My grandma gave me a crocheted blanket she made for me for my high school graduation. I WAS ECSTATIC when I tore open the wrapping paper and wrapped my hands around the soft stitching. No one had ever made a blanket for me. I thanked her and gave her a big hug, and she whispered to me, “It was handmade with love.”
My sweet grandma passed away in 2018. Still, I look at that blanket and feel the love she expressed through her handmade gifts throughout my life.
One of my earliest, and most vivid memories of Christmas morning, was opening a gift from her that held a crocheted baby doll with an attached blanket. A bottle in the baby’s hand fit perfectly in her mouth. My sister got a matching one in a different color. They were the best! I used to carry that baby with me everywhere we went.
My grandma’s sister-in-law, my great aunt, owned a craft store called “Lola’s Craft Shack,” where you could buy supplies for various projects. In addition, she did craft shows and hosted classes to teach people how to make things. It was a booming business, and my sister and I frequently benefited from the creative projects she inspired people to make in her shop.
I wonder how many people in my small town received similar gifts “handmade with love” as gifts from my grandma?
I have given many handmade gifts throughout my life. The hand-drawn cards delivered to my mother on Mother’s Day morphed into the crocheted blankets, knitted sweaters, hats, and mittens, to the stacks of washcloths I have made for people’s new homes…it’s become a very long list.
Were they all “handmade with love”?
Handmade Expressions of Love
Love is a feeling.
According to the Greeks, there are four different kinds of love. Romantic love, love for friends, love for parents or children, and the love of humankind. They have fancy names, and we could do a deep dive into all of these and how they present themselves, but that’s not the focus here.
So, whatever form it takes, the feeling of love can be expressed in many ways…like handmade gifts.
But making a gift requires more than a feeling. You need time, skill, and resources.
If you want to express your love for another person, you can invest your time, skills, and resources into making something tangible that represents the love you hold for them.
You can go to the store and pick out something special for that person. Some will argue that shopping requires skill, and I won’t disagree. It certainly needs time and financial resources. I have received store-purchased gifts that involved time and thought. This is not a “my gift is better than your gift” argument.
Instead, the point here is to demonstrate that gifts are tangible representations of emotion.
Depending on a person’s love language, the recipient can feel truly loved through a handmade gift.
This exchange of material goods that we use to express emotion makes handmade gifts so unique and special.
Anyone who has spent time on a handmade gift knows the amount of time and effort that goes into creating it…it is significant.
But there is so much more than expressing emotion that comes from creating a handmade gift.
Beyond Emotions
I’m a practical person.
Over the past few years, I have learned that multitasking is a myth, and we are far more productive if we focus on one thing at a time. But that doesn’t mean something can’t be multipurpose!
If you have decided to spend one hour a day caring for yourself, you need to spend that one hour focusing solely on doing things for yourself. But if you are a practical person like I am, you can decide that the things you do to care for yourself will be multipurpose. In other words, they benefit you, but they also serve another purpose.
I have never been someone who enjoys sitting in a bubble bath doing nothing. It’s just not who I am, and I’m not ashamed to say it.
I am a doer. I do things. My version of downtime involves working on projects that are important to me, like transplanting my plant babies into bigger pots, organizing something, or working on a stitching project of some sort. So even if I have the tv on and one of my favorite shows is streaming, it would be highly unusual to find me staring at the screen. An occasion like this would likely involve a fever or some other form of incapacitation.
Multipurpose Is Key
I enjoy spending my time on things that serve more than one purpose. Gardening is creative, relaxing, and feeds my family. Organizing burns off anxiety and stress and keeps my home clean and tidy. Creating handmade projects is good for my mental health, helps my brain continuously grow and develop, and provides a tangible expression of love for my friends and family. Multipurpose.
Handmade gifts are practical, but this practicality doesn’t diminish the specialness of a handmade gift because the investment of time, skill, and resources, the benefits to your mental health, and the health benefits of creativity all remain the same.
Get Creative For Love’s Sake
So next time you are thinking about upcoming birthdays, baby showers, or holidays, why not consider a handmade gift?
Investing your time into making something handmade is an excellent way to express your love while reaping the benefits of the creative process!
If you are lacking the skills to get started, you can start learning today by getting signed up for a Solo Stitching Class. All the skills you need to create beautiful handmade gifts can be learned and I am here to help.
Hope to see you on my schedule soon!
Happy Stitching!
xo — Lavena
