Through the Seasons

New Crafts

I’ve begun learning two new crafts.  Cross-stitch and scrapbooking.

I learned to cross-stitch when I was a kid and thought I’d pick it back up.  Well.  I must have been doing kiddie ones too because it’s harder than I remember.  The actual cross-stitching itself isn’t hard but keeping up with the more complex patterns is…and I want to turn my photos into cross-stitch patterns.  But.  Those patterns look extremely complicated so I think I should get my feet wet a bit first. 

One of the things we’re asked to take with us is a small gift for our Tanzanian host family.  I’m cross-stitching a little picture that they can display in their home.  (Apparently, they like things like that.)  I think I can finish the task but not in the amount of time the project suggests is feasible.  They call it a “weekend project”…  Yeah, right.  But that’s okay.  I have a couple months to finish it.  Hopefully it won’t take that long though!

The other craft is scrapbooking.  I’m trying to get into that without losing my mind.  Have you seen this stuff?  Go into a craft store to the “scrapbook” section.  Rows and rows and rows later you’ll be overwhelmed – if you’re new to it anyway.  The store I went into had multiple rows of just stickers!  So I’m meeting with a couple people and finding out what I really need and then going from there.

My one concern with scrapbooking was that it wouldn’t be sustainable on the field.  To my surprise I learned of a craft store in Tanzania that was started by a British missionary to help deaf and disabled people.  These people make colored recycled paper, journals, and other craft supplies.  This store is in the town where we’ll be doing language school and about 5 hours from our permanent location.  That’s actually quite reasonable for us. 

There are a few reasons I’m getting into crafts.  One, for my own entertainment and stress relief.  But a hope I have is to use these things to minister to or interact with the people there.  I envision having a group of ladies over to do a little scrapbook or something.  I really believe the ladies there will also have their own crafts they can share with me.  I’m excited about that!

I’m not generally a crafty person but so far I’ve enjoyed learning about scrapbooking (and I love the idea of preserving my memories in a beautiful way) and trying my hand at cross-stitch.  There’s no telling what God can do with such simple skill sets.