Hey! How are you? I am feeling a bit better today! Phew! I have been resting and eating nice (vegetarian) food and watching Jane Eyre for the zillionth time with Ari and STILL working on Max's blanket.
I was thinking about why I love to make things which take a long time. Quick things are fun to make too, but I really love the commitment of a slow project. I guess I am a total sucker for a long term craft relationship. For instance, I love making crocheted blankets. A lot. I have been thinking about WHY I am so enamoured with the blankie, while I have been making Max's.
Firstly, I really love to make things for other people, a LOT. I love that they know they are totally worth those thousands of stitches, because they are super special to me. But it is more than that.
Firstly, I really love to make things for other people, a LOT. I love that they know they are totally worth those thousands of stitches, because they are super special to me. But it is more than that.
Getting to know each other :: I love to watch the blanket unfold before my eyes, in a way that I decide on. I love to watch the colours come together, see the stitches race row by row in little clusters and smooth lines. I love to feel them gather their 'blanket' weight, as they grow from a strip, to a bit, to a fully fledged LOT! I love to weave in ends and snip loose threads and stitch edges and repeatedly fold and tug and admire as I go. I love to lay it down on the clean floor and look at it from afar. I love to fold it up nicely and see how that looks too. I love to show it to other people, to talk about it and to see the whole thing grow in one chatty, woolly, blankie bundle.
Spending time together :: I especially love these long winded projects hanging about the place, making cameos in our everyday life. Watching a particular movie together with the blanket growing slowly on my lap. Having a chat and tying on a new colour. Collecting a new ball of wool or searching for scissors while someone makes a tray of tea and biscuits. Whole weekends of nice times, picking the blanket up and doing a little bit. Putting it down and making dinner, or feeding the cat or putting a log on the fire.
Getting comfy :: Usually these kind of long winded projects take a couple of months to complete, so each blanket clearly marks a particular time in our life. Each blanket is sort of like a rather woolly craft diary. Each blanket is a tribute to the time it took to make, and the things that happened then. Each blanket is a remembrance of why I chose that colour or where a row was finished or who was nearly having a baby or which stitch was my favourite or who doesn't like pink...!
The end :: I get sad when I finish this kind of project and we have to 'break up'. Sometimes I shed a tear. I'm a total long haul gal. And even though I feel QUITE sad and empty, filled with blanket grief, when I hand it on, it's so super satisfying at the same time to finish a project you are proud of, and to bestow it on someone you really love. And then start another one... (Which seems a bit shallow, but it helps with the grieving process. Kind of a rebound scenario, but with better intentions and a woollier result!)
The end :: I get sad when I finish this kind of project and we have to 'break up'. Sometimes I shed a tear. I'm a total long haul gal. And even though I feel QUITE sad and empty, filled with blanket grief, when I hand it on, it's so super satisfying at the same time to finish a project you are proud of, and to bestow it on someone you really love. And then start another one... (Which seems a bit shallow, but it helps with the grieving process. Kind of a rebound scenario, but with better intentions and a woollier result!)
Does this make any sense to you?! Do some of the things you make mark certain times in your life? Or do you make and then forget how you got there, kind of like pregnancy and childbirth?! Or something? Do you feel craft grief? Do you bounce straight into a new relationship?! Are you shallow like me?
xx Pip
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