Crafty heritage

[mirz]

Also posted at Glitter and Graftster.

As you may know, I'm working on my thesis. And from time to time I have questions about things. Now I would like to ask about your crafty heritage. Please bear with me.

Traditions:

• Have your parents, grandparents etc. shared spiritual heritage with you?
  (Taught you basic things like mending clothes, washing different kind of laundry, wisdom you need the most in your life. What kind of things have you been learning?)
  
• Have they taught you some special crafty skills?
  
• Have you on your behalf taught someone else, like your child, friend etc.?
  
• Does your family have traditions when talking about crafts?
  
• Does your family and friend have tendency to get together?
  (If so, to do what?)
  

Please feel free to discuss about this thing.

I have lately talked about this heritage thing with my mother, and we are now going to transfer some wisdom from mother to daughter. Our society doesn't necessarily need me to know how to make apple jam, but this is one of those things my mother is going to teach me.

I feel that it is very important to learn things from your parents and grandparents etc. It bonds generations and family. Of course I have learned things before, but know I really know what I am learning. I'm not only improving my kitchen etc. skills, I'm part of long line.

My family doesn't have tendency of getting together, unless it's someone birthday or something like that. We don't have shared "making food" moments or anything like that. It would be nice though. Our specialities definitely are in kitchen, and probably I have unnoticeably been part of those special moments when something important was shared.

But enough about me, what about your heritage?
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<3

[Becky65301]

The women in my family have a long history of crafting, and I was around it from very early on.

My great-grandma worked many years doing factory sewing, and later worked at an alterations shop. She used razor blades instead of a seam ripper, and she used to draft her own patterns on old newspaper. Had a sewing room, total firetrap in retrospect, I spent many hours in there making Barbie clothes out of scraps. She had me on the sewing machine when I was about 8. Until I hit about 5th grade, she made ALL my clothes (except underwear, haha), all of them, an entire collection of classic polyester pantsuits appropriate for the 70's.

Likewise, my grandma and mom can both sew, although they never took it to the same level as she did. They had other crafts they preferred. Mom can paint really well, and does ceramics. My grandma was a locally very well-known china painter and also made porcelain dolls. So I was exposed to those things as well. It seemed natural and obvious that I majored in Costume Design, combining the drawing skills with the sewing. I was the first to pursue a degree in it and kinda took the whole thing in a different direction.

My "heritage" story: When I started kindergarten, my great-grandma made me a jumper to wear for Valentine's day. It was a basic red gathered skirt and waistband, with a bib and straps. The bib was shaped like a heart and she embroidered "I Love You" with white thread. I wore it to school kindergarten, and every year she would get it back out, let out the waist a bit, let down the hem a bit, let out the straps... I wore that same jumper every year thru 5th grade! I have no idea how she made it to let out <that much> but it always managed to fit, it must have had like a 2 foot hem. In 6th grade I rebelled and refused to wear it. Years and years later, we were cleaning out her house, she was quite a packrat and Depression-era, and I found the jumper. The "I Love You" bib is in my display cabinet. It is so tiny!

Edited to add: The women in my family can't cook for s**t, and are not known for any other domestic skills. So I was on my own with those things. We (DH and I) are also now creating new traditions for our kids, like at Christmas and such, because neither one of our families had huge traditions like that, and I really want to do that for our kids.

[lizzymahoney]

As a little kid, my mother was the leader for my sister's Camp Fire Girl group. They did so many crafty things, in part because she didn't have anyone to tell her they didn't have to make all of the ideas Camp Fire Girls gave them. They had seasonal bazaars and learned embroidery and hiked nature trails. Lots of stuff like that.

My mother grew up in the Depression. Girls back then learned fine hand sewing, gardening, cooking, decorating, etc. Her mother and five sisters all did stuff like that. Her father had a workshop in the basement with neat old tools and things I played around with as a child.

I embroidered way before my first recollection of it, oddly. I can remember way back to something that happened when I was 18 months old, but can't remember learning to cook or to embroider. Let's say I had to be under five years old.

So with Camp Fire Girls, I played with paints and clay and beads and whittling and natural dyes, made collages and wreaths and Xmas ornaments. I read anything remotely crafty that came in the house, so even my brothers' Boy Scout books were fair game.

My father's mother was a cook who never measured anything. Not particularly crafty otherwise as i recall. But a few of her many kids had some talents in needlecraft and art. My Dad danced and told stories, but was otherwise not very creative.

My mother's sisters had a lot of influence on me, too. Some had very elegant homes and expensive tastes so I learned some high end domestic stuff from them, like old Lena who had her brass switchplates refinished every year. Her husband gardened with some unusual old world methods that still stick with me. Bertha was eccentric and well off. Also well-travelled. She was an excellent cook. She and I could analyze a dish of something we'd never tasted before and figure out proportions of spices and cooking methods. Anna was a nut-job who was a scrounger extraordinaire, but also a psychotic clean freak. We foraged for wild asparagus and mushrooms, made birch syrup and scrubbed the stove vents every day. Charlotte crochets and sews beautifully, and bakes terrible but pretty cakes. Rickey watched soap operas. Oh, and sewed like fifty versions of the same dress.

