Measuring Time in Unfinished Craft Projects
Four years ago, I started knitting a light blue sweater. It was to have black stripes, and four smooth buttons down the front. On ambitious days, I considered adding a hood. At the time, I was six months pregnant with Axel. By November, Axel had arrived, and the yarn had formed into a cap, booties, and half of a sweater.
I picked up the same yarn again, a year and a half later, thinking I’d finish the sweater for my next baby. By the time Jonas arrived, I’d finished a single lopsided sleeve. I should’ve refashioned it as a vest for my July baby, who wasn’t in need of sweaters anyway.
The same thing’s happened with a half dozen other craft projects – the felt books I planned to make as Christmas gifts for the boys and my niece are nothing but a bag full of fabric and buttons, with one lonely finished pirate ship page. The pepper seeds Axel and I started indoors went unwatered. Jeans with holes in the knees sit on the washing machine, next to a pile of patches and my dust covered sewing machine. Parts for Halloween costumes stay around through the summer, in the hopes that the boys will want to be astronauts again next year (and will miraculously fit into the same sized costume).
Lots of inspiration, and very little follow through.
By the time I think I’ll be able to finish something, my kids have outgrown it.
There’s something about homemade things as a sweet, heartfelt gesture. I think of all the Halloween costumes my own mother made for me, the curtains she sewed, the quilts she’s made for my sons, the knitted baby blankets from my grandmother, and I want to do the same for my boys. And I will, just as soon as I figure out how to cram a few more hours in the day. Whereas the light purple ruffled dress my mama made for me said, “Love you sweetie,” the half-knit sweater says, “Love you babies, but I got kinda busy.”
About the only homemade projects I finish up these days are food-related. We bake cookies and bread, and in one inspired weekend canned applesauce.
More pressing things, like laundry and work and trips to the park and building a train out of Legos and making dinner and scrubbing crayon marks off of the walls, elbow their way ahead of crafting in the never-ending to do list. Projects that should take weeks to finish take months – or even years, in the case of the unfinished baby sweater. When I’m finally able to sit down and knit again, I’ll be making the sweater for my grandchildren. It’ll have taken something like thirty years to finish it up, and, with any luck, by then, it will be adorably retro.
Don’t give yourself too hard a time for thing like this. Your mom has time to make quilts because she no longer has little kids running around or older ones to drive around. Plus you probably have way bigger meals to make and twice as much laundry to wash or at least you will. Your kids don’t need to look upon something to remember how great a mother you are. They will have the memories of you spending time with them, which to your kids will be worth more than a million handmade sweaters anyday.
I completely get that. Fortunately, I pushed through and partly filled out my 3 year old’s baby book. But, my 17 month old’s baby book has a couple of notes and that is it. I started cross stitching what I now realize is a very challenging and time-consuming Christmas stocking when I was pregnant with number one. It still isn’t finished. I desperately want to make one not only for both my boys, but for the third child I hope to have some day – I joke I hope to have it done before they graduate from high school. My mom didn’t do anything like that for my sister or I and I don’t feel any worse for the wear for it, but it is something I want to do for them.
Sometimes it gets me down and I feel like I just can’t get anything “extra” done – nothing beyond the basics (dishes, laundry, dinner, etc.). There is never time to work on the Christmas stocking or baby books unless I make a point of not doing something that needs to be done and that is frustrating.
But, I know my very active boys love me and I know they know I love them very much as well and really, that is going to get them a lot farther in life than a homemade Christmas stocking.
You know, maybe when your kids are older you can do those things together. I had fun teaching my nine-year-old a bit about sewing and knitting recently. Maybe doing some of those crafts as a family will make them more special. (But I know the frustration of unfinished projects, so you have my sympathy!)
KRM – I just put something in each of their baby books last month. Yeah, it took awhile to get to it.
Kori – good point and, I think that, in this area as in so many other things, I need to lower my expectations and just accept that finished projects will be few and far between for now.
I’ll make you feel better. My best friend is very crafty and scrapbooky and such. (Actually most of my friends are…weird..) I can barely put a sticker on straight. So, my dear friend made my twins’ scrapbook for me! Complete pages! A bath page. A brothers page. Etc. All I had to do was print the pictures, paste, and label with a date.
My twins are 3 and a half.
Do you even need to ask if I’ve done it?