Crafting: Joy is in the threads!

Crafting is something I have always done. Though over the past few years, I have been diving deeper and taking on more difficult projects and love the challenges they bring. Crafting is a skill that connects us to our past, for myself, it is something that both my mother and I share. I feel it is a communication between generations as the traditions are passed down. My mother learned from her Mother and mother-in-law, and in turn taught me. side note: My grandmother wrote her own patterns, but used her own abbreviations, so I have had to learn what is the general abbreviations compared to hers, it has been a great adventure!
I have taken on knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch, and many more!
The time I spend on these projects, I never feel is wasted. It helps me to concentrate and to find joy in the mistakes and acceptance in the need that it not be perfect.
One time I made a blanket that I called my mistake blanket (It is great experiment for anyone who focuses too much on perfection) and I crocheted the blanket and its squares mistakes and all, if I added a stitch, it would stay, drop a stich same thing, use the wrong color next, let it be. It was a great project and the blanket though a bit misshapen, it was beautiful mistakes and all.
Handicrafts like these have for a long tome been part of woman's work, and today I see it as a way of taking up space instead of time for women. Crafting once was a way to keep woman in the upper classes busy, but today I see it as a way to slow down and take a break from all the technology around us, and to reconnect with our past.