The plan was to post something each day, then each week… but I ended up not posting at all. It worked out okay on my end. Craft Leftovers is going great and I’m feeling like I fully have my shit together again. It’s been a weird series of events these past few months: I released the new Craft Leftovers Monthly, started work on my first ebook, my MacBook broke down, two relatives died and gave me a quick jolt that I’m not immortal, I’ve been sick off and on, started a non-profit, and in general running around crazy. But this week, despite the macbook going under and the crappy cold, I feel really good.

In the beginning of 2009 I posted about some of the goals I had for the upcoming year. Mainly three if I remember correctly: be more mindful, draw daily, get fit. I really feel that I’ve done well with all three.

1. Be More Mindful - This is a hard one. If you aren’t mindful that you are not being mindful, how do you know? Well, training yourself to think about what you are doing as effecting yourself and others directly is hard. I’ve messed up. I’ve done well. It’s a journey and as long as I stick to it I feel I’m meeting my goal.

2. Draw Daily - I wouldn’t say I “failed” but I am a bit disappointed at how hard this has been. I wanted to post drawings daily here, but that started to be a problem because of the time/effort involved with snapping the photo or scanning and then uploading and whatever. Well, I have my studio all in one place, the lightbox is always set up, the scanner now works with ease.

I have started a drawing group and that has helped. We are all trying to make drawing a daily habit, so we get together every other week, crack open our sketch books and show and tell, then we get down to business drawing what’s around us. And I’ve been creative in a lot of ways I did not even imagine.

Ames C.art has taken off and we will be an official non profit by the second quarter of 2010. We are actually painting a mural – and I’m the creative director! So I would say specifically drawing daily was so so for last year as far as goals met goes, but being more creative and indulging in the studio side of life has succeed.

3. Get Fit - This was a failure and a success all at the same time. I did establish some really great habits of going to the gym and working out on a regular basis, but it’s only in the last week that I really have felt on track. I was eating crap. And overeating. I gained about 10lbs this past year + the 10lbs the year before.

I’m still not “fat” but I’m “overweight”. I know I need to be around 115 – 125 for my size and shape. And at the beginning of the month I was sitting at 145. I know this isn’t horrible. But there is a lot of obesity in my family’s history, so I know that 10lb a year is a bad thing.

I have finally embraced fully the simplest, best, tried and true diet: eat well, eat often, eat less, exercise like a mother f–ker. Seriously. And since over eating is a big problem for me, I’m retraining myself by counting my calories. If I want to eat a lot, it’s going to be a salad so I can stick to that 1275 calories a day.  I’m using LiveStrong.com coupled with their ipod touch/iphone app. Then not only can I write down what I’m eating right after eating it, but I can also look things up on the go before I even put it in my mouth.

Since I started counting calories and eating how much I should be, I’ve lost 4.5lbs! I’m back under 140!  And I’m continually trending down. I know there is a daily and even monthly flux in weight, but it’s on a downward trend as I continue to workout like mad + eat better food.

Goals for 2010

You know, it’s pretty much the same. I made progress last year, but I’m not satisfied with where I am. So I’m going to keep my 2009 goals for 2010 and throw a few more into the mix. I feel like getting fit and being mindful are habits now, so I’m going to place priority on the top of the list and work my way down:

1. Draw Daily – This is broken into two phases. Phase one is to make it a habit to draw daily. Phase two is to post those drawings here daily. I won’t have anything to post about if I don’t draw it first so that’s my primary goal.

2. Post on KroStudio Regularly – Coupled with drawing daily I want to post about the other things I’m doing that aren’t related to Craft Leftovers.  From drawing daily, to mural painting, to getting my first sweater pattern published, I want it to find a home here. And I’m going to share some posts between KroStudio and Craft Leftovers, mainly the Crafty Business series I started back up on Wednesdays. So my plan of action is to post on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. We will see how it goes, but that’s the plan. Hey, it’s Friday, and I’m posting, go me!

