I’ve heard way too many times in my life from a variety of people to “just buy it” or “why put in the effort.” Yes, some things are easy and cheaper to buy at the store. Even if the materials are cheaper than in-store product, the amount of time doing handmade crafts yourself takes doesn’t add up.
Welp, it doesn’t add up to most people. To my madness and its methods, it makes sense to sew my own dresses, even when the cost of the fabric equals that of what a dress would cost. It makes sense to spend another $10 on supplies to make a more beautiful homemade wreath or to spend months, or three years, on one cross stitching pattern to frame as a picture.
It makes sense because it is not about the product I’m making. It is about using my gifts from God in creativity to create handmade crafts. Seeing God’s beautiful world inspires making crafts to beautify the home. It is about using crafting as a way to relieve stress and relax while still having purpose. It’s connecting us from generation to generation. It builds our relationships with each other. It’s about more than just an end product that yes, one could buy something similar at a store.
With my handmade projects, I sew dresses and apparel, I create faux floral arrangements with a variety of mediums and projects, I cross-stitch, and help my husband with our woodworking projects for our home and homestead. I have the growth mindset to learn any other craft that would be intentionally made to create beauty in my home.
Sewing Dresses & Apparel
In July 2011, between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, my mom was sewing shirts for my brothers for the 150’th Anniversary of the First Battle of Bull Run. I did Civil War re-enacting growing up. But at this point, with sewing all I knew how to do was hand sew patches for a quilt and prep a pattern and material for dresses. My mom did the sewing part.
I was apprehensive of using a sewing machine. I did not want to sew my finger! Gosh, no! I didn’t care to learn. My mom one day gave me a shirt’s sleeve to gather. Then the next, she got up from the dining room chair, and made me sit and try sewing a small pouch with some scrap fabric from the shirts. She showed me how to use the machine, stitch two pieces of fabric together, and create a basic hem. Those first stitches I ever made with a sewing machine were just as crooked as could be. Not good. Not good indeed!
My mom though always says that I taught myself how to sew from what happened next. I found some material at my grandmother’s house, created a pattern from a dress I already owned using newspapers, and sewed my first dress. Then I sewed my second with a crooked zipper. From there, I kept sewing dresses. And I kept listening to the memories of when my mom sewed for 4H, of my mom and grandmother taking off to a fabric sale at Roaring River, of my great-grandmother sewing a dress without a pattern for my grandmother’s younger sister, who wouldn’t survive childhood, the same dress as my grandmother’s except with one less button in the front, of my great-great-grandmother sewing her own wedding dress, and more stories of sewing across the generations.
In the last few years, I’ve sewn my wedding dress, my veil, my two bridesmaids’ dresses, an anniversary dress, a second anniversary dress, and a dress to wear to my brother’s wedding. I could have found dresses for all these occasions at a store, but none of them would have the same moments and memories as the dresses that I sewed from scratch. They wouldn’t have the same creative beauty and rich history to them.
Continue to Sewing Dresses Posts
Sewing a Blue Lace Dress for a Wedding
Sewing a Lace and Floral Dress
Sewing My First Anniversary Wedding Dress
Homemaking Crafts
My grandmother and my mom loved their outdoor flowers. But, they brought in the beauty of flowers through having crafts and floral arrangements inside the home. Wreaths on doorways. Faux floral arrangements switched out every season on coffee and dining room tables. At four years old, my grandmother walked into her living room to find me sitting on the floor with all these flowers around me, arranging them to how I liked them. I took apart one of her floral arrangements, hehe.
That was just one of the many handmade crafts I did in my grandma’s house. Over the generations, we all had our different niche of crafting. My great-grandmother embroidered. My grandmother decorated her house with gold and flowers. My mom quilted, embroidered, and cross-stitched. I create arrangements and wreaths from faux flowers and crepe paper flowers. I cross-stitch and sew pillows and other items every now and then. What all generations have in common is that we use our godly, virtuous skills in creating beautiful homes.
Continue to Homemaking Crafts Posts
Woodshop Projects
My husband has the skills in building woodworking and construction projects. Godly wives are to be the companions of their husbands. Let me just say that I love completing these projects with him. It provides togetherness and teamwork. For a lifelong learner, I love being able to learn new things with woodworking, trying new equipment when I’m ready, and bringing my design sketches to life.
Some completed projects have been building a grow stand and a small greenhouse. I have a few future projects, such as a flower market stand, that are still in the idea phrase.
This category of handmade crafts may never be a lot, but it is the backbone to building up the beauty of my gardening and homemaking.
