In The Beginning

I'm reposting one of my early blogs from two years ago since I know many of you viewers hadn't found me yet.




















































Let's go back a few years ago to when my crafting first took wings.


My mother who had had a good liberal arts education was determined to have artistic children or at least provide us with every opportunity to express ourselves artistically. We had family projects at the round clawfoot kitchen table.


  Whether it was playdough, clay or paints and paper, we were given free range to create. She didn't feel particularly artistically talented herself but she always seemed to be involved in crafts too. I think she knitted over 200 sweaters during my teen years. She crocheted and did the ubiquitous 70's crewel embroidery on burlap. She was more comfortable following other's patterns and then she became a veritable machine at cranking out items.
  
 We entered into a business relationship as I would bring her crocheted rug yarn purses to high school to sell. They were $4 each and I got $1 for every one I sold. (Record albums or concert tickets ran about $5 each those days!) Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, here I come!

 It was then that I began my first hobby of embroidery. Embellishing jeans was all the rage. I had one pair of super bellbottoms that I got at age 13 that I started on as the wear began. Layers upon layers until we had to add side panels as my 107 lb body shaped into a tad more womanly shape. (Well, I was pretty much a stick even after I filled out another 10 lbs. I was sometimes still mistaken for a boy as a teenager) I also didn't have much confidence in my own drawing abilities and used other people's images as my patterns for my patches.


 What I really liked to do was make patches for my friends for their jeans. I would work on my patches for several days after school and give them as random gifts to people that I thought were special. (usually boys, I think)


 What you see here is my first real body of work. They are better preserved since there's not a chance that I could fit in them these days. These jeans are over 40 years old now although the embroidery is a young 39 year old or thereabouts.