3. Get Financially Sound – continue to pay down my debt, be frugal and creative and thrifty, don’t spend money unless I have to, get an emergency fund. So far so good, but it’s hard. I have some savings built up and I’ve continued to pay more than the minimum on my credit card each month + not use the credit card at all. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I charged something, and that’s a good feeling.

4. Continue the Supply Diet – Craft leftovers has helped me wonderfully in retraining myself to look to the stash first. So much so that I only bought 7 skeins of yarn in all of 2009. 2 skeins of sock yarn (one is now socks, the other is wip), 2 skeins of delicious cotton while in San Francisco (stash), and 3 this christmas to make my mom and dad gifts (wip). And add to that: I used up more yarn than I can count! I made a 1 1/2 pairs of socks, 2 sweaters, a hat, fingerless mittens, mittens, and more random stuff I can’t even remember. Oh a ton of dishcloths, facecloths, and coasters. Hooray! I know I used up at least 20+ skeins of yarn and my stash went from being more than would fit into my closet to fitting comfortably into 2 rubbermaids. I still have a long way to go, but I’m going there!

5. Keep Getting Fit - I’ve been establishing habits to help me get fit and I want to keep solidifying those: going to the gym 5 days a week, eating well, eating snacks, making more homemade meals, making more from scratch, keeping my portions in check.

6. Being Mindful - mindful of myself, of others. Of the little things and the big things. Meditate regularly. I went to my first yoga class last Sunday and I’m going again this Sunday. It’s a small step to daily yoga/meditation practice.

And that leads me to the next part of this post. I really love Zen Habits and the author has started up a new blog called 6 changes. It’s interesting, without even thinking about it, I made 6 goals. So I’m going to go ahead and try his approach to making them habits. I’m going to start with Drawing Daily.

I also came across this great article called “Out of Control (or why balance is overrated)“. I know I have a tendency to focus on balancing – just look at my Crafty Business post on Wednesday – and I tend to tell you how important I feel it is to give it to your urges and go crazy on one thing and leave it all behind.

A good example is Craft Leftovers Monthly. I got an idea. I went nuts and made the first issue start to finish in a 16 hour concentrated session. It was a birth of a wonderful thing. And I had to pull an all nighter the next day to finish my homework for class. Was the imbalance worth it? Absolutely!

I think a lot of my struggle comes from that very impulse. How to make it so I can go with it when I need to and still meet all my obligations. If I can spend 5 hours a day on “have to’s” and 11 on “want to’s” it’s a good day. That’s what all this daily routine and schedule and task lists are all really geared towards. Anyway, read the article. I think you will like it.

And then going back to talking about balance in a good way. The Simple Dollar talks about how being too frugal can be bad too: The Other Side of the Frugality Fence.

And with that I leave you. Enjoy your first day of the year!
Happy Crafting!
Kristin

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{Last weekend at Center Grove Apple Orchard — that is a freaking goat tower! So neat!}

By having a work schedule, I’m working ahead in posts on Craft Leftovers – which has improved the quality about a million times over. And lead me to the realization that embroidery patterns are like line drawings. And also gave me time to finally reorganize my studio. I am so happy. Really happy. And well rested. I spent all day yesterday reorganizing my studio. I moved the loom back out to the garage and my painting supplies back inside. I cleaned out my drafting table and set it up just for drafting. And I moved a desk in from the garage and set it up as a computer desk. I put the fabric into the closet and my drawing supplies on the self. I grabbed the books about my favorite artists and added them to the shelves. I set up a peg board and filled it all the supplies I use regularly (and then it fell off the wall and we had to get some screw mounts, haha, it’s all good now). I even packed up my spinning stuff (which I haven’t used in forever) and returned it to my lys (I had been borrowing the wheel until the next time they needed it for a class). My space is now open and and filled with the things I use on a regular basis. I love it. I have a place for everything and everything is in it’s place

And now I’m painting again! Last night, after working all day cleaning, I was able to just play around with the idea of what I wanted to paint. What did I want to muse over and think about. I had the time to look through stacks of photo. I selected 6 that I took in San Francisco’s China Town, then choose the 4 I liked the best. I set up the space for drawing and painting. This morning I hopped right to it. 

