March is (inter)National Craft Month and Kathy Cano-Murillo aka Crafty Chica posed the question and wrote a wonderful blog post on "Why She Crafts". So why do I craft, the question is especially poignant for me this month. My Mom was born at the beginning of March and passed away at the end of March four years ago. The reason I craft, sew and create is because of my parents, my Mom. My first crafty memories are of sitting on the front porch in the summer with my little sewing machine sewing scraps from the material my Mom was making all of our clothes from. She would make herself a dress, me a jumper and my doll a skirt.
One of my other favorite crafty pastimes were the big sheets of newsprint my Mom would fasten up for me on the wall with a house drawn on it. I had the old Sears catalogue, scissors and a bottle of glue. What fun was that furnishing a house!
What is most remarkable is my Mom did all of this with me even though she never knew what it was like to have a mother or a home of her own. I created this Banner of Hope in memory of my Mom for Hope is ...a Place to Call Home.
My Mom was the result of an affair between a young Salvation Army officer and an older married woman he was staying with. A definite scandal in those days. Disgraced her father went into hiding after dropping my mother off at his Aunt's nursing home. Her mother did not want her. There my Mom spent the first six years of her life, her earliest memories of helping out with the residents, not happy ones. She was given a name, Bessie. From there her father picked her up but never said he was her father, she was then boarded out at different places for the next several years, much she would never talk about.
Why I craft, why I am creative is because of my Mother. She was always so proud of what I did and many of my designs would be proudly displayed in her home. She encouraged and supported my "making things".
I sew and craft because time stands still and imagination flows, the results are satisfying and most often make me smile. I went on to have two beautiful daughters and many crafty adventures with them. I love to share my ideas, my projects and techniques, teaching and see the smiles that brings. Basically I just love to make stuff and have found these most wonderful kindred spirits who do too. The most amazing of all, my Mom! With love, Debra
