And the Winner of Eco Craft: Recycle Recraft Restyle Is...  

Back to List

Make Garden Gloves, a Free Project from the New Book Weekend Sewing!

Beautiful Disasters

Jennifer Worick, contributor

4 users recommend

When Heather Mann made a batch of soap, it didn't exactly come out the way she planned. In fact, it looked like Spam.

Heather Mann

So instead of fighting it, Heather created a label to embrace the Spamiliciousness of the soap.

Heather Mann

When Heather Mann made a batch of soap, it didn't exactly come out the way she planned. In fact, it looked like Spam.

Photo: Heather Mann

Add Comment
Print

As you may know, I really hate to fail. I don’t like to waste time, money, or materials in my crafty pursuits, so I often wind up making the same thing over and over (once I master it, of course).

When I do venture into new craft waters, I get over my head now and again. Although I’ve been knitting for a decade, I still have to rip out stitches when I screw up a pattern or gauge. I threw out a huge resin experiment that, let’s just say, ended badly. I’ve wasted loads of pine cones and feathers while cooking up projects for my upcoming book, Backcountry Betty: Crafting with Style. When making jewelry, I’ve burned through a lot of wire—literally melting it with a torch or wasting lengths of sterling when wire wrapping.

In a word, d’oh!

My biggest disappointments tend to be of the knitted variety, mostly because I invest a lot of time in knitting up a garment, only to bungle it along the way. I knit a hat for a friend with a big head, only to find that I apparently knitted it for a giant watermelon. It was way too large for her melon head. I took a wonder shibori felting class with Leigh Radford and in my enthusiasm ruined a yummy alpaca scarf by loading up the entire length with giant shibori bobbles. Newsflash: A bobbly scarf doesn’t exactly fit around the neck real well. After pouring loads of time and three spendy skeins into the scarf, I have to say that one really hurt. And now that I've started sewing, I've discovered a whole new world of failure and frustration.

While some crafters are more willing to work without a net than I, we all have had our share of disappointments and disasters. To that end, Heather Mann, the genius behind Dollar Store Crafts and CROQ Zine, has created CraftFail, a communal blog where we can share the good God, the bad, and truly fugly. While I love seeing the bloopers, I actually am getting a lot of creative inspiration by seeing how other crafters approach projects and think their way around a creative challenge. I particularly love Heather’s Spam and cheddar cheese soaps. What came out as off-color batches of soap was turned into a fun concept body product. When you have lemons, make lemonade, and when you wind up with Spam-colored soap, make labels to match.

What are your most memorable craft disasters? Have you ever been able to take a failure and salvage it in any way?

In the future, you can find me at my website or blogs, Things I Want to Punch in the Face and Prairie Tales. My new book, Backcountry Betty: Crafting with Style, is in stores now.

Add Comment Print

Comments (7)

dogloverlaura writes: I love this! I just got back into knitting and decided to make a ruhana-long,long poncho. After putting the entire thing together I tried it on and it looked like a robe. Got a lot of practice perfecting my garter stitch so I decided after 9 skeins of yarn to tear it all out. Now I have a beautiful, almost finished sweater that fits! See, you can make lemons out of lemonade, or sweaters out of ruhanas!
Posted: 5:42 pm on September 5th

whyme1 writes: crafting is more about enjoying than making perfect every time. I love my mistakes as well as success cause I had a great time. It is about creativity.
Posted: 4:39 pm on April 21st

Jen1964 writes: I had an alpaca mess one time too. For some reason, it didn't shape up! It's too drapey for some knit patterns. Besides, I was terribly allergic to it, and couldn't wait to be done with it. I know what you mean about it felting up later on, with the projects that came out. I'd have been crushed if that happened with a sweater, unintentionally. Actually, I've found folks to fit, when they didn't come out as planned... or lol donated them, and let folks find them! Let someone else rip it out, if I can't bear to.
Posted: 8:42 am on April 20th

Maureclaire writes: I didn't think it looked like Spam til I read that... looked like strawberry, rose...
Posted: 1:33 pm on April 13th

croqzine writes: I, like Joannie, tend to have more disasters than I like to admit. I usually try to make it work, though! Since starting Craft Fail, I've come to terms with the fact that I have many more fails than I admit. However, I don't think the point of crafting is to make perfect Martha-esque specimens every time, so I'm not as stringent on myself as others might be!
Posted: 1:32 pm on April 13th

erika_kern writes: Hee. I like to call these craftastrophies.
Posted: 1:17 pm on April 13th

Joannie_N writes: This cracked me up! I have had more disasters than I care to count. Nearly everything I make seems to turn out ugly or useless, at least to me. But that doesn't stop me from trying. I guess it's a good thing I'm more process than product about crafting.
Posted: 12:49 pm on April 13th

You must be logged in to post comments. Click here to login.