Blast from the Past: I Didn’t Just Cross-Stitch

My ‘craftiness’ hasn’t been limited to just cross-stitch projects.

I’ve sewn a few things — never got good at it; probably because I didn’t much care for sewing.  And still don’t.  Ask me to hem something and you might as well ask me to jump in a lake somewhere!

I’ve done quite a bit of knitting — one of my first projects was an evening gala outfit consisting of a halter top and a floor-length tube skirt in a fancy pattern (I’ll have to see if I can dig up a photo); I also made the usual scarves, shawls, and throws.  I still knit on occasion; mostly when mom is visiting and we can share the hobby.

I tried my hand at crocheting — I still use the spider web shawl I made in the 1970s; I also made an afghan or two, and a granny-square footstool for my father.  I gave up crocheting as I found it to be too repetitive.

When we were living in Salt Lake City in the 1980s, I gave ceramics a whirl.  Now, don’t get the idea that I threw pottery or anything.  Nope, the wheel was not for me.  I simply painted and decorated unfinished forms at a local studio; the firing of the finished product was included in the price of the item.  Boy did I make a lot of things — for us and as gifts for others.  What few I kept are already packed up for storage, but I found a few photos from way back (mostly of the gift items I made).

Left: nursery Lamp; gift when my brother’s first son was born.
right: gift for my brother; he was interested in native american culture.

Gift for Mui; for his basement office
(sadly this was broken in the move from Utah to Virginia.)

Gifts and a few items for us.
I made the chicken (or is it a duck) for mom’s kitchen (yes, it traveled to Turkey).  the nativity in the bottom corner was for one of my aunts; the orange cornucopia was for another aunt.  the three other items were for us; some fell victim to accidental breakage while others found good homes elsewhere when we moved from Utah to Virginia.

Award winning ceramics projects.
the wreath decorated our home for many years; the color in the bottom photo is truer than the one above that shows the wreath decorated with dried baby’s breath.  (I wish I had a close up of this one; the detail was amazing.)  The deer sat by our fireplace for many-a-Christmas before one of them broke at the neck.  The Christmas candy dish was a gift; as was the Halloween spook light.

  I wonder what other treasures the photo-scanning project is going to uncover :-)