It pains me so much when people look at my crafts (be it cross-stitch, beads, or chainmail-jewelry), and the first thing out of their mouths/fingers is, Oh, its beautiful, but I could never do that! I understand the feeling: my first response when I look at knitting-projects, or wire-sculpture, or quilting, etc, is very much the same. But then I look at how I got into cross-stitch or chainmail. I saw something beautiful in that format/style and said, Thats beautiful! I want to do that. And I did some research (be it using Google, or before that, reading the back of a project-kit package) and decided it was something I was capable of doing. So I ordered parts or bought the kit and followed the directions. And voila! My first piece may not have been as beautiful as the piece that inspired me to try, but I proved to myself that I had the dexterity and the intelligence to assemble the parts in the same way my inspiration-piece had been assembled. That meant I could do it again, in a similar process and with slightly different parts, and make something else. And in time, with enough practice and enough courage to try variants on the process Id learned, I would eventually be skilled enough to make something like the piece that inspired me (if I even remembered what that piece was by then!). Witness cross-stitcher beginners moving from stamped Xes on a piece of cloth, to a paper pattern and freehand stitches on large-weave cloth with cotton embroidery floss, to using finer and finer weave cloth and silk threads on original grids of their own design. Every craft has a progression, an evolution from coarse to fine, and there are masterworks possible at every step of the way. As Mom used to tell me, Dont be so quick to give up. Even if it looks really complicated, its rarely so complicated that it cant be done. Maybe you cant do it yet (trust me, there are some chainmail weaves that Im far from being brave enough to try yet), but you work your way up to that. If it interests you enough, try to do it. Pleasantly surprise yourself when you succeed. Think about things down the road that you could do with this skill (Ive gotten the hang of a number of unit-weaves in chainmail, and someday, I could assemble a bunch of units into a belt, or a shirt...). Be your own inspiration. Give yourself ideas. Budget and plan and make yourself happy at the thought of making something so cool and unique. But dont discourage yourself at the beginning by saying, I could never... You can, always.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 20:02:54 +0000
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