My Secret Crafty Side

Back when I was a little girl in the Soviet Union, consumer goods were scarce, resulting in crafting and DIY being as commonplace as outsourcing is in US today. Far from being a middle-class hobby, tackling small sewing projects was a matter of course, and I honestly don’t believe that there is a person of my exact background who doesn’t know how to replace an elastic in a pair of pants, hem a skirt, or fix small holes in socks, tights, and other clothing.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that whenever anyone wanted, say, a pretty rosette-shaped hair bow for a little girl, which spelled high-fashion at the time, it had to be made by hand, and I myself sewed more than a few starting with the age of eight.

Even though I now lead a considerably more prosperous life in US, I still fix holes in my kids’ clothes, socks, mittens, and tights religiously (note that the same cannot be said about my husband’s farm pants) and replace failed pant elastics. However, I had not crafted anything decorative in a very, very long time.

That is, until last night.

You see, a recent conversation with my Russian emigre cousin unexpectedly filled me with intense nostalgia for my crafting days, and not being able to contain it, I decided to make a thing or two for my girls.

An infant headband seemed like a good place to start, and after a (not-so) quick trip to the store, I sat down and made this yesterday, staying up rather late to complete it because I am out of practice by a couple of decades, and because my technique predates labor-saving tools like hot-glue guns.

And while I don’t have or want a future as an Etsy merchant, I feel like I didn’t do half-bad.

It sure made one heck of a photo prop, don’t you think?

Because of the very basic nature of this, I didn’t need any kind of tutorial, relying solely on the finished-product vision in my mind and the muscle memory acquired back in the elementary school.

And I guess that makes me more of a crafter than I let on.