Nothing Pointy, Please

I've tried my fair share of crafty activities. Some of them have worked out better than others.

I've learned that sharp objects and I don't mix. I once nearly severed a finger while carving a linoleum block. I've learned my lesson and stayed away from knitting needles.


Silkscreen squeegees are much more my style. Rubber, wood, paper, and a bit of paint, and you can make yourself some prints that look almost as cool as if you'd maimed yourself sticking with carving linoleum blocks.

Besides, creating a stencil from a sketch or a photograph (like my guitar tree below and my dragon at right, respectively) doesn't take as many hours of work before you can see the end result. If I start a project I like to finish it, so taking on a manageable art project definitely has its appeal.

Letterpress is another great way to create art with a similar aesthetic, but those machines can be dangerous--at least to those of us known to skewer our fingers with carving knives.

Last month I wrote that I wouldn't have time to make hand-made holiday cards this year. I was sad about that, so I changed my mind.

I didn't manage to pull out my silkcreens, but I took an old letterpress poster I made at the San Francisco Center for the Book and found a font on my computer that captured the same feel.

And when I have time to step away from my computer, I'll stick to a craft where getting paint on my shirt is the worst that can happen.

--Gigi

Martha Craftily Gets Tom Neely To Blog About The Craft of Songwriting

You know that saying? When at first you don't succeed, try again? I'm a fan of: when at first you don't succeed, throw yourself at the mercy of someone who will.

Who did I find to succeed in a blog on craft? Tom Neely. The husband of our own Adrienne Miller.

Check out this good looking bunch ------>

Since craft is defined as a trade requiring special skill, Tom could be considered a consummate craftsman. This guy writes songs. That's like...writing something...without words. It boggles the mind. At least this one.

Check out Tom getting crafty on his mp3 site where you can listen to his tracks (some are rumored to be inspired by OUR VERY OWN ADRIENNE MILLER!)

Without further ado: TOM NEELY! (A little more ado: Within this blog is the best piece of writing advice I've received in 2009. Just for kicks, I bolded and colored it red. It's just that important.

In keeping with my policy of always saying yes to anyone who asks me to write a song for them, when asked to write something (not a song ) about the craft of songwriting of course I said yes.

I’m reluctant to call myself crafty but am definitely quick to call myself familiar with the craft of songwriting. I’m lucky enough to make a living teaching kids to write their own songs, once I teach them how to play an instrument that is, and have written hundreds myself.

To me songwriting doesn’t have to be about reinventing the wheel. It should be about going backwards, or forwards in your way. Maybe sideways. Maybe that’s a crappy metaphor. I think we all have something to say and the first, and biggest, challenge is to figure out how in the world we want to say it, be it writing or singing or art.

I figured out pretty early on that the medium for me was music. I wrote terrible songs for many years but I was okay with that. I was convinced that you had to dig through all the crap to eventually get to the good stuff, being lead on by some sort of songwriting buried treasure. I’m still digging, as are we all, but I feel much closer. I don’t get asked nearly as often if I was singing out of tune on purpose. (I wish I made that up).

As for the craft itself, I have my students write “one of those” all the time. A blues song, a punk song, a country tune, that sort of thing. I’m sure it’s the same way writers go about writing a vampire novel or a regency set historical romance. Stylistic confinement is a good thing. Considering every note and every chord as an option is just too bloody hard a way to write something. It’s like putting every ingredient you own on the counter and then trying to bake something. It’s impossible. You’d just spend the afternoon marveling at how many different kinds of flour you own.

With regard to my own writing, I’ve never been able to get behind the ‘write what you know’ school of thought. On the contrary I’ve let ‘write what you’d like to know’ be my guiding philosophy. If you want to become an expert on 15th century Scotland, set a novel there and just imagine the expert you’ll be after writing that book. It’s taken a couple of decades but I can comfortably write rock or jazz or country or classical songs because I was okay with spending some serious time being awful at each of those styles.

