You may have already seen this article from April, but I figured it was worth sharing.
Titled “How Crafting Can Help Ease Pandemic Anxiety,” it says what I know just about all stitchers already know. The work we do with our hands is so very important to us as individuals on so many different levels.
The author writes:
“I’ve turned to old-fashioned crafts in recent weeks to calm my anxieties, to hold something tangible in my hands and my thoughts while uncertainty swirls around me. “
I will, of course, argue with her adjective of “old-fashioned” since what we do, whether it be stitching or quilting or knitting (what she mentions most), are most certainly fresh and relevant and important in the present, not just a relic of the past. That said, for an article trying to explain the feelings and the desire to create to a larger audience, she makes all the right points. While we don’t need a pandemic to know this, I think all stitchers find a comfort in their work on a daily basis. For some, it is an escape; others call it something closer to meditation.
She ends with this:
“Above all, they show creation. To crochet, or to knit, or to block out an image in cross-stitch or needlepoint, is both to make something and to make sense of it, turning a slack piece of string into something with recognizable function and form. All of us amateur crafters alone in our rooms are filling our empty spaces, each shaping a single tenuous strand into something with strength and body. We are making something lasting out of solitude.”
Indeed.
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