Phases

Like mother, like daughter, so the saying goes.  My mother went through many phases in her life.  Once, she learned how to play a steel guitar, even playing in a band.  Later, she took up making hooked rugs, always out of old wool clothing that she learned how to bleach and then dye, cutting tiny quarter-inch strips to painstakingly hook into a burlap backing.  I still have some of her beautiful creations.  As I've mentioned, she crocheted and tatted, but a constant was sewing.  She sewed almost all of my clothes from infancy into high school, and she was the ultimate seamstress.  Once upon a time, long, long ago, while a senior in boarding school, I was chosen to be a Valentine princess.  I had what I considered to be a perfectly serviceable dress picked out.  Mother drove up to school with the most beautiful, form-fitting, pale pink creation of taffeta overlaid with lace, with cerise chiffon ties.  I may have been a princess, but I felt like the queen.

I've gone through phases of my own, starting when the Kids were little, learning different crafts to teach and keep them occupied.  I started sewing when my daughter was born and I didn't even have a sewing machine.  Tell somebody now that you once sewed dresses entirely by hand.  Imagine how thrilled I was when we rented a house and I was given permission to use an old Singer machine found in the garage.  It was a treadle machine, operated by foot power, and I put it to good use...dresses for Deb and shirts for the boys.  Using the treadle was good practice for later in life when I learned how to spin raw wool.  Time went on and I took up every fad craft that came down the pike:  polymer clay, stamping, weaving, tons of beaded jewelry, painting.

My daughter has come into her own right in the craft department.  She has made her own garden tiles, sews like a professional, resurfaced a small table using a pattern of pennies...ohmigosh, I can't think of all she's done.  People at her workplace wait to see her unique Halloween costumes every year and she never disappoints.  Since I've phased out of most of that stuff now, Deb has pre-inherited all of my beading materials and is putting them to good use.

Mother would be so proud.

Stay safe.  Be well.