More Crafting with the Crones

A blogging rule of thumb appears to be that the more you have to report, the less time you have to sit down and write about it. 

Back from a summer hiatus, eight women from our craft group sat down with Carol Mitchell to learn how to crochet this past Monday evening. We have this idea that we're going to crochet blankets for charity as one of this year's projects, which may wind up being more a dream than a reality. But Carol, who very generously gave three hour's of her precious time to teach eight novices basic crocheting techniques, is encouraging us to think big. We shall see where it all goes. In the interim, the women are collecting items for Christmas gift stockings for five elderly Navajo women in Adopt-a-Native-Elder's Christmas program (www.anelder.org ). We are sending them, among other things, mittens knit by our dear friends and sisters at Kullakas (www.alpacaartisans.com) . At least the Navajo women won't have to wait three years for something warm and cozy.

On Tuesday, Carol Mitchell and Olivia Hurst came with me to teach crocheting to my senior crafting group at the assisted living home. Two of the women sat down to learn crocheting for the first time, and two others took to this neglected skill with a sense of renewed purpose and energy. One woman left our group with three skeins of yarn tucked under her arm, to head back to her room and continue making a lap blanket for someone in need. It never ceases to amaze me what generous lives most of these elderly women have led, and how much they still long to give back and be productive, even in old age battling a laundry list of infirmities.

Olivia herself is a remarkable woman. Not much older than me, she has had severe arthritis for years that has led to numerous knee and hip replacement surgeries and has left her hands bent and crippled. Olivia, however, is a demon with a crochet hook, and has produced some absolutely gorgeous crocheted items that look like they came out of a designer boutique. A lovely, gentle and grounded individual, it was touching to watch her work patiently showing our elderly women how to hold the crochet hook in their arthritic hands. I kept thinking to myself how wonderful it would be to get her working with patients in long term rehab, whose hospital stays can be one to three months and often very boring for them. We'll see where that all might go...