There's no end of craftiness around our house (and neighbourhood). It does look a lot like messiness but it does hide the dust, somewhat (after all, "dust is a country accent"). There's a scrapbooking pile waiting until I have time to order photos, sort memorabilia, and get organized for another retreat. There's fabric upstairs and a sewing machine that got repaired, but hasn't been put back onto its desk yet (someone surrounded it with clutter that I apparently have to sort through). The dining room has been overtaken by my daughter, who has discovered card-making at the same time as she remembered that I had a great deal of Creative Memories paper and found out that I had several jars and tins of buttons.
Of course, there's the stash of quilting fabric and books across the road at my mother's house ... and a few containers of random fabrics in my "bonus room" (not always suitable for quilting). Old jeans also seem to pile up, waiting to be transformed into jean pillows for bridal shower gifts. Yarn is also sitting in boxes ("knit me" ... "crochet me" it cries out). We have the luxury of all kinds of hand-work ... but not always the luxury of time. There's this thing called The Internet that keeps stealing time away from us.
It is interesting to look at the creativity as it flows through a family tree. There's my daughter and her cards and sewing projects ... me with scrapbooking and quilting ... my mother quilting and sewing. Before her, my grandmother knitted, crocheted and embroidered ... as well as doing spinning on the spinning wheel and sewing on the treadle machine. Way back in the family history in Czechoslovakia, our great- greats were involved in the cloth industry. And going out to different branches of mom's family tree, there are quilters and seamstresses galore.
Our creations are sometimes practical ... other times, our ancestors must be rolling over in their graves wondering what we are doing, hacking up perfectly good fabric, cutting our photos to pieces, gluing buttons on paper or photo frames, or cutting up yarn into lengths and braiding it. Or crocheting "booties" for my dining room chairs (which actually was my aunt's idea a few years back, and I finally got around to doing it this spring). It's a lot different than making flour-sack dresses and shirts for the children, which apparently my grandmother did to provide clothing in tough financial times.
There's also a creative photography gene that appears to run through both sides of the family and is going through to my kids. My dad took slide photos, cousins and uncles were awesome photographers, and I took up serious photography (or not so serious) for the yearbook at university. Then I married and my husband was interested in the new field of video-photography ... he did plenty of videos of weddings for friends and also of church events. I was a scrap-booking consultant for several years. With the advent of computers, the kids are able to Photoshop, edit, upload, add music and special effects ... we hung fabric for green-screen effects for a school project ... PowerPoint presentations are child's play to them.
And then there is the artist son ... his walls are covered with his paintings ... and he's painted gifts for us for birthdays. Who knows what is to come?
At the same time as the internet can steal time from us, it can also inspire us with ideas from craft sites. We can share our creations with others with a few clicks of a mouse. We could probably even get some really good ideas on the internet for organizing all of our crafty and creative materials ... nah. That would take up time!
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