D.A.C.: Eighteen and nineteen existentialism

After all the paper stuff from the past few days, the next week was a return to the “fiber arts” area. It was fun to put a new spin on familiar stuff.



All this crafting makes me wonder…




Why am I doing this challenge at all?




(Day eighteen: “plarn” = yarn from a plastic bag. It turned out quite pretty! If anyone knows what one would make from plastic bag yarn, I'm open to suggestions. I think making a bag defeats the purpose.)

I don’t mean to be existential here. It’s not like I’m starting to doubt the project. I’m more trying to answer the people that think it’s too much work for little result (you know who you are).




(Day nineteen: “Box” finger-loop braid. Made from five strands and a similar technique to the day two braid, but the turnout is much tighter and three-dimensional. Weird how passing one loop through another changes everything so much!)


Here’s the thing. I’ve never really seen myself as “crafty” despite going through phases of making stuff. To me, a crafty person is the kind of person who can solve problems by making things instead of falling back on “I’ll just buy a new one”, making something awesome and new out of an unwanted thing, or making presents and cards for friends. You can do a lot of that by just knowing how to knit, or crochet, or macramé, but the Ideal Crafty Person has an arsenal of all sorts of different crafts and is able to call them up when it suits the occasion. The Ideal Crafty Person can make the wrapping paper as well the present.
I want to be that kind of person. Learning different crafts is, I think, a step in that direction. Having to do it every day forces me to think laterally and always keep my eyes open for new crafts, and to do research. It’s like writing a novel in a month – you have to make progress every day to keep your momentum, and by the end of it you will have learned some things and achieved something awesome.
That’s why I’m doing this.

(Normal posts resume tomorrow.)