Fun!

I have crocheted quite a bit over the years, beginning when I was a little girl, designing my own projects, the largest of which were afghans for each of my two children. I very seldom follow patterns, preferring to make my own. Needlepoint is also therapeutic for me, albeit very slow-going. I made a few pillows, which were fun, again using my own designs. For some strange reason, I've always hated using patterns, something that might come from my early rebellions against the tyranny of coloring books. Yes. I was such a little terror.

And weaving was a blast, although very far out of my budget; I took several classes and made projects while in class, could not afford to buy the equipment and had no place to put it even if I could afford it. Perhaps later on in life, when the kids have left us with a spare room and fewer financial pressures!

I love working with yard and thread, and once a project is underway and I'm confident about where it's going, I find I can go into that "zone" of feeling quite peaceful and content.

Lately, with the pressures of caring for my children, I've found it difficult to engage in these activities, unless of course, we all make stuff together. (Recently we got together to decoupage the frame around my husband's wall clock with penguin images to honor his Unix obsession.) It's everything I can do just to carve out an hour every now and then to read or to work on my novel. 

Perhaps when my kids are more independent, I will be able to devote more time to these things I love to do. My other interests include writing fiction (long-form), doodling and making complex collages (or decoupage) display items out of found images. It'd be sort of cool to figure out how to do some mixed media work incorporating my interests.

My mom was a sculptress as a younger woman, and she too was fascinated by textiles. Although she worked entirely with clay, which she pigmented and mixed herself, she experimented with pushing it through mesh to simulate tapestry weavings. I have one of her pieces hanging in my living room and wish she'd kept other pieces about. She was remarkably talented.