I love keeping projects on hand, in rare cases of waiting and being able to practice patience it is so nice having something ready to pull out and zone out with. The newest iphone update includes ‘Screen Time’ monitoring, and I was only slightly horrified to see how many hours a day I was staring at my phone. Yarn over screens any day.
While in a waiting room yesterday a woman came out of nowhere to ask what I was making (a triangle shawl/wrap, but it is too small currently for that to make sense). She followed up with a “Look what I’m making!” and pulled an adorable hand stitch quilt in progress – which, showing all my quilting ignorance, I had no idea could be a mobile project! It is the 9th quilt she has made this year for her friend’s grandchildren, “my friends are populating the world, and thats fine, it keeps my hands full too.”
She told me she crochets, knits, quilts, and has tried machine knitting but it bored her. She told me crocheting and knitting were created by fishermen to make nets, and each fisherman family had specific stitches they’d use on sweaters to help identify bodies that washed up on shore. Sounds creatively morbid, right? “Well, they didn’t have phones back then, honey.”
My increasingly new favorite person sat down next to me and pulled out an envelope of 4x6s, flipping through her crocheted blankets, her knitted sweaters, her sewed American Girl doll dresses. She has made over 300 American Girl outfits, including outfits to match the entire cast of Star Trek (I would love to see the cross section of American Girl doll collectors and Star Trek fans, by the way). When I told her I was impressed she said “When you get as old as I am, you need things to occupy all the time you’ve lived.”
I didn’t get much crocheting done, but if I didn’t have it with me the lady with wild hair and a New Zealand t-shirt wouldn’t have sat next to me. I would have missed out on a crafty history lesson and the opportunity to see a crafter’s personal photo album. Crafter camaraderie is one of my favorite parts of learning new things, and I hope those Star Trek American Girl dolls are making someone very happy.