Regardless of whether you’re a songwriter, a novelist, or an artist of any kind I believe this sort of experimenting and variety is crucial to keep your craft exciting to you. We can’t allow what we do to become dull to us. It’s just too precious. Save dull for nine to five cubicle jobs.

As far as the nuts and bolts of songwriting goes, I’m a chords then melody and finally words kind of guy. If it’s a classical/soundtrack type song then I’m very old school and just write down notes using a notation program. I fear any more detail than that would be sleep inducing.

A Bygone Era

by Lisa Hughey

As a kid--dare I say it-- a girl growing up I was always doing some sort of craft. X-acto knives and needles were my tools, my mom and grandma the instructors.

I did it all: The ubiquitous Holly Hobby painstakingly cut out with the sharp knife and decoupaged onto a miter-ed block of wood (that we enterprisingly stained ourselves). The cross-stitched pillow with some ultra-sweet and trite phrase like “Home is Where the Heart Is”. The crewel still life of flowers in a vase. Tie-dye, candle making, tissue paper and pipe cleaner flowers, sewing...frankly, I wasn’t very good at any of it. (I wish I had some pictures but somehow my ‘projects’ have not survived my many moves...possibly ‘lost’ on purpose)

My grandmother, Nellie, was a veritable queen of crafts well into her nineties, crocheting dish scrubbers out of netting and stitching Christmas tree ornaments.



Some ornaments made by Nellie







I remember asking her once how she knew how to do all this cool stuff. In her era, she had a ‘Ladies Club’ meeting once a week where they learned all sorts of crafty things.








She had an incredible eye for color. And she could take a length of any material, ribbon or raffia and turn it into an exquisite bow for a wreath or centerpiece. When I bought my first house, Grandma Nellie helped me make a grapevine wreath for the front door, using orange crinkled paper wrap and old sheets, we attached a beautiful bow and handmade ghosts. It was awesome and I still have it, even though it’s looking a little tired these days. (Sorry-but the Halloween stuff is stored in the garage and not at this time, easily accessible-so no picture!)


Nowadays, among piano lessons, soccer, basketball, swimming, volleyball practices, tutors and the like, there is no time leftover for the pastime of crafting. It’s become a lost art.

But I try to find time to create beauty for everyday ordinary events. Nellie could take random objects and with floral foam, green wire, a few yards of ribbon, and flowers (sometimes right from her garden) and design a masterpiece for the dining room table. I like to think in this respect I inherited just a tiny bit of her artistic ability because my one talent is being able to set a beautiful table.


Happy Holidays to all!

Lisa

ps-I was going to take a picture of my dining room table (set for today's Pens Fatales holiday get-together but the battery on my table died) The good news is that we're going to try out our Flip camera thingy and hopefully take a fun video to post on Friday. Keep your fingers crossed! :)

Not Quite a Dab Hand

L.G.C. Smith

I suck at crafts. About a month ago, I mentioned my flat DIY Christmas tree that hangs on an old screen from Cost Plus in my living room. This is my Pride and Joy, Craft Department. Unlike many of the Pens -- Sophie with her beautiful quilts and stitchery and Rachael with her stunning sweaters come to mind -- I don't have much to show and tell about when it comes to crafts. (I have to pad things with a photo of something I can do well, which is cook. Hence the caramel corn I made today. Ta-Da!)

But once, ONCE I made something glorious that wasn't food. Something I loved. Something I designed, made, and used. (Never mind those books I've written. We're talking things with tiny screws that require tools here!)

My flat tree consists of three pieces of bamboo painted green and wired into a triangle with red wooden beads and Costco ribbon zigzagging back and forth across the middle. It has rosemary branches attached to the edges, a sassy nod to pine needles, and it was outlined in lights that actually worked. I hung my favorite ornaments on it and it was cute. Sort of like the plastic plate I glued macaroni to and spray painted gold when I was in first grade. (Can you believe my mother threw that out? Before I was forty even.)

