If you meet me in person, it is no secret I love to craft. Drawing, painting, sewing,cross-stitch—these are just a few of the crafts I enjoy doing. My mom also does many crafts: knitting, crocheting, and recently she has taken up quilting. I love my mom and everything she does for our family––not just the crafting. But I will be ignoring all the sacrifices she has made for her children and just talk about the crafts she and I did together as I was growing up.
I only mentioned the crafts I currently do, but as a child, I did a lot more. We made felt crafts, foam paper crafts, and my favorite: fuse beads. Fuse beads are these little plastic beads that you iron together, and they melt to form objects and other fun shapes. My favorite fuse bead pattern was the horse, and I made many, many horses with it. My mom would then iron them so they would be solid. I still have some of them on my bulletin board in my room at home. My brother would also make fuse bead creations with us, and he made me one that says “#1 Sister” on it.
My mom’s favorite craft is knitting. She knits our mittens, hats, scarves, and other warm winter items. She has tried to teach me to knit, but since I am a leftie, it is hard for her to teach me since she is right-handed. Instead, she and I found a special type of yarn for finger-knitting called Loopty-Loop yarn. I have already made several scarves with this special yarn, and I have made one full-sized blanket with it. I am currently in the process of making a second blanket, but this one is a bit different. Loopty-Loop yarn came out with a patterned version of their yarn, where if you loop the yarn in a specific transfiguration, it will create an image. Using that yarn, I am making a patchwork blanket that will be either a 4-by-4 patchwork, or a 5-by-4. I don’t remember which, since I left it at home.
My mom has influenced a lot of my crafting. I love helping her with her crafts as well, especially the quilting she has recently started doing. She asks for my help picking fabrics that go well together, since she knows I have an eye for that sort of thing from my drawings. One of the quilted items I helped her with is the table runner she made for our kitchen table. It is made out of neutral browns, and she made two matching placemats as well. I can’t wait for what she will make next.