Make

What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
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Alright. This prompt is just, lame.

I make things constantly. I don't always finish making them right away, but I do make them. I've made so many things in the past year, I don't know that I can really count them all.

Hats and scarves for not just myself but M and the kiddo too. A sweater for M. I've made baskets out of recycled CAT-5 cable. Started a quilt, and at least finished the top, even if I'm still working on all the hand quilting (omg that's time consuming. wtf was I thinking?). I've made other things, not that they really jump to mind right away, but... If there's something we need that we don't have the money for that I could feasibly make, I do.

Do I need to clear time for these things? No. Time I have. Focus and motivation I do not always have. Especially when the only purpose behind a particular project is "I feel like doing this", and it ends up being a lot harder than I'd originally thought it would be.

Example: Zulu baskets. I started one, using recycled CAT-5 cable that I split up myself, and old speaker wire. Unfortunately, there are no online tutorials about how to make these. But, being stubborn I looked at them, studied what I could, found documentaries about Zulu craftsmen making them, said "I can do that" and dove right in. OH MY GOD. No I can't do that. Don't get me wrong. I have the physical capability, and the intelligence to figure out the stitch patterns, and how to get the thing started. The one I started is 75% done, in fact. The problem? I don't know how to finish it. None of anything I read talked about how to decrease the thing to get the flat bottom. None of the videos I saw came close to showing how to do that. Something I conveniently overlooked in my decision to start the damned thing. I tried to figure it out on my own. I experimented with different techniques I already knew, played with different ways of coiling the wire, even went so far as to try and weave in ends to decrease by actually reducing the number of strands I was working with. All to no avail. None of it looked right. So it's sat, unfinished, it's lack of being finished staring at me, judging me, for getting in over my head, for months now. I'm sorely tempted to just rip the whole thing out, and re-use the materials to do something more conventional (like my last few), but I can't quite bring myself to admit defeat yet. And yet, at the same time, I'm not quite motivated enough to push forward with any particular decision. Bah.

So yeah. Time is not the issue here.