Crafts: an utterly pointless exercise designed just to use up time til you die?

 I occasionally correspond with a friend in Newcastle that I met on holiday, and  we were chatting about our 'crafting mojo' being at a low ebb  lately - perhaps because we are spending time decluttering our massive hoards of craft stash and have already made 10 of everything.  She made me laugh with her comment: " I fluctuate wildly between enjoying crafting, then at other times feeling like it’s an utterly pointless exercise designed just to use up time til you die." I quoted back to her a paragraph from a recent article in a quilting magazine, which was discussing how different the Game of Wool debacle could have gone (Game of Wool was an attempt to make a reality style TV show out of knitting, it was a cringing disaster).    The writer mused: "What values so intrinsic to crafts like quilting or knitting ought to be shared in a show to encourage others to explore them?  I would begin with: the sense of achievement that creative endeavour offers and its moments of quiet, powerful mindfulness; the joy of mastering a new skill and its support of self-esteem; the tactile pleasures of good materials and their role in grounding us and quieting the false empty craving for novelty; the sociability and comradery of shared skills and its support of community and intergenerational generosity." 

 I make a lot of things that I don't actually use, or need, but I get a great deal of satisfaction from the accomplishment; enjoyment from  learning new things and exercising my creativity; and contentment when I can achieve that 'flow' state where you don't even realise time is passing as you focus on your project.  So while it would be nice to have access to a pool of recipients or buyers for what I do rather than have my projects just sitting around or getting donated, I feel there is still benefit and value to me to be making them.  On that note, I took the two woven houndstooth mats to DS's house today and gave them to his partner who seemed pleased with them.

I've made some more blocks for the vintage linens wallhanging, which is desperately wanting to grow into a quilt because I have so many vintage linens to cut up and some of the blocks are turning out rather large.  I don't have a plan yet, I'm just choosing compatible embroideries and fabrics and throwing them up on the design wall.  Eventually I will need to come up with some kind of grid, and also add more embellishments to fill in the plain fabric areas.

I finished my little Japanese applique house basket, it is so cute and was such a faff to make.  The top edge is stitched in Palestrina stitch, not something I have tried before.  The kit included the embroidery floss, all the fabrics, and the buttons, so the end result looks very Japanese.  I have another kit from the same shop, same sort of thing only much bigger houses which are appliqued onto a tote bag. 

I made up the very last wooden kit from my box of small miniatures kits, this was a Banjo Clock from Cynthia Howe Miniatures - a rather strange looking but apparently historical object. The only kits left now, besides the Japanese bunka rug, are some Janet Granger miniature tapestry kits which I'm not even sure I can do any more with my middleaged eyesight - I would definitely have to use magnification to start with.  I think next that I may tackle my small pile of House of Miniatures furniture kits and make them all up into finished items.  Either that, or choose one of several smaller scale house kits waiting to be made.

I finished stitching the borders on my handtowel that I bought in Salzburg, and am now using it in my bathroom where it looks very handsome.

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying my hand at making an altered book, which is a subset of journal making involving taking an existing hardcover book and giving it a completely new appearance and purpose.  For example, turning pages into pockets, gluing in new artwork, giving it a new cover etc.  I used a pack of digital paper with a beach theme to decorate a discontinued library book I got for .30p.  It was an interesting exercise but I think I prefer making a book from scratch. It did make me want to go to the beach - not really an attractive destination in March in the UK however.

Frustratingly, my longarm is still out of commission. The dealers are really good but it's their busy season with lots of shows that they are away to.  They have quoted for an engineer to come and correct the timing but I still don't have a date for that.