My mother's cousin Bobbi sewed semi-professionally. Back then, women really didn't work outside the home if they could help it, but her talents with a machine kept her busy helping neigbors for a little pin money. There are photos and memories of dresses she sewed for me. Smocking and pinafores and plackets, dotted swiss and batiste and velvet.

One of my first cousins on my mother's side is an artist. She was told in the mid sixties that she needed a practial degree, so she went for nursing which she still does. She is very like me in that she'll just decide to move that tree over here and make a topiary of it, and paint one wall eggplant just because. We both have done things that we have only heard the other talk about. It's interesting to see what we come up with, but that's not why we do it. Actually, once I was commenting on the way cool lamp she made out of a gilded stack of books tied with ribbon. Her mom looked at me and said I was the one who told her about it. We both just brim with ideas, way more than we can execute. She doesn't paint much anymore, but I have a few canvases she did in her teens, one of peonies, one of lilacs, and one of an historic building in her old town, and I wish I knew where her very primitive southwestern seraped boy with donkey that hung in my grandparents house is now. I'm sure she had to be like ten when she painted that one. Admittedly, I don't want any of my paintings from when I was ten, either.

My sister has picked up creative efforts only as a mature adult. PTA and Amway crap. Someone needed to do posters or decorate the hall, so she got some advice over the phone and just did it. And has continued to do it for years. Her cooking sucks, although she gets major points for trying. She just forgets to do things like cook the rice before adding to that recipe, or that 5lbs of flour is not the same as five cups.

Not only did the family members teach me and teach others, but people I've taught have taught others as well. You learn certain types of things and then extrapolate to another medium. I was a good cook. I taught myself to homebrew. I taught others who weren't good cooks to home brew.

My nieces and nephews are not very crafty. Not yet, anyway. THey like my crafty things, but are not motivated to do for themselves yet. Huh, save one. She's 8 and her mother buys those crappy craft kits where they follow the box directions and make the suncatcher or potholder. She can't translate that to random raw materials yet.

My second oldest niece is married. Her MIL is kinda tacky nouveau riche. She has this butt ugly Santa hooked rug hanging that she f*d up and needed some rescuing. The niece said she'd get her mother to give it to her aunt (me) to fix it because I can fix anything. Damn, the repairs are elevating this piece of crap to a new level. But I've pawned it off on my mom now. I have the concept, the pieces cut, the trim, the method to hang it, etc, and she's my slave labor.

I tried to get a creative circle journal going between my sister, niece and me, but the other two couldn't manage to put f'ing stickers in it and send it on. Kind of wasted my time in collaging pages for them and writing bits of poetry for it. I even enclosed stickers and pens and ribbons and tape, but nada.

My sister's history of shared crafting with me has been frightening. If I were normal I would disown her. She gave me a pinafore for her daughter that had to be embroidered in three hours before the wedding we all attended. She wanted satin stitch. My ass. She invited me for the Christmas holidays and I wound up wrapping all the gifts, cooking all the food, including staying up until 4 am boning chicken and mincing carrots for a terrine she didn't know how to make but thought would look cool.

Her daughter's DIY wedding turned out to be a get auntie to do-it-herself wedding.

But I will say she does fine self taught calligraphy.

[cinderellen]

My parents were also born during the Depression. I think that's one reason why Mom learned to do so many things, and to teach me to do so many. She started teaching me to cook when I was four years old, and to embroider. My the time I was out of high school I could sew, crochet, knit and cook. I knew how to make jam and pickles, and could get a family meal on the table all at the same time and all piping hot from whatever we happened to have in the kitchen. I could shop for groceries, do laundry and cleaning for a family and balance a checkbook. I tell people I was trained to be a 50's housewife. I think these days these skills are underrated, but what is the point of having a good job and coming home to chaos?

We made all of our special occasion clothes, and most of our school clothes. Mom taught all of the neighborhood ladies to crochet and did everyone's taxes. We also cut each others hair - sometimes with good results, and sometimes not!

Mom is still learning new things - in recent years she's learned to quilt, play the guitar, do faux painting techniques in her home, and has taken up oil painting. Her mother and sister are crafty, her father and brothers are handy (some living and some not, but I don't want to mix tenses). One of my brothers is handy and one not. My sister is crafty too.

My oldest girl is crafty and a fine cook, my son likes to cook for friends and knows how to crochet and do small home repairs (16 and learning), but my younger daughter has no interest at all in crafts of any kind.

For a long time I thought it was a generational thing, but it seems hand crafts of all kinds are coming back. I think cheap, flashy goods are losing their appeal and younger crafters are learning to appreciate the magic of handmade goods.
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honi soit qui mal y pense

[mirz]

Is there anyone out there, who has learned all the things at school or in some crafty groups (organization groups) or is self-taught?

