Deep violet, plum...whatever your favorite shade of purple, it is a color of richness. At one time, this 'richness' was literal as only the very wealthy could afford garments with the hue of the once difficult to obtain and expensive to produce dye. Have you noticed how your attention is drawn to a deep purple garment on an individual? One might conclude that even today, purple carries the subtle tones of wealth, royalty and even power.
As a child, I was driven into town to exchange purple sweaters given as gifts by my apparently more broad minded cousins. Then, I had no idea why. I liked them and would have been delighted to wear them. Now, I know it was my mother's attempt to not have me appear 'uppity'. Luckily, times have changed and so has purple's reputation. Purples are everywhere with it's smorgasbord of shades to choose from...indigo, plum, grape.
Our online Etsy shop The Dreamy Dahlia carries several items in purple and it's various shades. If you are a veritable purple enthusiast that won't be satisfied with a purple hat and scarf, you may want to visit The Purple Store.
We all have things that we may have done differently over the years. I would have treasured things that were handwritten more. I have lots of samples, but I let slip from my grasp hand written recipe books by my mother, the childish scrawl from my son's second grade school projects, letters exchanged with my now husband of almost 42 years from when he was in the Navy. One's handwriting is like a snowflake...so many are close in appearance, but no two are identical. While we savor for the day a hasty 'r u ok' text message from a loved one, we will treasure their personal handwriting for a lifetime.
We've heard that expression probably all our lives. Some of us can identify with it saying "the trip is ALL the fun'! Other's might say the whole object is the destination itself. Relative to crafting, some of us enjoy the process while others enjoy the product. I'm a process person. I'll happily rip out twenty five rows of crochet just because I've spotted a stitch a ways back that I think is a little too loose. Identifying whether we are a process or product person can actually be a guiding force in our lives, helping us decide what makes us happiest.
Today I was on a crochet site reading how much the addition of diagrams has helped those who crochet and have dyslexia. Dyslexia is defined as a learning disability. This first got me thinking about how lucky those with dyslexia are to have the addition of diagrams to work from. Then, I started to think about if crochet was first presented in ONLY diagrams. I would not be a crocheter! I don't get diagrams, I get the printed pattern. From my understanding, diagrams look to me how the printed word looks to those with dyslexia. So, is my understanding of the printed pattern right and the addition of the stitch diagram, which appears to be added as an after thought, wrong? Actually, I think right and wrong depends on which foot the shoe is on. Or which way we first experience things in life. Maybe the old adage "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" has more meaning than on the surface. If at first we don't succeed, try try another method. Diagrams, maybe...
