How did we get here?

When I was a child my mother would sit in her large wooden rocking chair crocheting afghans that covered her legs while she rocked. I also learned to crochet. I made a blue ruffled dress for my doll and taught myself to knit a long, ragged-edged scarf. I started needlepoint kits but I have no memory of finishing one. The two of us joined 4-H together and made baskets and wooden coat racks.

In college I crocheted an afghan for a raffle. One winter in Toronto I learned to knit and made myself a sweater that was too warm and scratchy to wear in North Carolina, where I now live. After moving out on my own I tried sewing myself a dress, but neither the fabric nor the fit were quite right and I never tried again. Someone has a curtain I made once during a lengthy addiction to HGTV.

During the passage of time from childhood to my mid-thirties I retained a sense of myself as being a crafter, but over the past decade my number of projects have steadily dwindled. Lately I’ve had a sneaking sense that I don’t deserve that identity anymore. Now is the time to reclaim the inheritance from my mother and make things again. It has been so long since I’ve created anything that this feels like starting over.

In 2011 I hope to start, and hopefully finish, one project per week. My ultimate goal is to complete 5o projects of all different kinds and styles. I already have a list of 15 ideas, but I’m open to suggestions. My hope is that inspiration will hit and I’ll discover what it is I truly love to do.

I hope you’ll join me on my journey. See you in January.