It all started two years ago. Well, if I really think back, perhaps it started when I was little, learning how to do cross-stitch and rug hooking alongside my sisters. I loved having a project. Life took me this way and that, and projects fell by the wayside. I learned to knit about ten years ago, and made a series of ill-fitting sweaters. There was something lovely, though, about leafing through pattern books, browsing the local yarn shop, and the hypnotic repetition of the stitches.
I was hit with the nesting bug hard when I was pregnant with my daughter (my second child), two years ago. Not in the sense that I wanted to clean house or organize the boxes of baby supplies I had packed away after my son was born. Rather, I wanted nothing more than to crochet little booties, dresses, and hats for my yet-to-be-born baby girl.
With a stash of baby clothes in place, I turned to larger projects. One of my crochet books had a gorgeous pattern for a cozy wrap sweater in a luxuriously soft fabric. I though, what a perfect Christmas gift for my mom! I headed to a yarn store during my lunch break and carefully selected a beautiful yarn in deep purple. It was expensive, but I knew it was worth it. I worked for weeks and weeks. Finally, it was done. I slipped my arms through the sweater to check the fit. Horror of horrors, it was a train wreck. Obviously, my gauge was incorrect, or I had inadvertently added stitches, or both. Unless my mom had suddenly grown extremely wide shoulders, there was no way it would fit. I fought back tears, stuffed the offending item in a box, and tried to erase the memory.
Now, simultaneously with this misadventure in crochet, I was home with my newborn daughter. She is my second child and I was feeling much more comfortable getting out of the house with her than I did with my son. Anyway, every day I would bundle her up in the baby carrier and walk down the street to grab coffee or a few groceries. Along the way was a bead shop. At first, I didn't go in, I just looked in the window and wondered how one went about creating jewelry out of beads. I couldn't get it out of my head. Then one night/very early morning, as I nursed my daughter, I typed "making beaded jewelry" into the search bar and unlocked a passion.
The old familiar joy of studying patterns and designs, browsing local shops, and the quiet busy-ness of creating came flooding back. I learned to delight in the process of picking colors and shapes of beads, and build, millimeter by millimeter, something unique and beautiful. I ended up making my mom a pearl bracelet and set of earrings that Christmas.
Beading, crochet, tapestry weaving (I'll save that story for another post), have all become great sources of comfort to me. There are still the projects that don't quite turn out, rows and rows of work that need to be undone, but through the frustrations I have found the steady and slow progress of creating to be incredibly rewarding.
There is an incredible community of bearers, weavers, crocheters, and other artists online. Many have offered projects, tutorials, advice, and encouragement to me either directly or through their own blogs and shops. With this blog, I hope to add my own contribution.
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