Friday, July 3, 2009

When crafters breed.

If say perhaps you are an occasional crafter, as in, one with a full time job who crafts in bits and spurts, I offer you this advice for if you plan on having children:

  • Get all of the crafting you plan to do for the first two years of your child's life done before they are born.
  • Any crafting you plan on doing on maternity leave (say some cute cashmere sweaters) will not get done.
  • Once you finish things, make sure that you lay them out somewhere obvious BEFORE the baby is born. Or you may find them two years later when their noggin has quadrupled in size. Despite the fact that they were in the child's closet.
  • If you start a project before the baby is born, just give up and unravel it. You will have absolutely no idea what in the hell you were trying to make.
  • By the time the child is old enough to self entertain, they will be so large that making them anything will take too much time. They will outgrow it in the year it takes you to finish.
  • Be prepared to get rid of your stash to make room for obnoxious toys that make horrendous sounds and their ever expanding wardrobe.

I did some cleaning this weekend, in prep for the move to the big girl bed. In the process, I found a pretty sizable collection of things I meant to be for M. Since she will be an only child, I now need to find homes for some of it. Fortunately, I have friends who are still breeding. (including some struggling, that I'm saving stuff for) I also went through my yarn stash again to make room in her closet for you know, her stuff. That will be donated to a local teacher who does knitting with her students. The other big thing I found were some knitted and felted bags and Christmas ornaments I made awhile back.

I think, if anyone is interested, I may have Christmas in July this next week. I don't have room for them (you only need so many knit mittens on your tree), but that doesn't mean that someone else won't enjoy them.

3 comments:

Rebecca said...

Great post. It describes my life. I used to have hobbies before the kids arrived.

April said...

great tips, and so true. i still do the occasional crocheting, but it's ONLY blankets or scarves and only really obvious stitches that i can't forget what they are. and i keep the hook IN the project ;-)

kristen said...

The husband recently suggested to me that I start crafts for our hopefully future children... but I'm busy crafting for all of my friends having children! That, and buying shoes.

You'll have to let me know the name of the teacher - I have a fair amount of yarn I'm looking to unload as well...