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Thursday, May 25, 2017

So Knot Easy Choices

Hi...  My name is Marissa and I'm a craft-aholic.  I was about ten years old when I used to watch a friend's mother making doilies. She had no visible pattern and her crochet hook was always moving a mile a minute, or so it seemed. Her attention was more on the conversations she carried on with friends while she didn't seem to be paying any attention to what her hands were doing. I told myself then that some day I'd learn how to crochet.

I attended a vocational high school where some of the teachers taught two entirely different subjects. Mrs. Rodericks taught quantity cooking to junior girls. We got to make lunch every day (two of four alternating semesters) for the rest of the students. When she wasn't teaching cooking, she taught embroidery. That was my introduction to needle arts. We made samplers of all the stitches we learned, as we learned them, in the same way mothers taught their daughters for hundreds of years.

After I married, I taught myself how to crochet. Checking out diagrams to see how more complicated stitches were done wasn't easy. It was like following one long strand of spaghetti with several twists. After tracing the diagram with a crochet I finally figured out how the stitch was done and got to work. Eventually I was brave enough to make a crocheted tablecloth. All those pineapples weren't so hard to make.

The next thing was learning to knit and eventually I made a cable sweater with pockets for my husband. Some years after we went our separate ways, he told me he still had the sweater.

Every once in a while I get the urge to expand my horizons, challenge myself to learn a new craft, which has led me to one great truth that all crafters share... We are "hoarders".

Hoarding isn't quite the right word. That insinuates we purchase things and just sock them away, never to be seen again. Crafters aren't quite like that, although it may be considered pretty close. We love to lay in large supplies we refer to as "stashes." I don't deny it can get out of hand. If you're not careful, it can become something of an obsession to have whatever we might need available at any time we get a bright idea. Of those bright ideas, I'd say most, if not all the projects, are made for family, friends, or charities. Personally, I make small blankets that go to an animal shelter.  When the cats or dogs are adopted, a blanket they've been using goes home with them. Having something familiar offers a sense of security and makes it easier for them to adjust to their new home.

What used to be bookshelves are now set up in closets and filled with craft supplies. Stashes of fabric in not so organized piles for quilting, tote bags filled with yarn and neatly stacked, embroidery floss and beads in sectioned storage containers, and lots of craft books and patterns. One of the things I want to learn is tatting, with all those lovely little, delicate knots. That should be fun.

Like all good crafters, if I'm not reorganizing, I'm trying to whittle down my stash a bit. Get control of it? No so likely. It just means making room again for something else that'll catch my eye. Ask any crafter what it's like to enter a fabric store or yarn shop and try to ignore those subtle whispers. (My sisters and I refer to those places as Danger Zones. Lead us not into temptation.) When fabric, yarn and beads stop begging me to bring them home, then I know I'm in real trouble. It might knot always be sew fine but as long as it doesn't leave me in a bind, it can be a ton of fun.

If you're a crafter, won't you briefly share your current project?

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