A Daily Look Within – Day 18
A Daily Look Within Day 18
By Kathy Custren
“Craft Work” – Creativity/Crafts/Inspiration; handiworks, masterpieces
Handcrafting, crochet for example, can yield beautiful and useful things. There are many enjoyable and useful patterns out there–designs to create just about anything with your own two hands, a hook, and a single strand of yarn or thread. One single strand. Sure, you can use two or more to make something bulky, but it only takes one.
What you make with that one strand of thread or yarn might be anything from a delicate doily to adorn the underside of a dainty demitasse, to a hefty sweater to keep a loved one warm and toasty on a cold winter’s night. It all depends on the pattern and skill of the craftsperson to construct what they will with that one strand of thread.
Life is like that…like a strand of thread in each of our hands, to do with as we see fit. As any craftsperson can tell you, there is some artistry involved, a lot of creativity, mindful skill in executing the different stitches or in joining other colors (because life does not always consist of one boring shade), and it takes understanding to know when you have enough stitches or length to your piece to know it can be considered ‘finished.’
Fortunately, I am lucky to still have afghans made by both my mother and Babcia. (Babcia, for those who do not know, is Polish for grandmother.) My mother has been dead for over 25 years; more than half my lifetime. As I sat not long ago folding one afghan and pulling off some fuzzy bits, telling my daughter the still-useful blankets were older than she is, she sounded as amazed and surprised as I felt: “Really?” Knowing that we were holding a legacy left behind so many long years ago made me think about where the afghans might go. What might happen to them after they meet the end of their usefulness? What about the items my daughter and I complete in our own lifetime?
