I’m getting the itch.

After Nikki linked to a crafty quilter’s wet dream, I found myself looking through photos and photos of homemade items—stuffed dolls, quilts, cross-stitched pictures, knitted clothes, and the like. I’m not generally the sort of person who makes such things, but I started getting the urge to crochet something.

I discussed this with H.E. on the phone last night. “I’d like to try quilting, and I’m thinking about getting back into crochet and other crafty stuff again.”

“Well, why don’t you? What do you need? A sewing machine?”

I pictured yet another item I don’t have room in the condo for and notched down my self-expectations. “I was thinking of starting small and getting a crochet needle and some yarn, learn how to crochet again. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten how to do it.”

The thing is, yes, I used to crochet. My aunts and my grandmothers did a lot of crafty stuff, and it kind of rubbed off on me. So, growing up, I crocheted, did cross-stitch embroidery, and created latch-hook rugs. I used to tighten all the legs of my jeans using my mother’s sewing machine, and I even made my own sweatshirt, with ribbing on the collar and cuffs and everything. I’ve even made a couple of small stuffed dolls. Some of my cross-stitched work hung on my own bedroom wall.

I mentioned once that my maternal grandmother, Lola Betty, made her own clothes. So did my paternal grandmother, Lola Memang, only she was actually really very good at it. Lola Memang once made me a green dress with puffy sleeves and white lacy trim. It was such a dressy dress that looked store-bought that I often wore it with white lacy fold-down ankle socks and shiny black Mary Janes. She made matching pink dresses for my sister and me, and we both wore it for a professional family portrait.

My Aunt Alphie made comforters—thick, heavy crocheted things in a nice creamy color and beautiful patterns. She gave them out to everyone in the family, and the comforters always looked so warm and perfect on the bed. She had latch-hook rugs on her wall that she made, crocheted lace doilies on the tables, knitted afghans on the chairs. Her sister made photo albums, the kind with the stuffed satin frames on the front, like for weddings. She also made three-dimensional paper art that were matted in box frames.

My mother didn’t have as much free time as my aunts, so she wasn’t as crafty, but she actually had a big old knitting machine stored in the area above our garage. I saw a photo of her using it once, but I’ve never actually seen it in action. I can’t even imagine how something like that works, but I guess it was for the serious knitter who wanted to mass-produce knitted items. I’ve never heard of anyone else owning such a thing. Just my mother.

Then, of course, there was my mother’s sewing machine. It was like a piece of furniture, it was so big, with so many features—electric, with a foot pedal, and could do anything you wanted, fancy patterns and everything. It had built-in tables and a fold-out cabinet with shelves, places to hide all your thread and extra bobbins, shears, and every accessory you can imagine. It was a heavy-duty piece, and I never had any trouble with it. I used it regularly and often.

My mother made furniture, too. Not the ready-to-assemble kind, but the kind you make from actual pieces of wood, which you cut to your own specifications and put together from the ground up. She also did her own book binding for her scrapbooks, developed her own photos with intentional double exposures so that her face would be in a rose. She’s mostly into golfing, gardening, and body surfing now.

But me … I want to try the crochet thing again—just a small start really, and if I like it, I might venture into cross-stitching again, too. Later, if I’m really ambitious, I might try something completely new and really give myself something to obsess about in addition to all the other little things I like to do.

Just so long as I start doing crafty stuff again.

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