Tag: painting

I don’t know about any of you, but I know I have times when I would love the world to stop so I could get off for just a wee while. I am a very busy person by my nature, I cannot just sit down, I detest having nothing to do and I love being able to potter around creating crafty masterpieces (not that I ever really achieve the latter very often). Even when sitting in boring meetings I have doodled my agenda in the most fascinating ways. Recently someone created the ‘Zentangle’ phenomena that has made colouring and doodling a fun activity for adults and children alike. Art therapy is now widely recognised as having major benefits to illness recovery.

I remember being in hospital when I was about 10 years old (a very long time ago) and the most awful thing was the boredom – but the best time was when we went to ‘school’. This was a room in the ward where a teacher was employed to work with us. It wasn’t like school really – we did a lot of drawing and painting and making of things. My crafty recovery carried on when I left hospital and I spent time with a family friend who taught me to crochet. Over my month of rehab I became very proficient at making glitzy skull caps! (Well it was the 70’s!).

I have many customers that call into the shop for craft kits or project resources when they are about to set off on holiday. The rest, the peace and quiet, the time to absorb themselves in a craft means they feel refreshed and revitalised when they return. There are those that search for a craft for someone else to do whilst they are laid up with illness or injury. So many times people turn to craft for their therapy and this makes me think that we all have a need to be creative or constructive at times. Why is this? I know there is a great sense of achievement when that project is completed. I know that a knitting or crochet project allows for some thinking time whilst wielding the pins or hooks. I know that most crafts can be achieved whilst relatively immobile. Is this just twitchy fingers or is there something that our soul needs?

There are many quotes out there that suggest this is an age old state of mind…

“Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied.”  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, 1859

• Sewing mends the soul
• Stitch your stress away
• May your bobbin always be full
• Any day spent sewing is a good day

All of these are credited to the ‘Unknown Author‘ but how right they are!

How about this one? – “The innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care…”
~William Shakespeare (was he a crafter?)

I have a customer that has had a rough time with illness over the last 18 months but all through this time she has had her crafting skills to see her through. She has managed to knit, sew, crochet and other crafts even at the most tiring time of the treatments and it has helped her to mend. This week I had a young customer in with his mum, he was suffering with a rotten bug and was quite weary. Obviously school was not going to feature in his day but he still wanted to do something (I don’t think he was old enough to have caught man-flu!). He settled on creating something with felt and bright stranded threads, and of course the googly eyes.

So from this I have to extend my intended thoughts to the whole craft world and not just the sewing world. Quite definitely, Crafting mends the soul….