The flavour of the week. Yes, for all you ducks that keep correcting my spelling on Etsy I spell it flavour. And humour. And colour and jewellery and neighbourhood. Why? Because the queen said so and she’s on my money so that makes her worth listening to. Anyways. I have a flavour of the week, but sometimes it is only the flavour of the day or maybe it lasts as long as a month. The point is, I have “phases” that wax and wane in every aspect of my life. Three weeks ago I wanted cottage cheese for every meal. Now it makes me gag. That kind of stuff.

So the reason I make so many things isn’t because I am particularly talented, or eclectic, or even well-rounded. I just start doing something, then get bored, and learn something else. I hate to admit that because I was kind of liking the “she can make ANYTHING” reputation I was fostering, but really I just had trouble staying with something long enough to get a name in that trade. I am deeply jealous of those who have a name. Adam is a photographer. Emily is a designer. I’m a … yeah, can’t even think of anything that fits there. I can tell you a lot of things I WAS. I guess I still am, as I still know how to do them, but I no longer do them so I don’t know what that means for my status. I know I may do woodcarving again, but is it like being a catholic who doesn’t go to church? Can I still be a carpenter when I haven’t even powered up my circular saw in half a year?

Well, regardless of what I still am or am not, my flavour of the week (well, 7 weeks or so) has been wood burning. Another craft that I did a long time ago, then came back to recently. I was making burned boxes with patterns from photoshop brushes, old text, maps I found on shareware and stuff I drew, and they were selling well for about $55 each on Etsy.

Then, inevitably, halfway through one I lost interest. No real reason, I just wanted to be doing something else RIGHT NOW. Will I ever make them again? Probably, since they are generating most of my Etsy income right now, but for the moment, the pyrography pen has been shelved, along with crochet needles, paintbrushes and Adam’s linocut tool I was playing with but lost interest in halfway through a print. So what do I do now? I knit, my friend.

I have a real problem with knitting needles. They’re long, they’re sharp and the yarn doesn’t really like being on them, so I don’t know how I am supposed to talk it into staying on there. The stitches I make are either too tight to get back off the damn needle or too loose to stay on at all. So I cheat. I found a knitting loom at Wal-mart (why was I at Wal-mart? I swear I have a really good non-mass-commercial reason but I can’t think of it now. Well, truth is, no matter how much the handcrafting masses at Etsy spurn the superstore, it is still the cheapest place to buy garbage bags) and I caved. But when I got it home and started looking for patterns I found that loom-knitting is an art itself, not just a way to cheat at “real”knitting. There are patterns just for the loom and many VERY skilled knitters dedicated to the art of the loom. After spending 20 minutes looking for the little hook thingy that came with it which I had immediately lost, I was off.

I found a pattern for slipper socks and dived in. I made one sock! It looked great! I was so excited and I moved onto a really nice loopy scarf. I knew I needed to make another sock, but I had already mastered that pattern and wanted to move on. The guilt of the lonely sock plagued me, though, and I couldn’t concentrate knowing I had one left to go. Grudgingly, I started the other sock and it was the hardest thing I have ever made in my life. It was like being three and sitting in church for 7 hours and not even being allowed to kick your legs under the pew or look around. I DESPERATELY wanted to use the time to master a new pattern, a new craft, even.

By the time the sock was done I had vowed to never again make a matched pair of anything – socks, mittens, … okay, I can’t think of too many other matched pair things, but the point was, never again. I just don’t have the patience to make both boots.