Crafty Memories

I found some crafty inspiration today - some cute gift tags on Sublime Stitching’s blog.  I will try to make some of these this week.  I haven’t really done much embroidery in my crafting life… well, I can think of one very memorable embroidery project…

My mum and auntie’s were always very good at thinking of fun crafts for us to make.  Clearly this was a favourite activity for me to do, because I can still remember some of the crafts that we spent hours creating together. 

I remember one summer mum killed two birds with one crafting stone.  A fun summer crafting project, which turned into a Christmas gifts for our grandmas.  Mum is so clever!  What was it? Hand embroidered tea towels.    I’m not sure how this project came about.  Perhaps mum had visions of her children embroidering tea towels with love and that these tea towels would be cherished by our grandmother’s, or perhaps it was to teach us an important lesson about investing time and energy into making a handmade gift for someone special, or … more than likely…it was to keep us out of trouble for a little while, because how much trouble can three girls get into with some tea towels, embroidery floss and needles? I’m pretty sure that we embroidered 2 towels each. 

I remember struggling along, trying to follow the cross stitch pattern.  My stitching wasn’t very good.  

I think I churned out the first one pretty quickly and then mum likely had to hound me to finish the other (I hate to admit).  But, we finally finished and they were sent off to our Grandmas for Christmas.  I have no idea how old I was.  Maybe 8?        

Imagine my surprise when a little while ago, my Grandma W. re-gifted one of these tea towels back to me.  I wonder if she ever used it, because it seems like it's in pretty good shape.  Maybe she decided that it was too nice to use?  Well, I'm happy to report that it is now in circulation at my house!