My Great Grandmother's Hands

I often think of how much my great grandmother, "Ninnie", used her hands. She was an avid quilter. She also sewed, crocheted and tatted. As a child, a young lady and a wife she made every stitch of clothing for her family. She would create patterns out of newspaper based on drawings in the Sear's catalog. Blankets, sheets, clothing were made or mended also. She tatted making beautiful lace for her graduation dress from school. Her's had the most lace on it.  She could make anything even with three children clinging to her everyday.

She lived on a farm all her life up until she was well into her 80's and worked with chickens, pigs, cows, etc. She had gardens to die for: an acre of flowers, an acre of tomatoes, an acre of berries and fruit trees. She baked with the best of them too. This lady's knowledge I wish I had. She knew exactly how to bring a plant back to life when others would have gladly toss it in the compost. She knew what nutrients each plant or flower needed. She was amazing to me.

Her hands were strong and precise. Every stitch was perfect. Everything she touched seem so effortless. And when you are young you think it is effortless until you try to do what you see and realize that those hands are a work in progress. That those hands worked and worked until they got whatever they were doing right. It took years to perfect some things like the perfect stitches that she would quilt. All hand-pieced, hand-quilted quilts using clothing from years past. And nothing simple, no, not at all, but all very beautiful in their own accord.

By the time I came along her hands were rough and gnarled from arthritis.  Age spots and wrinkles graced her hands. They looked like they had worked from sun up to sun down all her life. To me they were beautiful.

I look at my hands now and think the wrinkles are starting, the spots aren't there yet.  I think of all my hands have learned to do and still learn everyday as I explore the fiber arts I love. Repetition will take it's tole on them and maybe someday someone will look at my hands as I looked at my great grandma's and think: simply beautiful.