Joy is a reason

I love days when I get to craft. I find all sorts of reasons to craft. For example: Lessons that I teach, holidays, Birthdays, Ground Hog Day, etc. I bought a lot of Christmas cards on sale that nobody wanted. So now I get to decide what fun things can I do with them. (I found a lot of fun things to do with them. If I know your mailing address you might be getting some.) Any day that I can use a glue gun, pom poms, and wiggly eyes for a project is a good day. For Christmas this year I had 3 dozen nice pillar candles that I bought in January 3 years ago when no one wanted them, and combined them with some fuzzy yarn and bells that I bought 5 years ago in March and turned them into wonderful Christmas gifts. I have fun crafting from things in my stash.
– Mom

Tuesday night I sat down on the rug in front of the couch (because I’ve never been one to sit in chairs) and pulled out my box of yarn and my knitting needles. And I started knitting a pencil. Brett asked me why I was knitting it. I paused. Thought about it. And the only reasons I could think of was because I could and because it is cute. And it is cute. :pencil:

Am I supposed to have a reason to make things? I know at times I do. I made myself a sling bag out of a pair of Brett’s pants (they had a hole in them so he was done with them) last week. But if I had just been making it to be functional it wouldn’t have been so cute. Instead I fussied it up (in true folk art fashion – adding beauty to your everyday life) by using two of the belt loops from the pants to hold a turtle “belt” around the top and I embroidered a turtle and two flowers on the bottom (first time doing a daisy stitch and first time getting a french knot to actually knot!). It was the perfect bag for the weekend, held my wallet, camera, sunglasses and phone perfectly. And it is cute. :turtle:

So I guess I do make a lot of things for specific reasons. The pencil was the first time I’d knitted with more than one color, so I learned that skill while I was doing it. But I didn’t knit it to learn the skill. I learned the skill because I needed the skill to make what I wanted to (which is how that usually works for me). However we also have a lot of things, particularly blankets, like the one on the back of the couch right now, that I made just because I could and because I wanted to. It made me happy.

Can I make something just because? Yes. Yes, I can.

Creating. Crafting. Making things. They bring joy to my life. Whether there is a functional reason or not there is something deeply fulfilling about taking some raw materials, be they yarn or fabric or ingredients or anything else, and making something useful or beautiful out of them.

It is participating in the divine.

The Creator of the plan of happiness is also the Creator of all the beauty we see around us. I’ve had several occasions to wonder if something was created simply for the joy and beauty of it.