I really have been sewing, but we're now on new computer #2 and we (Dave) still need to download Picasa, so no pictures yet. In the meantime, an observation:
Yesterday at lunch I was plugged into my iPod and happily stitching away adding beads to my little blue pitcher. The IS guy wandered into the lunchroom, stopped, shook his head and said "that looks so odd...it's like...2 different generations." He was referring to the fact that I was stitching while listening to an iPod. Of course, there's nothing at all odd about the iPod. It's all about the stitching baby. A while back, Gabrielle noted that doing handwork is a political choice. That really resonated with me. Choosing to create at all in this hurry-up world is a statement, a conscious choice about how I will spend my time. It's a choice that not many people make these days, thus the comment about it being odd.
When my grandma died last month, I remembered again how both she and grandpa worked with their hands to create things. Grandma liked to crochet and grandpa was a very skilled carpenter. In addition the fact that I just plain old like to do it, handwork gives me a connection to them. I guess the IS guy was right, it is 2 different generations.
3 comments:
As part of the "older generation" I have an inherent mistrust of technology. Hold off and hold off until I'm sure they've got the kinks out of it and that I REALLY need to have it. Yet here I am with my computerized sewing machine, digital camera, computer software AND a blog to help me with this age-old tradition.
Wonderful stuff, all this gadgetry...but I STILL find all that handwork immensely rewarding and relaxing (well, usually ;-])and giving a different look sometimes than the machine work does. I describe myself as standing firmly with one foot in the 19th century and the other planted in the 21st. That's quite a straddle!
Nikki,
Your Grandma spent hours hand overcasting seams, because she said it 'relaxed her.' Here's to all of us who straddle 2 centuries! I think the day we give up creating works of art with our hands is the day part of our souls start to shrivel up.
Nikki, I could not have said it better. We can live in both places in time, giving them both their fair due....filling our souls planted firmly in the new and the old. You have inspired me to pull out the quilt I brought with me on my teaching trip and of course, I am telling you this via the internet.
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