A Crafting Binge for Me: A Muse for You

Meet Kaliopi. She likes Swedish Fish, lounge music, and the smell of old books. Turnoffs include dog-eared pages and coffee breath. She’s made of wool felt and stuffed with brilliant ideas. All she needs is a writer to share them with.* 

I like to joke that you can tell when I’m having trouble with a story based on how many dolls, or fairy houses, or whatever, I’ve created that week. 

When I’m stuck on a plot point, or I can’t figure out what my character wants, or what she might say in a given scene, or any of the endless number of things I’m capable of fixating on for hours at a time, I resort to picking up a needle and thread to, as Robin so eloquently put it in her post on Monday, create something with no words and quiet my mind. 

Once I’ve decided what to create and have assembled my supplies, it’s a relief to know exactly the steps it will take to produce the desired goal. I let my fingers go to work while my writerly brain goes on vacation.

I don’t know if it’s the satisfaction of having something tangible at the end of hours of effort or the relaxation that’s possible when I know precisely what needs to be done and how to do it, but going on a crafting binge rarely fails to restore my faith in my words and my ability to use them to create something just as beautiful, or silly, or magical, as what I can make with my hands.

So what better way to wrap up this post than to make something inspired by it? At the moment I’m lucky enough to have small children who delight in the products of my crafting binges but I thought it might be fun to offer up my creation to one of you. 

If you could use a muse, let me know in the comments. I’ll draw a name out of a hat (one I made, of course) before my next blog post, and send Kaliopi, the little lady pictured at the top of this post, to one of you!  

*Adapted from a pattern designed by Gingermelon (who has many adorable things in her Etsy shop).