“Boredom is a sin, an insult to God to ignore all his miracles.”
Thomas Alvin Bessey, AKA Dad
In March of 2020, I qualified in all the serious risk categories for Covid.
Uh oh. I think I have a problem.
I was grounded by my doctor but it didn’t bother me as much as I expected because I am so easily entertained.
I love crafting and I had years’ worth of half-finished projects stuffed into closets and cabinets because I was pouting. That’s right…feeling sorry for myself because I’d had several brilliant ideas for original hand-crafted gifts only to discover that someone else was doing the same thing.
Folks were stealing my ideas. (If one more person tells me, “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery”, I will scream!)
Here’s an example: One Christmas, I made seventy-five gorgeous broaches for my therapy clients using Grandma’s old buttons, and some hand-collected beach glass, only to find nearly identical, mass-produced pins at Nordstrom’s! (How grandiose am I, thinking Nordstroms stole my idea?)
But the theft kept happening. Each time one of my brilliant ideas was “stolen”, I had a silent tantrum, and filled with self-pity, I stuffed another incomplete project into a grocery bag and hid it in a cupboard.
Then a beloved mentor told me I was looking at it all wrong.
“No one’s stealing your ideas. You’re simply tapping into the artistic collective consciousness.”
Ahh, exactly what I needed to hear. I accepted her wisdom and committed to finishing my abandoned projects while in isolation. I had beaded necklaces and bracelets using clever magnetic closures, piles of hand-stitched baby blankets with matching burp cloths for my childbirth clients, picture frames and treasure boxes adorned with beach-glass and shells, ruffle-edged, crocheted infinity scarves, and several mixed media collages and mosaics.
That was a huge pile of unfinished stuff, just hanging around, making me feel bad about myself.
Suddenly Covid Lockdown became a gift!
In a race against my rapidly progressing arthritis, while binge-watching movies and TV shows, I picked up a project and completed it. And then another, and another…
As I worked, I took the time to think about the person it was for—client, friend, neighbor or family member–and then finished it for them.
My pile of incompletes dwindled significantly, but my collection of craft supplies did not.
I was not done.
So, I crocheted 5 more baby blankets, adorned 15 found hubcaps turning them into painted and beaded Mandalas, dried hundreds of flowers for collected thrift store vases, handmade 60 Holiday Cards with flowers and feathers, and designed 25 framed collages with inspirational quotes.
What in the world could I do with all the rest of these supplies?
Though I’d completed my projects, I still had lifelong collections of beads, buttons, beach glass, photos for cards, yarn, shells, rocks, paints, feathers, fabric, etc.
I had to give it away because if Covid took me, no one would know the stories and history behind my collections. I’m talking about beads in their original glass tubes from little shops in the 1960’s Haight-Ashbury district, and buttons from the 1800’s that came across the plains with my ancestors in wagon trains, or the glass I picked up off remote beaches on uninhabited islands in Fiji!
To avoid all the existential angst that “give-away” task produced, I decided to ignore it and instead, check out the Instagram thing everyone had been telling me about.
Ironically, coincidentally and fortuitously, the second post I saw on Instagram was about this non-profit project called Loose Ends*–a name that jumped off the screen because in two little words, it captured the biggest focus of my current life. I watched the piece and burst into tears of joy and gratitude!
Their mission?
“the Loose Ends Project aims to ease grief, create community,
and inspire generosity by matching volunteer handwork finishers
with projects people have left unfinished due to death or disability.”
Best anti-depressant ever! And an answer to a prayer I hadn’t known I’d been praying.
I’d found a perfect home for my treasured crafting supplies.
Addendum:
Recently I moved and James built me a lovely studio, so I have a place to continue crafting whenever the urge strikes.
But after it was all set up, to my horror (and secret delight), I still had to rent a storage unit.
Can you guess what this unit contains?
Uh oh. I think I have a problem.
