Crafty McNafty

Ok, so, I'm only taking four classes this semester, right? So, theoretically, I should have a ton more free time, right? Except that when you think you're going to have more free time, you totally over-load yourself, and taking one less class doesn't actually clear up my schedule as much as I think it does.

So, since I clearly haven't been blogging in all that spare time, what have I been up to?

Crafting.

I love crafting. I love how faddish it is. When I was in Austria, all the girls suddenly felt the call to learn knitting. Every class, we'd all have our knitting in our laps and be purling away. Even two of the guys learned to wield the needles (one of them quit after twenty minutes, the other insisted that he'd meant to knit Australia, and presented the saddle-shaped lump of wool to his girlfriend as a symbol of his devotion). Within weeks, everyone had hand-knitted toques and scarves.

Then there was the brief crocheting madness that swept CBC, followed by the year or so that Robyn and I compusively cross-stitched. She stitched The Last Supper, and Jesus had total shifty eyes.

The latest craft to sweep the Rachel-nation is....

...assless chaps!! No, I joke. We're making denium quilts, but to make denium quilts, you have to cut out endless squares of denium from cheap, gross, thift-store jeans (the fatter the ass, the more denium for your buck)

And then you have to sew those squares into twosies...

...and then you have to press those twosies, and then sew two twosieses together into a foursie, and then sew two foursies together into an eightsie, and so on down the line...

Then you have to let the dog sit on it for a while to season it.

Then, when you've made three huge squares of denium patches, and you think you're almost done, you have to attach them to the backing...

which is more back-breaking and angrifying than you want it to be...

But in the end, wheee!Denium quilts for everyone! Cuddly and soft on one side, heavy and durable on the other! I am a crafting genius, AND now Joel has a second blanket to bring to bed with him, so he can stop complaining about how I hog the blanket. See? Everone wins!!