I’m thinking about matting it so it will show like this:

But I haven’t decided yet. And I’m also thinking about working back into it with ink, but I haven’t decided about that yet. The fogginess around the lace is gone now that the glue is dry. And the netting sections of the lace match the background more. I’m thinking about going in with pen and ink. But I’m just not sure. I’m just going to let it sit for now. 

I’m excited. I do have to do some work today, but only a few hours compared to the standard all day every day I was working before. And I think I’m going to swing by Borders and check out the new magazines before they close. It’s been another great weekend!

Kristin

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I have done pretty well balanceing everything as best I could, and only had a few “oh my gosh everything sucks, why did I over load myself so badly, I’m insane, why does this always happen that everything is due between the 15th-25th!” But other than that I remained calm and plowed through. 

The biggest saving factor is that when I felt like freezing, I didn’t. There are a lot of tasks to each project that are brainless and use not creative effort – printing invoices, updating databases, looking for patterns for round up type posts, researching, and taking notes from audio interviews. Just go. And then with all those small things done, any given project wasn’t nearly as overwhelming. I felt free to just sit and write, knowing that was the last task to be done. And anticipating being “done” with just a few hours of typing is a great motivator.

I’ve been trying to scale down my obligations and focus on just 3 things I’m passionate about. Keep it simple with clear goals in mind. It’s hard though and I’m constantly having to clear out “clutter”. Each month I’m trying to track what I spend my time on and cut out time wasting things and activities. Same with money too. Where is it all going and how can I use what little I do have more affectively towards my life goals. And each month I’m evaluating and making small changes. Hopefully each month will be better than the last. 

So what have I learned so far this month?

Only have one outside project at any given time. Craft Leftovers and my own projects our time consuming enough, to add 2 or more projects to that is just to much. For any given week, schedule no more than one outside project. 

I want a 9-5 job. Not in the traditional sense. No I’m not going corporate, but I really like the idea of having my nights and weekends to myself. I’ve established a new work routine and I’m working towards that. I’ll share it with you once I get past a few current deadlines.

Working ahead rocks. I’ve successfully stayed at least 3 days ahead in posts and even up to 2 weeks early in the month. It is liberating and my posts, I feel, have improved substantially. They are planned out in 2 week chunks, flow together a little better, and I am not rushed when writing and have more time to edit. I hope to get 1 month ahead by the middle of next month

I miss posting on Kro Studio and now that I’m ahead in Craft Leftovers posts I will have more time to post fun stuff here. It helps me to stay inspired and work out my thoughts on the back end of things. 

A big priority in my life is to paint more. I miss it like a black hole in my soul. So after these current projects are finished I’m going to rearrange my studio to reflect that priority. Just because I can’t paint with oils in the house doesn’t mean I can’t paint with acrylic or watercolors or gouche or even house paint (I love that stuff!)

It’s going to take a bit of time to get the first one in line because I’ve already obligated myself to things for the next few months, but I can start saying “no” more often. And I will. 

<h3>How do you deal with stress and anxiety when you have unintentionally overloaded yourself?</h3>

ps – in the new template I’m using I can not use bullet points, numbered lists, or bold tags. There is a patch for it and I’m going to fix it soon. So sorry about the lack of formatting going on.

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I really love being here on vacation, but I really do miss my studio. There is something to be said for sitting at a table, surrounded by my wips, inhaling solvent, and feeling full of creative energy. I think i’m going to post to my blog and say something to that affect.

I’m getting close to the end of Paper Mario and good thing too. I’m starting to get bored. I’m longing for my studio really. And nothing else is quite staving off that hunger, no matter how fun the game, craft, book is.
I did do a little drawing the other night:

I added these two note cards to my shop.
I did have a successful batch of cooking for dinner. I made a Brazilian Black Bean Stew from a Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. It turned out really well and both Jason and I liked it. I’m giving it five stars for that. I bought a blank recipe book and have been adding recipes and writing notes and rating them for future use. So far so good.