Now? My flat tree is a little past it's sell-by date. The rosemary long ago dried to a crackly crunch, and most of the leaves fell to the floor where some are still lodged in the crack between the carpet and the baseboard. They have to be picked out by hand. Since my vacuum can't budge 'em, I decided to keep them around in case I need some stale old rosemary for spaghetti sauce for someone I hate.

The gently draped ribbon, once as white as winter snow, is now dingy with dust. I do vacuum it occasionally, but the suction from the attachment hose seems to have loosened the knots affixing the ribbon to the frame. (See how I used 'affixing?' I watch HGTV. I know things.) Some of the ribbon swags are kind of droopy, but that adds character, right?

The lights... Oh, the lights. A few of them still come on. I thought about replacing them a couple of years ago, but I was afraid the whole tree would fall apart if I jiggled any part of it. Always better to be conservative in housekeeping matters, I say. Even if it's broke, why fix it?

For the past three years, I've tied Advent presents to the tree for my niece. This winter, unfortunately, I'm not sure it isn't harboring a black widow spider come in from the cold. We've had a lot of them this year, and it's been a while, like, mmm, maybe nine months -- okay, make it a year -- since that corner has been cleaned. I put the Advent prezzies in a bowl on the coffee table in the family room instead, and have kept Clean the Scary Living Room Corner at the top of my To Do list since the day after Thanksgiving. I'm pleased to report that I've cleaned all around that corner a couple of times since, but...Spiders. Gah.

So here I am, still fond of my decrepit flat Christmas tree. It took me eight hours to make the thing. I got green paint all over my clothes, my hair, the patio and my sister's German Shepherd, Elsa. She was cool about it, and still cheerfully helps me whenever I look like I might be heading for the paint cupboard, just like she never spent a December sporting one green ear.

Sad to say, I think this may be the year the Craft Project of Christmas Past bites the dust. As lackluster in the cleaning department as I am, I do know black widows and children should not be in the house together. When the real tree comes down, I'm thinking my old friend will be coming down, too.

I'll reuse the beads and ribbon, strip off the wire and put the bamboo stakes back in the garden supply pile. The wall behind the screen will need a little work to cover up that ugly incident with the double-sided tape. No hurry of course. The mess will remind me of my flat tree.
In the meantime, I'm weighing my options for the next Craft Project. With only one allowed in any decade, I have to think carefully. There's the clunky headboard I've been meaning to spruce up for, let's see, about nine years. Or the ugly fake brick in the kitchen that I've hated since we moved in -- what fourteen years ago? Or maybe I could decoupage Disney Princesses and Dora onto sturdy little chairs for my rough and tumble nieces. Who knows? I think it's going to take me a good two years to decide on a worthy follow-up for my flat tree.

Welcome guest Rachelle Chase

Rachelle Chase is an award-winning romance author, speaker, business analyst, and model. Her most recent books, MEN ON FIRE, SEX LOUNGE, and SIN CLUB were published by Kensington Publishing. When she’s not writing (or procrastinating), she loves to dream up fun ways to promote her books – such as her “Finding Derek” contest, where hunky guys competed online to be the hero of SEX LOUNGE. In fact, she’s got some fun contests and promotions underway now. For the holidays, if you buy a copy of her hunky firefighter book, MEN ON FIRE, at participating bookstores, 15% of sales will be donated to the San Francisco Firefighter’s Toy Program. And, she and co-sponsor Leigh Michaels are gearing up for the 4th Annual “Chase the Dream” contest for writers – their motto is “We pick winners” because each year, some finalists have landed agents or book contracts as a result of the contest. It’s free, fun, interactive, and educational, so Rachelle encourages all romance writers to enter. Details are at her web site, www.RachelleChase.com.
------------

My friends and family know that, in addition to being a great procrastinator, I’m a great “starter.” I love, love, LOVE to start things. The only things that get finished – like, oh, say … books, day job deliverables, Christmas shopping, or shaving … are things with deadlines (in the case of shaving, a date or a doctor’s appointment is a surefire deadline that’ll have me taking a razor to my arm pits).

