Sunday, February 27, 2005

Where I Jump On The Real Conversation Bandwagon and Introduce You To My Mother and Our Tacky Past

I took my mom on a yarn buying trip last night. I am probably about ten rows from the completion of El Poncho and hope to post a picture here sometime next week. My mother is queen of most crafting forms. She is a former president of the Scissortail Smockers, the OKC English Handsmocking guild. She once owned her own catering business. She has worked as a floral designer. She sews so well you can wear her clothes wrong side out---her seams look that good. Somehow, she never dabbled in the fiber arts. Yarn has eluded her and so I have run to fill in that gap.

That said, we're at Michael's and I comment on how I fail to understand the cult like status of scrapbookers. Mother is shocked! Scrapbooking is useful! She wishes she had the time to do it! Scrapbookers have something to show for their work!

"Unlike macrame?" I ask. (we had more than a few big planthangers around the house in my youth)

"Shut up or you walk home"

"Ok, first of all, I drove us here. Secondly, I love macrame. It makes me feel safe and young. Just like avocado green appliances and the early music of Olivia Newton-John."

"You had bad taste once too"

"...and VW Bugs, and green AMC Hornet Stationwagons and Chevy Vans with landscapes painted on the side and hand embroidered blouses with my name and a rainbow..."

"Ok, got it!"

1 comment:

Karina. said...

This is another one of those eerie things like with the autoharp, J. Macrame was on my mind this weekend, too. I managed to pass on a handful of books at the OKC libraries fundraiser sale that had hot craft ideas from the early '70s. The hardest one to resist was a general survey of craft of that era - especially for its macrame and terrarium sections. The guilt of unfinished projects I already have, combined with the much better quality books already inherited from my mother, was enough to keep that extra dollar in my pocket.