Any exclamation of disbelief at the impressive quality of her handiwork is almost always followed by a pressing second question. "So honey, are you kids talented like your mother?" Because the response "Are you freaking kidding me?" is inappropriate under almost all circumstances, I usually try to come up with a more diplomatic and refined reply. I explain that while I may have inherited a minute amount of her artisan genius and I do dabble in crafts from time to time, my incredibly busy schedule prevents me from engaging in such creative pursuits. However, this is not exactly the whole truth.
You see, my mom is not just some lady who enjoys slapping some flowers, baubles, and ribbons together and calling it a day. She does not simply do "crafts". She has been creating beautiful objects of art for sixty some years. And due to the unfortunate fact that her own mother struggled to sew on a button, ninety percent of her skills are self taught. She is like some kind of craft superhero able to effortlessly replicate almost any challenging project you throw her way. If these crafty superpowers are lying dormant somewhere within me, I have not yet been able to successfully tap into them on a regular basis. Perhaps I am like a young Luke Skywalker and I simply need more focused training before I am capable of accessing the crafty force field that is my destiny.
I once attempted to make a granny square afghan as a gift for my friend's graduation. If you are not familiar with this lost art, I will attempt to sum it up. Basically you repeatedly crochet the same square pattern about fifty times and if you want to get a little fancy, you throw in a new shade of yarn whenever the mood strikes. This freedom of choice is probably what gets so many grannies in trouble in the color department. Anyway, I ended up with a big pile of (and I want you to know that I am using this term loosely) "squares". It was more like some rectangles, a few rhomboids, a really messed up oval, and a few completely unrecognizable alien shapes impossible to categorize here on Earth. Guess who came to the rescue? Good 'ole mom swooped in and saved the day weaving the pile of wannabe squares into a beautiful afghan.
Since crocheting didn't seem to be my scene, I thought I might like to try knitting a pair of slippers. If you are not familiar with this lost art, it is when you take two needles that are connected by a length of plastic, make little loops around them with yarn and slide them back and forth until a garment magically appears. If you can do it without poking your own eye out, stitching a piece of your sleeve into the pattern, or cussing like a sailor, you should consider it a great accomplishment worthy of praise throughout the land. With instruction from my mom, I was able to finish a single slipper which I offered to her as a gift in appreciation for her extremely patient guidance throughout the process. She accepted it in good faith, the agreement being that at some point in the future I would actually make good on my promise to produce a second matching slipper. That was at least 25 years ago and if she were relying on me to come through, her right foot would still be quite frosty.
For a period of time, I was into doing counted cross stitch. If you're not familiar with this lost art, it is when you use a needle and a bunch of different colored strings to make teeny tiny X's on really pricey special fabric. Repeat until your fingertips are raw, you have a debilitating cramp in your forearm, and you yourself become cross-eyed. Finally, when you fear that you cannot handle even one second more, a beautiful picture appears. After completing a few small projects, I foolishly decided that I was ready to take on the mother of all cross stitch projects. I sauntered over to the local fabric store and chose an extremely intricate pattern of a lovely Victorian bride. Despite the fact that it required about 3500 different colors of embroidery floss and it could have easily been used to decorate the wall of a small castle, I pressed on. It was meant to be a gift for my cousin's wedding but the ceremony came and went and despite pulling a few all-nighters the week of the big event, the project remained unfinished and ungifted. I finally presented it to the bride and groom a year later on their first anniversary. I am pleased to report that the happy couple is about to celebrate their twentieth year of bliss and my doctor says that the feeling in my fingers should be returning any day now.
Perhaps that helps to explain why our attic is like some sort of wayward home for abandoned crafts. Among the victims, are a half finished cross-stitch portrait of Bert and Ernie intended for my best friend's little sister after the birth of her first child. Unfortunately, her son is now eleven and his once insatiable interest in Sesame Street is now hopelessly extinct. There is also half an afghan up there intended for my husband. I began working on it several years ago, and I crocheted religiously for a few months until summer arrived. Completely understandable that fun in the sun would delay things, right? Actually, I never realized the pitfalls of trying to crochet an afghan in the heat of summer in a house that lacks air conditioning. After completing only two rows, I found myself drenched in sweat and coated from head to toe in multicolored bits of yarn fuzz. I looked like a giant walking lint trap. I've been meaning to get back to work on it, but it's summer again. Succumbing to heatstroke in a freak crocheting accident is not part of my grand plan so I promised myself not to go within ten feet of the thing until the leaves start to fall.
There is one more issue that arises when you have a mom, who is capable of creating amazing pieces of loveliness with a few swift motions of her dainty little fingertips. It can sometimes be hard to remember the old saying that practice makes perfect. Full disclosure: As a child, I was not always the best practicer which most likely led to the unfortunate early demise of my baton twirling career. It's probably for the best. I mean when you finally get to the point where you're ready to wave around a metal stick with two flaming fireballs on each end, it is usually not advisable to simply wing it. While the amount of practice required to achieve crafting success is similar, the majority of my mom's projects did not achieve the same level of danger. I say majority because back in the day my mom relied on an old school, heavy-duty industrial strength hot glue gun. There is nothing more death defying than the risk of accidentally adhering your left thumb to a holiday wreath with searing hot liquified glue that oozes out uncontrollably at the same temperature as molten lava.
Even if my mom and I sat down together to engage in a safer endeavor like flower arranging, the importance of practice would still become glaringly apparent. If you were to place our finished masterpieces side by side, you would observe the following. My mom's arrangement would be a thing of beauty, full and balanced and secured with a delicate hand tied bow of bright blue satin. It would rival anything you might find down at the local floral shop. Mine would look like I scooped up a bunch of wildflowers from the backyard, freshly slain by my dad's weed whacker, tied a ratty crooked ribbon around them, and tried to dress the whole mess up by jamming them into a pretty vase. Always positive and encouraging my mom would remind me that her first attempts at flower arranging were fairly disastrous and that it takes patience and practice to improve. In the meantime, I would appreciate any recommendations for a reliable florist. I'm so busy NOT finishing all my other craft projects that I'm just not certain if I can find the time to master artfully positioning posies anytime soon. However, what I do know is that from here on out I will be changing my standard response when people inquire if I, too, am über talented like my amazing mom. I will gracefully reply, "Not yet, but I'm still practicing."
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