CRAFTS

Posted on by michellethurman2344

I like to crochet. I like to write. I like to do little sketches, nothing big or especially good, but I draw little sketches in my notebook at church, or in my sketchbook when I have a visual idea I want to try to record. These are things I like to do just because they please me.

My grandmother did little crafts, too. Crochet, ceramics and other things she like to make; nothing fancy or big, just things she liked to do. She crocheted with a very small crochet hook and used the smallest crochet threads to make doilies, doll dresses, and little flowers that she sewed together to make bigger projects like bedcovers. The items she made that I like the best were the doll clothes she made. I have two small dolls, 5-6 inches tall, that she made cheerleading outfits for in the colors of the local high school. I have them in antique glass jars sitting on a shelf. They are special to me.

My mother crafted as well. She crocheted with the larger yarns and made stuffed animals for her grandchildren and doll dresses for larger dolls and afghans. Even after her stroke, she continued to crochet. She had to work a little harder at it and wrap tape around her hooks to accommodate the disability in her hand, but she never quit.

My youngest sister makes quilts and does cross stitch. My middle sister and her youngest daughter use old jeans to make purses, aprons and skirts. It’s something we do because we like doing it; it’s fun, it satisfies a creative need in us. We’ve often thought of selling some of the things we make and maybe one day we will, but mostly we make things and give them away. When you are a crafter you really do what you do for yourself….and to bless those around you: children, grandchildren and others. My grandchildren love the purses I have made for them and knowing that gives me joy. That’s what it’s all about.

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Published by michellethurman2344

I was born in California, but both my parents were born in different areas of rural Oklahoma. My father grew up on a small cattle ranch and my mother grew up in the hills of eastern Oklahoma near the Ozark Mts. Both were born in the 1920's when Oklahoma was still more a part of the 1800's than the twentieth century so I like to say I was born of parents who were the last generation born during the old west. Their old west roots had a huge impact on my childhood. I spent the first three years of my life on my Granny's chicken farm. She was my father's grandmother and she owned 60 acres of alfalfa which she rented out and lived on three acres of barnyard where she raised chickens. There was some electricity, but no indoor plumbing outside of a faucet in the kitchen. The toilet was down the boardwalk in a small shed...in other words...an outhouse. The shower was a room under the water tank in the pumphouse. Granny's little three room house was the only painted building on the property. Everything else was raw, unpainted wood including the two room house my parents lived in. And I loved living on that little farm where I pretty much had free run of the barnyard and sometimes even wandered into the fields surrounding it. The town where I was born is along the Colorado River in the middle of the California desert and across the river from the Arizona desert and while we did live there for the first 12 years of my life, we moved a lot due to my father's employment. He was a big equipment operator and we moved to where the work took him, but usually only six months of the year then we moved back to our hometown. We moved to Northern California in 1958 and I have lived here ever since. I am a mother, a grandmother, have one great-grandchild and recently retired. I am divorced and now live with my youngest sister. My sisters and I like to cruise and take road trips. I am enjoying my life.

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