I love the crafty goodness

I have been listening to CraftyPod, a podcast devoted to crafts, for a while now, and I adore it. Sister Diane is focused, informative and just the right touch of goofy. It reminds me that I am not the only one that wakes up thinking about what I'm going to make today. It may be that crafters and artists are trying to understand our origins as we make things, or it may be we just have a pipecleaner fetish, whatever it is, there seems to be a lot of us out there in touch with our crafty side and putting it to good use.
I have to say, the pipecleaner episode had me skeptical, but I finally listened to it today and I believe that is the nearest-to-cool use of pipecleaners I've heard. Check it out.
I feel like perhaps I am a bit of a craft snob at this point, after my schooling in design. Perhaps if I were a true design snob, I might not lower myself to the crafters level. But I was a crafter first, designer second. I will not disparage my roots. I have been known to poopoo scrapbooking and stamping, only to return to it later and find it fun and relaxing. I do think the scrapbooking "industry" takes away a lot of individual expression by mass producing all the tidbits for the scrapbooker. It also prevents people from even trying to draw, when they can just buy a stamp of geese with bows on their head. But sometimes it's nice to not have to work so hard to achieve a finished product. And you focus on a different part of the process, like the overall layout, and begin to appreciate layouts in all realms.
My craft of choice lately, as I've posted before, is quilting. This is something I've come back to again and again over time, so I've decided to give it my best for a while. Some things I like about quilting that I liked about learning design are the historical influences, using my hands and combining colors to create an overall work. I am surprised at how much I enjoy each level of the process, ironing, cutting, piecing, quilting, binding. I normally grow weary at some point of a given process and need to push through. Not so much with the quilting. It is truly crafty goodness for me.