Create My Happiness

I love to crochet and am always looking for new ideas and techniques to incorporate into my work. Every piece I crochet, I make for someone specific and individualize the work based on who I am giving it to. I find joy in each piece I create and more joy in giving the gifts to the people I love.

My inspiration behind my creative process is my mother. She was a gifted artist in all textiles and worked with different yarns and fabrics to create masterpieces. Mom was an award-winning quilter and knitter. She won blue ribbons and best of show at the local county fairs for many years. In 1985, she was offered $10,000 for her best in show quilt but turned down the offer. The ribbons she won for that quilt hang in my room and that quilt is on my bed. Mom could sew, knit, embroider, draw, and paint. Anything she could imagine, she could create.

At a young age, I was taught how to sew and knit, but never had a passion to create like Mom. When I lost her in 2014, I found solace in my loss at local craft stores. I would wander through rows of fabrics and aisles of yarn touching the fabrics and thinking of all the things Mom could make or rather that I could make. But feeling I could never live up to her legacy, I would leave empty handed and wishing I spent more time learning from her.

When my first granddaughter was born a year after we lost Mom, I felt her loss more keenly, feeling like my grandchildren would miss all those gifts of love she would make. So, I picked up knitting needles and yarn to make Olivia a sweater. I wanted to give her a gift like Mom would have made for her. But I found no joy in creating it and saw every flaw.

My daughter would send me patterns which she liked and would ask me to make them for her growing family. One day, she sent me a hooded blanket pattern that was a fox, but it was crocheting. Mom never crocheted, but I had learned to crochet in 4-H. I figured I could at least make that blanket. With beautiful red bulky yarn, I made the foxy hooded blanket.

That blanket lit a fire in me! I finally found my niche! I started making blankets, hats, toys, and so much more. I finally found happiness in my own creativity. While I will sew or knit to create a specific piece, my joy and happiness is found with a crochet hook and a wide variety of yarn.

I brought into my creative space the tools I learned from Mom. Mom preferred Mary Maxim yarn, the orange handle scissors (we were never allowed to use to cut paper), and the steel knitting needles that would fly in her hands. I took those ideal tools and purchased my own Mary Maxim yarn, my first pair of Fiskars scissors, and steel crochet hooks. As I grew in my craft, I did find my own preferred variety of yarn and crochet hooks but found Fiskars scissors and rotary cutters are the best.

I learned from other crocheters and found my favorite teachers. Over the past year, I found myself drawn to Mosaic crochet and watched some videos to learn how to read the pattern and create these gorgeous designs. I love how Mosaic crochet is so texturized with each row reaching into other rows to create beautiful intricate details.

My current project which I am passionate about is being done in this Mosaic crochet technique. In Mosaic crochet, each row is worked on the right side of the piece and cut at the end of the row. So, my Fiskars scissors are as important in creating this blanket as my crochet hook. I am making this blanket for my 11-year-old grandson. The pattern I am using is called Apache Tears and a tribute to his great-great grandmother who was Native American.

The blanket uses a geometric pattern found in Native designs and has drop-down stitches that represents the tears. This pattern represents the great loss of Apache warriors who rode their horses off a cliff to avoid capture or death by soldiers and the tears their families shed when hearing about their deaths. But is can also represents the tears shed by other Native Americans who also suffered great losses.

For my grandson, I am making this blanket as a way to share with him his heritage in the Iroquois culture. I want to share with him this wonderful woman that I loved who was affectionately called Grandma Betty. She shared with me stories of her parents and her life that I want to pass on to him through this blanket. I want him to feel connected to her and when he uses this blanket remember her.

When I look at this blanket, I do not just see the tears, but the beauty of a family entwined with each row of the Mosaic. Each color of the pattern stands alone as a unique piece of beauty that wraps around other colors to create this beautiful piece. This blanket is much like our family, a unique blend of Native American, French Canadian, German, and Eastern European that make each of us unique but still a part of the Mosaic that is our family.