If there is, it would be great if you could write about how do you feel about this heritage thing. Does it bother that your parents etc. haven't taught you these things, or something like that.

Before my country Finland was independent and before wars people did do almost everything by themselves, and these skills automaticly transfered from generation to generation. But machines and women having paid work (very few of Finnish ladies are homemakers etc.) have made these skills disappear. Depressions have of course made us to learn things, but mainly incapability is growing.

Of course there are other reasons as well. Convenience food and things like that. It's sad really, there is a lack of DIY spirit.. although it really may improve the world. What do you think?
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<3

[lizzymahoney]

Me again.

It's not really an either/or question. I am way beyond my family and teachers in craftiness. That I have a cousin who is much like me may be due to genetics, or perhaps she inspired me, but who inspired her? A little bit here and there does not a homebrewer make. She and I are both self taught, she and I both have picked up techniques by observation and dissection and reading without anyone helping either of us.

No one taught me to graft trees or to paint or to dance initially. My mother may have given me my first needle and thread, but the rest of it was all me.

I don't know why so many people seem incapable of inventiveness in craft. I see it all the time with my part time job at a fabric and craft store: People who really have no idea that there are dozens of ways to do something. They can't conceive of blending their own paints for the right shade, or of how a 3D valance will look, or of using the 'wrong' side of the fabric, or that it's possible to wax your own threads.

Those things that I've completely self taught were still grounded in basic knowledge that others have done the same, that trial and error is a good teacher, and that I could be gratified with the process even if the product didn't work out. My mother doesn't understand why I would make my own yogurt when I can buy it. I don't understand why she can't see mine is better. She sees food provision as a necessity while I can see it as an artform.

[Becky65301]

Me again. Wanted to add, that there were some things I regret not learning more, in retrospect. For example, my g-gma canned, I never paid much attention or even tried to learn. Everyone did big gardens.

Even the ceramics, which I was around so much growing up. I never gave it much thought, I didn't think it was too difficult, didn't realize the legacy. Now, as an adult, I find myself teaching my 6-year-old son the basics of clay just like I was taught (he gets into my Fimo all the time making little sculptures), and I actually *pay* to take a pottery class, when that information was free for the taking when I was a child. I took Pattern Drafting in college, but grew up with a woman who drafted patterns all the time, and I never paid any attention. It did seem to come naturally to me, though.

I have taught myself some crafts that I don't think anyone in the family did- crochet, tatting, cross-stitch. I didn't do it 'cause I felt short-changed somehow, I did it out of natural curiosity.

mirz- To answer your question, there were plenty of things I could have learned and didn't, so I don't regret the things I wasn't taught, what I regret is not paying more attention. In my case, all the women in fact used their "craftiness" as a source of income. I am the first in 3 generations not to do factory sewing (although I had one job that was kinda borderline). My mom, gma, and g-gma all made Levi's at some point in their lives. Their skill was around before the job, though. And if you go back a generation, women sewing was not unusual. At 38, I am right on the line for when Home Ec was required in high school, and when it became optional, and I see now that women my age and younger are alot less likely to know how to use a sewing machine. This is good for me financially, LOL, but it is pretty sad. I think in the case of my g-gma, not only was it a craft but a necessity- Depression-era, and the oldest girl in the family.

[baltica]

My mom went through a sewing "phase" in the late '70s and churned out a bunch of Halloween costumes, Christmas decorations, and the like. Since then, nothing. My father can be very creative, especially with furnituremaking, woodwork, photography and painting, when he has the time. I really hope he'll take things further when he retires. Neither of my grandmothers did any crafty things, as far as I know. I'm really interested in the folk art of their countries (Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania) and would love to learn more about those.

[mirz]

[lizzymahoney]

I'm USian of Irish and German descent. My grandparents were all born here or Canada in the 1890's. My cultural connection is tenuous.

But given that I am as weird as I am, I like all things ethnic and folk. There are particularly Germanic things about me such as very strict ideas of cleanliness (which I don't obey, but i do think about them!) and a very Irish love of a longwinded story.

I have participated in both German and Irish heritage groups in the States. I do both German and Irish folk dancing, as well as Greek and Italian and Israeli and Acadian, etc. I wear a Claddagh ring. I also have a St Pauli girl style dirndl.

No particular craft or style has made it intact to me through the family generations. I absorb from everywhere.

I've done Pysanky eggs and Huck embroidery among so many other things and didn't need to feel a particular connection with those regions. I may understand a great deal about the cultural origins of Ukrainian embroidery, but it isn't personal for me.

The biggest cultural influence on me is a New England thriftiness.:

Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do
or do without.

I have fabric scraps that are thirty years old or more. I save butt ends of candles and odd containers and bits of wire that I have no immediate plans to use. You just never know when that bit of foam will be needed, or the clasp from that old battered necklace. It's all organized, sort of, and I pretty much know if I have something or not. And it all travels with me when I move. I'll get rid of clothes, but don't touch my paint stash.

[mirz]

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[mirz]