In the Family’s Vegetarian Cook Book I found a great recipe for mac and cheese with silken tofu and a fancied up ramen’s noodle recipe. (I gave that one 5 stars, Jason gave it 3).

I also tried Sesame Seed Chicken from Pop it in the Toaster Oven, chicken for Jason and Tofu for myself. That was also really good. He took it to work today for lunch and I guess everyone was like “that smells so good! where did you get that?” and he was like “Kristin made it for me, it’s delicious” Best compliment ever!

I’ve also continued to be sucked into Ravelry and Jason is constantly like “wow, they really know what they are doing, this site is amazing!” and “How did they get that like that? that is so neat!” He’s totally jealous of their site. He’s a web programmer himself.

I am glad to say that I have actually completed one of my goals of getting all of the knitting and crochet patterns from craft leftovers added to the ravelry database. It’s pretty neat to see all the patterns getting hearted and added to project lists and nice comments. Not a ton, but enough.

You can see them all here if you have a ravelry account. It took quite a few hours, but it’s totally worth it.

Speaking of goals, I thought it was about time I post some of my goals for this year:

For Craft Leftovers:
1. Add all Craft Leftovers’ patterns to Ravelry to help spread the crafty goodness (check, that makes me feel good).
2. Convert all old patterns to pdf’s
3. Do at least two craft sales
4. Add at least 5 items to the shop each week
5. Continue to do the midweek post, patterns each saturday, and craft leftovers monthly
6. Finish my pattern book draft and shop it around (after i move, before the end of the year)

For Green Prairie Fibers:
1. Have a dye session once every two weeks with acid dyes (starting in Feb)
2. Have a dye session once a month with natural dyes (starting in Feb)
3. Invest some money in getting the word out
4. Do at least two fiber markets

For my art work:
1. Continue to add new thing to my new shop each week
2. Find a reliable place to get professional quality prints made
3. Show at least once each quarter
4. Apply for grad school (just to see what happens)
5. Apply for at least 4 residencies
6. Get a studio outside of the home by the time this year is over and after I move to Ames.

7. Draw in my sketch book every day (i’m already doing this, but i need to keep it up)

For myself:
1. Get active 3 times a week (ie – go on a walk, go on a long bike ride, run on the elliptical)
2. Work out with weights 2 times a week
3. Try a new recipe once a week.
4. Do yoga every morning (even if just some simple poses for 15 mins)
5. Clean for 15 mins every evening before I go to bed
6. Do my dishes every day (i’ve been so spoiled with the dishwasher here, i’m going to miss it, something you may not know about me: I HATE doing the dishes).
7. Read one book every month
8. Be making enough income by the time I graduate in May to not have to get a full time job when I move to Ames and in the same vein, Be able to support myself fully by the time my student loans kick in next January.
9. Start recycling (i use a lot of stuff in my crafting, but with no recycling service available in dekalb, it’s tough to get myself to the recycling center of dekalb county, i want to get there this year, starting this month)
10. Eat more local and/or organic foods

Craftroom goals:
1. Get organized
2. Get rid of the clutter
3. Stay on my stash diet until I am down to fitting all of my fabric into one bin and my yarn into the 4 drawer bins easily.
4. Learn to silk screen with photo emulsion
5. Learn a new sewing technique every month
6. Make my corduroy pants I have been dreaming of! (this is a huge thing for me, like socks in knitting for some, it’s like making my own pants is some kind of hang up to my sewing abilities)
7. Finish one handmade Christmas gift a month so I can enjoy my before christmas time at my leisure. I joined a make along on Ravelry to help motivate me.
8. Pay off my credit cards

Overall goals:
1. Get active
2. Get more reading done
3. Get more resourceful
4. Get financially set
5. Get prepared for the future

And if you read all that, congratulations, it’s a whole lot!

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