Connections Across Time and Space

Saturday evening I sat down to start the hot pads I picked up yarn for a couple weeks back in Amsterdam as a simpler project than my cabled socks.

We had a busy afternoon out acquiring much wanted but less essential items that took a back seat until we had more critical household items complete. For instance, acquiring and assembling beds, wardrobes and the like was more imortant that popping in and out of boutiques looking for the perfect teapot. As of last weekend, all major furniture was assembled and in place. So Saturday was teapot hunting and checking off some other little fun tasks. Perfect teapot aquired:

Sitting with my crochet and my tea (from our new teapot, yay!), I thought about how much craft connects me to family and friends, across time and space. As I mentioned in my Coffee Cozy post, I generally craft wearable items. I was stepping outside my comfort zone with the cozy. One exception though has always been crocheted hotpads.

I grew up with ones my mom made for our kitchen, and so as an adult it’s always been natural to have my own crocheted hot pads. I left my last set in the states, much begraggled and just not worth carting across the ocean. However, it’s the little things that make a home and so as we move from big items to little, I decided it’s time to make my hotpads. I’m using the same basic pattern my mom always did: make a chain and then single or double crochet up one side, down the other, and keep spiralling around until it folds onto itself in a square two layers thick.

So that’s the first connection – across time back to my mom and the hotpads I used througout my childhood, then forward to the ones I and my husband used daily in our first home together, and now there will be a new set for us here in Germany. Here is the first hotpad, ready for use:

Then, I realize I am wearing the crochet shawl AwesomeE made me. It’s made in large part from locally dyed yarn I brought back from a trip several years ago to Sweden. It’s also from cotton fingering in bright cheerful colors, like the yarn I am using for my hotpads. This creation has travelled back and forth between continents and between people as it went from yarn to shawl, moving from Europe to the US and back to Europe, from me, to my best friend and back to me.

Displayed here on that wardrobe we builtlast weekend:

Which, by the way, was AwesomeE’s first crochet project, and I am honored to own it.

And for me, all of this really just proves why crafts should be shared and used because even if they are eventually used up and gone, like all those past hotpads, the connection it helped form still remains.