My whole life I have been a crafter of some sort....there are very few things that I haven't tried (thinking about tatting, now) and have not enjoyed. The problem comes when you acquire a whole lot of different items devoted to these different hobbies. My husband thinks that I am addicted to collecting embroidery designs....I am so enthralled with the many things you can do with it and I do admit that I have a few designs. A lot of people collect things. Some collect stamps and coins, but I collect embroidery designs with the hope of some day retiring and setting up a little etsy web site and subsidizing our income. I have a good friend who tells me she makes enough with her business to take a nice vacation with her family each year. That's a nice goal. I ask you, my facebook friends, is there real harm with an addiction to collecting designs? Do I need some type of treatment? I collect free ones and sometimes I find really cute ones on sale. I like to make things for friends and the grand children. But I find that I don't have a lot of time right now to use the designs I collect. We are not going hungry nor do I not have money to pay the rent, so I con't think it is very serious. What do you think?

I collect every ME design that appeals to me. I am fasenated by how many designs I can put on one USB stick.

I told my hubby couple years ago I collected designs, organized them into folders & store them! Good hobby, don't have to dust it, & and DO use them when I'm hunting something for a gift!! So collect on! You're in good company!

Got for it!!! Collect and store!!! One day you'll use these things and when that day comes you'll be glad that you saved whatever it is and you'll feel an overwhelming sense of pride that you saved whatever it is and that you're using it at last. Pride in your achievement; pride in your creation - these will make you such a great person to be around.

How can I be so wise???? Well, my son's gorgeous partner asked me, at Christmas time, if I had crocheted a big rug snuggled onto a lounge chair. Yes, I replied, I have made many of those rugs. Next day I had pulled out a partly-made rug, yarn and crochet hook, long hidden under sewing fabric, and I had finished that forgotten project. Off I went to the yarn shop and purchased enough yarn to make my lovely DIL a knee rug to keep her warm while she studies. Next, I found yet another rug begun for my DGS, now five years old. That is well on the way to being finished, this time for my friend's next little girl, due in early February.
Now, during those intervening years my hands had begun to twist and ache with arthritis and at one stage I couldn't even hold knitting needles or crochet hooks but I still hung onto my craft stash. One day, early last year, the bug took hold of me and I just began to knit and crochet again - skills which have stood me in good stead while waiting for hours in hospitals in recent months - and my hands haven't complained once for all the work they are doing. I made ten pairs of socks for Christmas presents and sweaters and caps for grandchildren. I can even do fine hand-embroidery.

My ME collection is Huge because I like to have a good selection from which to make my choice for any given project. It's a whole lot easier storing ME designs than storing other craft supplies, but then, of course, you do need a good choice of fabric for any given project, too.... :} ... If collecting ME designs is your 'thing' why beat yourself about it. Collect all you can because that's the way you'll educate yourself about 'good, better and best designs' and you'll become selective and your creations will shine with the love that's been put into them.

Darn soap-box.... gets higher every time I climb up on it.....
AlmaG.

I started ME when all you could use were the special cards. So expensive. I started digitising as soon as I could and have not collected that many designs, mostly from this site and the sistersites. But even so it all adds up - but who cares, it's only MB's, not cupboards filled with fabric, knitting yarn, knitting needles and crochet hooks, lace bobbins and pillows, tatting shuttles, bookbinding materiaals and press, all sort of patterns and magazines that might come in handy some day... Just as well we did not downsize when the children left home, I need that space!

I have a bazzillion designs but I did not have the right bird one this week......that is why we are obligated to collect them all!!

If you need treatment then so to do a lot of us!!!! :O)

Thanks to all my cute friends who encourage me to keep on keeping on....and sorry about the "facebook friends"...posted on facebook as well and meant to change to cute friends. Anyway....I think I will now go and collect some designs...I did embroidery a kitchen towel for my Mom last night for Valentines day, since I will see her this weekend....aren't men crazy....but you gotta love em

There is nothing wrong with collecting designs...they dont take up any space & we dont have to dust them.My fabric addiction is another matter.

i am like you . I started collecting stamps at the age of 10 and have gone on to collect and try every craft that i can get my hands on. My Husband says that our house needs rubber walls to hold it all. I love to make gifts for friends and family and am always looking for new ideas to try. I will be 69 on Friday and can honestly say that I have never had a boring day in my life. Craft and collecting is good for the soul. Enjoy yourself. Hugs Joyce

It is not an addiction - it is a healthy state of mind which will keep you active and creative for many years to come. There are so many people without interests who spend their latter years suffering from dementia and other similar conditions.

Well i to love collecting designs but then i sew more then most .My second love is thread i even like the smell of it lol hugs carolyn

He should be happy that your designs don't need so much storage like some other hobbies ;-)
Like most of us I have more designs than I can stitch in a lifetime but this is my personal stress-relief. Other women are shopping shoes (and their husbands have to build the shoe bins for them *lol*).
Does he have a work shop or another hobby? How often did he uses this? I was working as a kitchen sales(wo)man and so often men said that their wife don't need a dishwasher ("useless stuff - too expensive" or "my wife is the dishwasher"!). If you have asked if they have tools how much they have costed and how often they really used them they became quickly very quite...
Greetings, Bettina
PS: >my facebook friends??? I'm not on fb and many other here too ;-)

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1 comment

by mops 18 Jan 2013

The husband of a friend of mine said the same about dishwasher. Then my friend had to care for her mother in Germany and staid there for a month. When she came home again she found he had bought not only a dishwasher but a tumbler dryer as well.

Just tell him you are multi talented. I do a lot of differnet crafts and just taught myself to do needle tatting. Keeps your mind sharp and talent and learning new things is never a waste . Suzanne Ps we are all additcted to DL designs. Join the club.

if you are just collecting the free ones and a few sale ones, how can anyone complain? I spend way to much, but its my nich in life. But then I have nobody to tell me different!

1 comment

by lilylady 16 Jan 2013

I also have a basement full of crafting and stuff for 40 years, its like going shopping everytime I go Down there. I am not bragging, its the truth.

If this is an addiction, count me in. I love collecting embroidery designs, you never know what you will need, no guilt here
hugs
Michelle

You are perfectly normal. If you are with the "Cutie" group, you are allowd to download and collect designs. We all do it! Cheers, Rachel.

You could edit and delete almost every thing from the other post. A crater has to have supplies on hand to be able to craft so collecting a few designs that take up only computer space that you don't have to dust seems perfectly acceptable.

DID NOT MEAN TO POST THIS TWICE....UGH....TECHNOLOGY....

2 comments

by jrob 16 Jan 2013

Gotcha covered. ;)

by bmupton 17 Jan 2013

Thanks!!!!