With the exception of crafts. Deadlines do not work with crafts.

Unlike Rachel, I oftentimes start making a handcrafted item for a loved one’s birthday or special occasion at the last minute (see procrastination above). Which means that the I-just-had-to-make-it gift gets stuffed into my Started Projects bag.

Case in point, the Granny Square projects. When my mom quit her day job to become a cross-country truck driver, I started a blanket for her, in hopes it’d keep her warm in her truck at night. On the day before her birthday, I FedExed it to her in Florida, half finished, and with the promise that I’d finish it later. Ten years (and a career change for my mom) later, it’s back in my bag and I’m still promising to finish it.

The second granny square project was a baby blanket I started for my niece. She’s six now and far too big for her blanket. I’m planning to finish it in time for my great-niece.



Then came my Small Project phase. Thinking that perhaps smaller projects would have a chance of getting finished, I asked an ex-boss to teach me a simple knit stitch – a large, loopy stitch that would enable me to finish a scarf quicker than knitting row upon row of small, tight stitches. Only, she didn’t show me how to finish-off or tie-off or whatever it’s called. So I don’t know how to cut the yarn without unraveling the whole thing – a perfect excuse for not finishing.



Next was the Fuzzy Yarn phase. I bought beautiful, expensive (to me) yarns, figuring that if I loved the yarns, I’d be excited to finish the projects. Not. It’s been so long, I have no idea what these projects were supposed to be when finished.



This year, I’ve entered the Teeny Tiny Project phase. And I’ve found the perfect project: Baby booties. They’re small, simple, and don’t take much time to finish. The fact that I don’t know anyone with a baby is no deterrent. I’m sure I’ll know someone by the time the first (and last?) pair’s finished.

Thank you, Penfatales, for having me as a guest. For without you and your deadline, this blog post never would have been finished.

Any other starters or procrastinators out there?

Please help Rachelle refine her procrastination skills by leaving a comment on her blog, and friending her on Facebook and Twitter.

Dibble, Dabble, Double

--Adrienne Miller

I’m a dabbler. I dabble. It’s what I do. 

Not with everything, of course. I don’t recommend dabbling in marriage or parenthood. Chances are you won’t make it very far if you only dabble in writing. Some things take bone-deep commitment, and I’m not afraid of that. But when comes to ways to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon, I’m a confirmed dabbler. 

I’ve learned to crochet and decoupage. I’ve made scrapbooks and collages. I have the afghans and family albums to prove it. Some of these crafts I was semi-competent at and others...well, let’s face it. I was total crap. But that’s the beauty of dabbling--limited ego investment. 

Right now, the dabble du jour is baking. I took it up a few years ago, and tried jumping right into cake and pie territory. But a really good cake or pie takes skill, and developing that skill takes time. We dabblers aren’t big on investing time. It goes against our code. 

My favorite chef hard at work.

So, a few mealy chocolate cakes and crunchy pie crusts later, I moved on and found my wheelhouse. Bread. Yes, I know good bread takes just as much time and skill to make as pastry, but, for some reason, it clicked. The smell of yeasty dough rising in the kitchen fills me with joy. The thought of having warm, fresh bread in the house is comforting. 

I make decent loaf breads and baguettes. My cinnamon rolls are out-of-this-world good, and my Challah is phenomenal. 

Dang, I'm getting the urge to braid some dough just looking at that.

Now, I don’t bake every day. I don’t have any plans to quit my day job, get myself one of those tall, white hats and open up a little boulangerie. Nope. Every other weekend is fine by me.

You see, I’m a dabbler. It’s what I do.

Um...Juliet doesn't knit

I have to say, I'm a little abashed to be writing this post after the examples set by my two previous Pens.

Let's be clear: I don't knit. Or crochet. Or embroider. If something rips, I either try to cajole a friend into sewing it for me, or I keep it around with the intention of someday doing something about it until it goes out of style. At which point it becomes Goodwill's problem.

