Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
Emerson

My creation 2008

I kept a photo record of what I made craft vise during 2007, and I did the same during 2008. I think I have photographed almost everything I have finished during the past year, and together it is a lot of creativity lived. And it’s beautiful! This is my part I (of III) Annual Craft Accomplishments Report.

And no, this is not a joke. I’ve actually made all of these things during the past year. 366 days of creating. First a few reoccurring themes, like the hearts and all of those stripes…

The Heart – a symbol of love

In the beginning of the year I went back to the heart as a symbol over and over again.

I made several embellished heart decorations to hang, and also sew a bunch of collage postcards that I sent out into the world. I’ve also experimented with making jewelry this year, and started using them! I think it’s so extremely satisfying to put on something that I’ve done myself. And as I’ve knitted caps, sweaters, scarfs, socks and even finished my first pair of mittens this year. I’ve been wearing something homemade (by yours truly) almost daily, and it’s a great feeling. I know I want to explore this theme more during 2009, and Ive signed up for a class to start that exploration. The class is an embroidery class with two artists I admire here in Sweden, it’s called Alla hjärtans gärna – brodera av hjärtans lust and I’m looking forward to this more than I can say.

My favorite thing to wear this entire autumn and winter has been the knitted Passion Shawl in fake Chinese wool. I love how fluffy and soft it still is. I wear it every day.

Stripes is another theme

I’ve always been a stripe fan and this year it’s been rainbow stripes and pink stripes on everything. I have been inspired by the rainbow on several craft projects, like the felted bead necklace that is one of this year’s favorite projects! I’ve knitted quite a few pink garments and I’m now longing for green and brown yarn projects in the future.

My new cap iHanna in the Summer-winter scarf

Among the striped projects are two of my biggest craft projects this year. The Poetry cardigan was 2008’s most time consuming project. The Pink Quilt with stripes is the first big quilt I’ve ever finished. I love it!

Paper crafts and notebooks

Look:

Among the paper craft projects you’ll find paper beads, a hand made wedding card for my aunt, several cardboard magnets that I decoupaged (tutorial here), paper patchwork notebooks (tutorial here) and a beautiful hand bound Art Journal that I made. This Art Journal is the first one I’ve made myself, and it’s filled with yummy Fabriano aquarelle papers and already filled with art! I want to create another one very soon.

080626 I wanted to make another journal with watercolor papers before the weekend but I didn’t have time. This weekend I attended my first SketchCrawl which is a group of people gathering for a whole day making drawings and sketching away. Yes, it was my first big step being more outgoing and I had an awesome time! My sketch turned out bad because my mind was preoccupied with the stressful situation I’m in (that I’m trying to get away from), but at fika time I could let go of my own monkey mind and relax.

I think I want to practice my drawing skills a bit more during 2009, as I enjoyed the few ones I did in 2008, like the tulips and dad’s blossoming magnolia tree for example. For summer I want to keep a flower journal and spend more time outside creating.

Paper has been my main inspiration this year, but I’m not listing the art I’ve created with paper here, like the daily art cards, the Art Journals, my three filled diaries… No, because I’ve got more craft stuff to write about before this my Annual Craft Report is over, though the rest will come soonish.

I was just wondering…

If you had, which you do have by the way, 365 days to do any art or craft, what would you spend your time doing? Would you craft love? Or create soft comfort? Learn a new skill? Stay still to smell the flowers? Or stripe wool into a sweaters that would warm you through the winter? String hearts? Embroider with gold? Reflecting, planning for the future, dreaming or doing something creative with your time?

I was just wondering… what would you do with your days? How will you spend this one precious life you’ve got?