago, and I've wanted to pick it up again ever since.

So I drew some simple mushrooms and started with that...  

then I found this....

 Kinda put up curtains when we last went camping for some privacy, but still have to stitch all of them properly.  And make tie backs.  I'm hung up on the measuring.  I tend to overwhelm myself.   Ideally I am going to stitch curtains for every window with beautiful vintage (guess who's) buttons on the tie backs.  Sparkly!

And then there's my art, which has seriously been neglected.  I managed to finish this painting and another I will reveal later.

 The mushrooms came out adorable, and now I've started on my second embroidered test subject.  It's tough to have so many projects, be distracted by shiny things, and have precious little time left after raising a family.

Ok, now for a note.  You've probably noticed that I did not include pictures of the items I saw online and in magazines that I was making for myself.  There is a good reason for that.  It would be completely embarassing, so forget it.

Also I'm not joking about the ADD.  I was diagnosed with adult ADD a couple of years ago and am on meds for that too.  My kids joke with me by saying "oooh shiny!" and know I am easily distracted.  Some days I feel a lot like Dory from Finding Nemo.   I've always been someone who talks to myself and find I have to remind myself to 'just keep swimming'....