The UU Lent word for today is craft. Do you know me personally? Have you been to any of my houses? In that case, you know I’m pretty fond of crafting. It’s in my blood. I come from a long line of knitters, crocheters, embroiderers, needlepointers, and quilters. Oh, then there’s the great aunt who tatted for a living, because she was confined to her home (her fun mental illness was kleptomania). My mom and stepmom were both trained artists, too. This post has a lot more on this topic, with lots of photos.
Knitting was my favorite thing to do most of my life. It filled my little hands with motion, and my little hands love to be in motion. No wonder I type all the time, right? I also loved to teach people to knit, because I felt like I was giving people the tool they needed to end boredom forever! You can’t be bored if you have yarn and needles, well, at least in my opinion.
I have to say that I knitted so many darned pairs of socks that I got bored with them. But, I could probably do it again, now.
Tainted Love
Why did I stop knitting so much? Well, if you need to know, it’s not because of the Yarn Store Incident. That just got me to never want to knit in public again.
No, I realized that I valued my knitted products as precious representatives of many hours of my life and hated to lose them. I also got really sad when I spent hours knitting things, only to find them not appreciated.
Examples:
Moths. My house in Round Rock had a moth infestation. Suddenly all those wool socks I’d knitted in complicated patterns with expensive yarn had moth holes. Let me tell you those are hard to fix. Worse, my rainbow sweater made of amazing Swedish yarn got yarn holes. THEN I found that my unused hanks of yarn were all holey. That just made me sick. I felt like I’d wasted a lot of time and money.
Shrinkage. I love my spouse. I don’t love that he repeatedly has washed woolen items in the washing machine and made them unusable. The one that killed me was a sweater in really precious yarn (organic, vegetable dyed, blah blah) that I hadn’t even worn yet. I sat it in the wrong spot, so he blames me. Then he machine washed my hand-woven placemats. My loom misses me.
Cleaning the Teen Pit. When the female teen who lived at our house for three years moved out, there was a huge amount of clean-up involved, since she only took a few things with her. When I found things I had worked really hard on for her all squished and stuffed under the bed, my heart broke again. Then I found more in my son’s room. They were both people who loved clutter, but wow.
And to be honest, most stuff I knitted wasn’t that good.
Luckily my needlepoints look fine. A dog did eat a pillow I spent $100 to have made. And it was a picture of a dog. I put it on a shelf.
But, I think crafts are good for you. You make a beautiful AND useful object when you’re crafting. And really, it’s more about process than product, at least for me. I do wish I’d finished more of my projects.
Moving on. I WILL finish the thing I’m making for Kathleen.
The Hermits' Rest 