New Crafts and Bad Ideas

Despite already having a long term embroidery project to work on, an etsy store to keep stocked, and a seemingly endless string of special occasions requiring handmade gifts, I have found a new craft to fall in love with (actually, this is not at all unusual for me. I think I am required to fall head over heels for at least one new craft each year. Most of these infatuations don't last). My current love? Crazy quilting. I haven't tried it yet, but the pictures I'm finding online are so beautifully tempting, so organic and and overly embellished and, well, crazy! And it includes embroidery *and* beads and I'm sure I could work handmade felt into it somehow if I try hard enough. It's enough to make me forget that I can't sew.

Yes, you read the correctly. Despite my love of embroidery and my general craft aptitude, I am incompetent when it comes to sewing. I'm not sure why I have this sewing dyslexia, but I'm hoping that the sewing involved in a crazy quilt turns out to be within my limited skill set. I've requested two books on the topic from my local library network (of course the branch closest to me doesn't have any), but in the meantime I'm very impatient. I want my new craft, and I want it now! I did find a few online tutorials, but I feel that it would be better to learn from a book, seeing as I suffer from a disability when it comes to sewing.

This has led to a very... strange development. The current Craftster craft challenge (I swear this is relevant) involves reusing unwanted catalogs. I have one catalog which is particularly virulent, so that was a shoe in for this project. Except what to do with it? For awhile I was toying with the idea of somehow using the images in a mosaic. This would give me an excuse to learn to mosaic, which I've always wanted to try, but I lost interest in that plan before I could implement it. However, my new love of crazy quilts has led me in a new, unexpected, potentially foolhardy direction. I am now creating a bizarre mixed media collage in which I embroider the "seams" between patches of paper as if they were seams in a crazy quilt. So far so good, but as I haven't completed even one seam yet it may be too early to tell if this plan has merit or not.