Stop Scrolling and Start Sewing

When I was a kid, I only had three sources of crafting inspiration: stuff that I saw in the store that I wanted to buy but could not cajole my mom into buying; crafting magazines at the grocery store checkout that my mom would occasionally buy and, in the summertime, I had a third source: catalogs that people would throw out at the post office that I would retrieve from the trash. We spent our summers in a ritzy tourist town, although we ourselves were not ritzy. I noticed one day while accompanying my mom to the post office, that the trash bin was full to the top with catalogs of cool stuff, catalogs that the recipients would just throw away! I was not shy about dumpster-diving to retrieve these catalogs. They weren’t even crafting magazines, they were “gift catalogs” with pictures of things like interesting tote bags and cute stuffed animals. Everything was of course terribly expensive and there was never a notion I could ever buy anything from any of these catalogs – but I could rip off their ideas and make my own stuff based on the pictures in those pages. After all, there was a reference photo and usually something about the size of the object and a description of the materials. What more do you need? Once I made a stuffed lamb with a necktie, inspired by a gift item in one of the catalogs called “EF Mutton” – it was a pun on the well-known finance company EF Hutton. I didn’t care, to me it was a cute sheep with a tie on.

Today, there is no need for such ingenuity. You can scroll on your phone for hours through endless blogs and Pinterest pages for any possible project you can imagine. Go ahead and try it… just Google a random adjective and a random noun – there will be a craft related to it. The problem is, because we have so many choices, we feel compelled to keep searching for the “perfect” project, as well as a complete “how to” article. We further feel compelled to fill our carts with the exact fabric to make this project, when in fact we already have plenty of fabric at home that is close enough. Instead of “making do”, we shop some more. This results in many, many hours of scrolling and not so much crafting. Such a waste! You don’t need all that. You just need an idea, any idea for something you want to make… out of fabric you probably already own. You don’t need to be validated by a complete step-by-step article on how to make some perfect thing. The idea in your head is good enough, its better even! So, stop scrolling and start crafting! You will be surprised at the clever and unique projects you can come up with all on your own. Even more exciting will be when your fellow crafters coo, “Send me the link!” and you reply, “I can’t, I just made it up!”

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