Do you know what this is?? It is not candy or a sweet roll, but it is more dangerous to me than they are. I have just found out that my absolute favorite scrapbook paper line, Basic Grey, is now fabric, too. ARG! I haven't had my sewing machine out since we moved a year ago. Last time I made quilts was the summer of 2006 when I made each of the triplets a quilt. Now, I find out this is happening and I wish I could just UNknow it.
Hobbies are something I always have plenty of desire for, but I am not always good about making time or space for them. Some of my past hobbies were fun for awhile, but then I moved on to something else. When I was a kid, my granddad got me interested in collecting stamps (I still have all my collections.) Then I loved dolls but since I couldn't afford the beautiful collectible dolls (a 10-year-old's allowance doesn't go that far), I collected the pictures of the dolls; pitiful, really, I'd trim them neatly out of magazines, then find the perfect color of paper to glue them onto, then I'd put them in my collection -- a 3-inch 3-ring binder, and yes, it was full. That was probably the goofiest hobby I remember having. During college, I was really into miniatures. I always wanted a Victorian dollhouse, but I never had the room for it. I found some dollhouse furniture at a garage sale and scooped it up for a dollar. I created all things small, including hand painting beads to be Christmas tree ornaments. I remember making my friend Norla a scrapbook about our high school days, and thinking, "this scrapbooking stuff is ridiculous. Why would anyone go get all this commercially-produced stuff?"
The joke was on me, that's for sure. I still think a little Stickles pixie overheard that, giggled evilly and waved her glue stick at me and zapped me with glitter. Sure enough, I got hooked. Who would've known I'd eventually be so hooked I had to move out of the house with all my supplies. Jennie and I opened Chasing Rainbows Scrapbook Store in 2004, and I was in heaven. Will was about 9 months old when we were opening it, and I remember Mom calling me on the phone to ask, "How is the baby?" I was a bit confused since she always called him Will, not baby. Then she said she meant the other baby -- the shop. I had to quit working there in August of 2006 when I was pregnant with the triplets, they were born, they came home and had to be away from germs, then we moved. That means I am coming up to about 2 years of being away from the shop and yes, I miss it a lot. Jennie and I talk regularly, but it is hard to be as passionate about scrapbooking as I was when I could share it with people every day. I think that's what I loved more than anything -- the people. So if you are one of those people I knew from Chasing Rainbows, I miss you, too.
Sometime just before I was pregnant with Will, Norla convinced me to take a quilting class. I always wanted to learn, so it didn't take too much hassling on her part. It didn't take long until I was burning the midnight oil whirring my Singer with a hot iron next to me. That summer, when I was pregnant and not engineering, the owner of the quilt shop asked me if I'd be interested in helping during the summer while her employees were on vacation. I said sure. Allen joked that that was probably how they converted me to their religion. Turned out he was right. I was really enjoying quilting and it was a passion. I worked with Debbie at Lillie's Classic Quilts off and on, as needed, until about a month after we opened Chasing Rainbows.
So now what are my hobbies? I still love to read, but I think that's the only hobby-constant my whole life. I still love to scrapbook. Now I cut out pictures of my little dolls and mount them on pretty papers (hmmm, is that where that hobby was heading?). I have started piddling around with digital scrapbooking, but my fingers itch to dive into the pile of Basic Grey papers on my desk. My little secret. . .in the mail, on the way, is a book about making creatures out of socks. Hehehe. Now it's not a secret, but I am excited to see the book. I may have to get the sewing machine out, after all.
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