Why Do I Crochet?

 Why Do I Crochet?

        I was a young girl sitting on my grandparents bedroom floor, looking at these beautiful blankets spread out around us. Some were quilted and some were crocheted and all of the colors were spread out around me. It was one of the most beautiful sites I had seen! I was amazed with the talent from my Great Aunt's handy work. My Aunt Marie spoke very broken English and her German accent was so thick as a little girl it was hard to understand sometimes. Seeing the work she had done with her hands seemed to help me understand her and who she was. While going through the blankets my grandma pulled out a bag that had what seemed like hundreds of slippers that had been crocheted as well and they were all sizes! My grandma said we could pick out a pair and I was so excited I got to take home a piece of this artwork and actually use it! I picked out this beautiful pair that were a very light yellow and a cream color! I thought they were beautiful! I can picture them so clearly still in my mind right down to the hand made pompom on the toe of the slippers! This was 30 years ago and I can still picture each little stitch she crafted into the slippers. That same trip to my Grandparents house my Grandma gave my Mom the little sewing kit that belonged to my Great Aunt Marie since she wasn't using it. It was a little woven basket that was a light blue and grey. Inside there was light blue satin lining the sewing box and a pin cushion on the bottom of the lid made from the same satin. I would comb through that box on a regular basis after my mom received it. I found in that box this little rolled up fabric thing. It was a dark blue with little flowers on it, with bright pink trimming and ties. As I untied it there was a little label on the flap with the initials M.D. stitched on it. I lifted the flap and when I did I saw them, the crochet hooks that my Great Aunt Marie used to make those beautiful items that I had just saw at my Grandparents. 

    Over the years those hooks stayed in the little sewing box my mom had been given. None of my family knew how to crochet so they were never in use they just sat there. They were always there in the back of my mind and when I thought of them it always brought me back to my Great Aunt Marie. I pictured the last times I had seen her. The smile she always had and the strong German accent. I had wished she would have been around long enough to teach my how to do this art that she made such amazing things with. The fact that her art not only was beautiful it wasn't just something to look at, it was an artwork you could touch and you could use that you would feel the love that she put into it. Years went on and on being a single mom for many of those years I just didn't have time to learn how to do this art. Then there are times in life that get hard. I was married, working, had my daughter, and three step kids and felt like I had nothing to myself anymore. I decided I needed to find something for me, something I had that was my own. I remember those little hooks in that sewing box and asked my mom for them. I knew what I was going to do! I was going to crochet! I had no clue what I was doing! I bought a couple magazines to teach me, I watched youtube videos and I picked up little sheets at craft stores to get as much information as I possibly could! I got a skein of yarn and away I went, mistake after mistake, after mistake until I made something that resembled something. It was nothing but I got a pattern going and that was a start! I eventually learned more terms made my own experiments and made my own projects and couldn't have been happier! I now see what my Great Aunt Marie saw in crocheting, it is creating something of your own, its making something someone can use, and it is loving the adventure in making your art. 

    Why I crochet is because this little old German lady showed me the beauty in her art! I crochet because it is an extension of myself in each little or big project! It is also something that I can constantly continue learning and improving in! I was so blessed to have known my Aunt Marie in the time she was alive and those little hooks mean the world to me! They are still in the little pouch she had sewn. While I have added and bought more hooks those little hooks will always be my favorites!

Take Life by the Horns

 

Take Life by the Horns

I am not going to pretend life is always easy! There are so many struggles in life that so many face on a day-to-day basis. While I had an amazing childhood and was so lucky, I will hopefully get into that in later posts, I still had my share of struggles in life. I cannot pretend that my life was absolutely perfect because I am human, and we all struggle in this thing called life. In life we make many choices. Some are as simple as what am I going to have for breakfast or what color of shirt should I wear today (that one is easy for me, I am usually drawn to grey for whatever reason). Some choices are not as simple as do I pay this month’s rent or buy groceries. Everything is a series of choices in life, and our choices as much as we like it or not affect everything in life including other people. Life would be so much easier if our choices were just limited to us and not those around us.

In my life I was raised in a family that has always been extremely close. Even cousins married into the family were our cousins’ blood or no they were family and still are and are loved dearly! Even though having such an amazing family I had made choices in life that caused struggles for not just myself but my family. Those choices I never would have changed though! While it did cause some unfortunate struggles in life those choices also left me with some of the biggest blessings in life! When I was nineteen, I was blessed with a beautiful daughter. Her father was no longer in the picture and I thought I had screwed up both her life and my life. I still struggle seeing the hurt in her face when she sees other girls with their dads and she never had that special relationship, but she still had so much love from all of our family and church! Through that tough situation I was able to see who my friends truly were and how family should be. My family pulled together in supporting me and my daughter with all the love and help that we needed. My church became some of the closest friends and family anyone could have asked for, for my daughter and me. Along with that even though her dad wasn’t involved in her life his family welcomed us with open arms and not only does my daughter call them her family I call them mine as well!

As bad as some choices can be and you think that they may mess up your plans they really do not. It does not mess up your plans, they may be rearranged, and things may have to come in a different order, but they are not messed up. Your life is still beautiful! Live your life, let the struggles come and fight through them lean on friends and family! Live a beautiful life with the twists and turns you did expect! Live your life to get to the end of it with the goal in mind that you wanted your life to be your story.  They are not failures just bumps in the road, or wrong turns. You may not get U-turns in life but there are always forks. You may have had one wrong turn but there is always a fork that leads back to the path you wanted.

On the other hand, someone else choice may have led to problems you struggle with and you may feel you can not reach the plans that you had and that they were taken from you. That is a lie! No one can take what you want away from you. Do not give them that power. You may have lost a loved one because of someone else poor choice, you may have been injured in some way whether it is emotionally, physically or any other way but do not give that other person the power to take from you what you wanted out of life. Live your life the way you wanted love that person you lost with all your heart. Hold tight to their memories, hold tight to the love you felt for them, and the hardest part forgive the person you felt took it away from you. You do not ever forgive and forget that is not a thing we as humans can do, we do not have that ability. You can still forgive though. Forgiving is about not dwelling on them or what they took from you and constantly thinking about them getting what they deserve. Forgiving is moving on and not letting them have that control over your life. I once heard there can be forgiveness with out reconciliation. I believe that to be true. Reconciliation means to restore friendly relations in its definition. While forgiveness just means to remit or leave a person alone and to separate yourself. Reconciliation is when the other person has acknowledged their wrong and have apologized and both parties agree to moving forward together. In forgiveness you have a choice you can forgive and reconcile separating the debt from the person and working on rebuilding a relationship or if the situation is too toxic you forgive and separate yourself from that person. If the other does not acknowledge the wrongs they have done to you that is when you need to just forgive. If they ever acknowledge the pain, they caused you and apologize it is on you to determine if you do ever want to reconcile.

Live is too short to give others that much power over your life. Through these twists and turns in life know that you are in control but that your choices affect you and so many others. Take life by the horns and hold on tight! It is one crazy ride that is very much worth it!