But still, as long as a "craft" doesn't involve textiles, I'm up for it. Yes indeed, I have Big Plans.

I save things. Weird things. And always with the intent to use them in one crafty form or another. Bottle caps? Surely they're useful for something. Wine corks? It goes without saying. Those tiny plastic tables that keep the pizza box from smooshing the pizza? Cool. Clothespins, old Tarot cards, abandoned Scrabble tiles...oh yes, I've got 'em. and I'm not afraid to use them. Eventually.

Problem is, I'm a little busy right now. The craft of writing has me in its grasp, and it's pretty tough to extricate myself. And peeking out from behind writing's skirts, clamoring for attention just as soon as I find some free time, is painting (if you're interested, check out www.truefauxdesigns.com to see what I used to do before I caught writing fever.)

A good friend of mine has been watching a TV show called "hoarders", and lately I think she's been pondering staging an intervention. But I contend that the very best thing about a junk-filled artist's studio is that there is so much promise, everywhere. How many things in life offer such possibilities? A blank canvas calls out; a stray piece of wood whispers; a styrofoam ball inspires. My housemates cringe, my neighbors worry, my son rolls his eyes. But I would argue that, at least to some extent, hoarding is a sign of a creative mind.

Especially if you're hoarding really awesome things like Altoid tins. Do you have any idea how many things a person could make with Altoid tins?

Still, my eternal optimism is not shared by all. So I guess I'd better be crafty about hoarding cool stuff until I get a chance to dedicate myself to some really craftiness.

And when I do, those Altoid boxes are going to become some amazing mini-shrines. Just you wait.

She's Crafty, And She's Just My Type

Um, yeah. I'm crafty. You may have heard that I knit. It's not an idle threat. I didn't write a knitting romance because it was the In Thing to do. I did it because I couldn't do anything else.

I've been known to be crafty in many ways over the years, cross-stitch, crochet, quilting, sewing, but it always comes back to the knitting that I learned when I was five. Knitting feels like breathing to me. People who say it feels meditative? Feh. I don't know if I ever felt that. It's autonomic. It's part of my body, and I don't have to think about it (unless I'm REALLY thinking about it, and that's fun).

So, a photo-essay of some of my favorites over the years. (Forgive all the self-portraits -- I'm a selfish knitter.)

Cromarty:














Cromarty is a classic Alice Starmore design, and it took months on size US1 needles. But I was so proud of it when it was done, and it's worn like iron. I wear it now to write in the early mornings.

This next one was one of my first original designs, done in alpaca which was way too hot for me to ever wear. I think I wore it twice, but I remember it being the moment I decided that yes, I did kinda know what I was doing:















Then I took up spinning fiber. I never really got into dyeing, but this was my first hand-spun sweater, and I dyed the fiber with Kool-Aid. This was Black Raspberry, I believe, and sometimes, if I get caught in the rain, I still get a whiff of it (and it matches my cheeks!):















This next one is the sweater I'm most proud of:















It's a replica of a Norwegian sweater my mother had commissioned for herself in the 60s when she was there. I reverse engineered it from my mother's sweater and knit a copy of it. As I knit the sleeves (I always knit sleeves first), I could almost see my mother's arms growing from the ends of my needles. So many hundreds of times I had been held within the safety of that sweater growing up, and to see another sweater, growing from my hands, was truly wonderful.



















My wedding stole. I designed it from a couple of Babara Walker motifs, in alpaca, so it sheds like crazy, and I never wear it now, but I love it. It was perfect, just like that drizzly, happy day in Vancouver.
















The Cade Sweater: This is the sweater that goes along with the plot (pattern included) in my book How to Knit a Love Song. A non-traditional Gansey with raglan shaping, this actual original sweater will be raffled off at some point in the future. (Sign up for my mailing list to keep up to date!)

So really, when it came to writing a novel, when I cleared out all the stuff I thought I "should" write and finally wrote what I wanted to write, it wasn't surprising what came out. And I'm so happy I got what I did.