Crafts

Those who know me, know that I love my crafts.  I can't sit and watch tv unless I've got something to do with my hands - otherwise I've got this tendency to just snack.

I've been looking around various smallholding, homesteading, self-sufficiency websites for a while now and it struck me that very few of the crafts that are posted are useful.

One in particular is making gift cards, funky toys for kids with toilet paper rolls (handy but not really durable) and all sorts of cute but kinda tacky Martha Stewart type stuff that isn't really useful.

Being useful is one of my Big Things.  I like for things to be cute and pretty, but they also need to be useful.  I'm also (deep down) really quite lazy, so I'm always looking for an easier way to achieve the same result.  That doesn't mean that I will cut corners or make something useless for the sake of it being easy, but I am constantly looking for ways to improve what I'm doing.  I hate sewing seams on my knitting for example, so now I work with circular knitting.

I will post some crafts at some stage, things that I find useful.  I knit socks, beanies and mitts for example.  The patterns are simple and once you've got the hang of them, you don't need to keep referring back to them.

So, since I seem to have a bit of a following starting (already? It's quite overwhelming :) ) what kinds of things do YOU want to see?  What crafty things do you find useful?  What do you wish your Grandma had taught you how to do but didn't?

If I don't know it, I'll say so, but I'll probably make an effort to learn it.