Embracing Ordinary Beauty: Lessons from the Miracle of Creating
The GG Blanket
Recently, we hosted a family baby shower for our daughter. Baby showers feel as special as Sunday dinners. It feels miraculous to gather busy families to celebrate new life. Our daughter received very practical gifts, as one would expect from an older generation, with the exception of one. To our delight, my aunt gifted her a “GG blanket”, a beautiful heirloom
A one-of-a-kind hand knitted afghan knitted by GG. GG, Great Grandma, passed away in 2023 at the age of 102. GG was an amazing knitter. She committed to memory two afghan patterns, both in baby sizes and couch throw size. If she was sitting to chat, she had a grocery sack nearby filled with her knitting, an afghan in some stage of completion. Everyone received one blanket at some point in their life – no two exactly alike. When spouses received their afghan, they knew they belonged. In the end, we have the stories of her and this stunning collection of heirloom afghans.
When handmade makes a home.
These afghans, in our favorite color, lay across the foot of our beds to cover us at nap time, so we didn’t have to unmake our beds. They lay across the back of the couch for Saturday morning cartoon watching, Sunday football watching, family movie nights, and neutral in color, it always blended in. Did you ever come home sick from school and curl up on the couch? This afghan is what you pulled over yourself as you curled up to watch Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote. Equally important, it washed up beautifully.
My dad was in the Navy for my entire childhood. We had new friends and new carpet every three years with each move. What made all the houses feel like home? Those afghans found on the back of the couch and at the foot of our beds. With each new address, when all the boxes were unpacked, you knew it was home when you could count on finding ice cream in the freezer and those beloved afghans laid across the foot of the beds.
Be a creator of beauty.
Knitting isn’t just about yarn. Sewing isn’t just about fabric and thread. Quilting isn’t just about securing three layers of fabric. Makers invest hours of love and intention into creating something tangible. Of course, it’s also about keeping hands and mind busy.
Beauty is the radiance of truth.
Beauty is timeless, clear, and harmonious. Trends come and go, some should stay gone. After all, beauty isn’t about keeping up with trends. Beauty is ordinary, everyday harmony, clarity, and order.
While remaining orderly, ordinary beauty adds goodness. Beauty gives us hope and helps us to feel safe. It gives us and others a settled place to be. It is calming. Pursuing ordinary beauty every day gives others a glimpse of what could be without the anxiety of needing perfection. In this world of AI, we have all looked at an image and felt something was off. AI will never be able to make beauty, not in the same way GG did. Her knitted afghans followed an orderly pattern and that orderliness is what makes them beautiful. We would never save those afghans for only special occasions.
However, what if beauty becomes everyday habit and not saved for special occasions?
What if neatly folded on the back of the couch was an afghan knitted by your GG? Used as a fort to play under? To crawl under with a flashlight and a book? Do you remember waking up on Saturday morning and watching cartoons? Did your mama make pancakes every Saturday? These rituals built by memories are ordinary beauty. Habits that rarely changed.
It was never about watching Super Friends or Bugs Bunny. It was always about lying on the living room floor watching t.v. in our pjs while our parents slept. They aren’t just habits or rituals. They are heirlooms. Heirloom memories you fondly retell to your own children. GG’s afghans sit folded on a footstool. My quilts hang on a ladder next to the piano in our front room. Both lay ready and waiting. The quilts we make become part of the story, the heirloom itself, and the heirloom of memory. Moreover, the rituals of how we lived matter, the consistency of the same actions with the same people matters.
Are you ready to create beauty that lasts for generations?
Imagine the pride and connection you’ll feel as your handmade creations become the heart of your family’s story. Now is the perfect time to start building that legacy.
Do you have a quilt or afghan lying across the back of the couch, covering your sick children, covering your napping husband on Sunday afternoons, waiting for Friday family movie nights? Without a doubt, the rituals, the habits, the stories that quilt could tell, become the comforting beauty of the ordinary
- Establish family rituals: even small ones. Saturday morning cartoons or family movie nights.
- Put beauty in the ordinary: a beloved quilt out and ready.
- Tell stories: the sacred ones of your ordinary days with your grandparents.
We have enough destroyers in this world – choose to be a creator.
By making something beautiful, you leave a legacy of love and meaning that endures far longer than anything store-bought ever could. Every stitch, every thoughtful effort, becomes a powerful act of hope for the next generation. There is no greater gift than to create something that brings comfort, beauty, and cherished memories to your family.
New generations want shortcuts and hacks. At the end of the day though, you can’t buy experience – you may pay for it, but you cannot buy it. One generation passes down experience to another. Only those who know can bestow experience. Earlier generations had the time and knowledge to preserve their knowledge, allowing them to gain valuable experience. Ultimately, there are no shortcuts or hacks.
GG’s afghans weren’t just blankets. They were love, wisdom, frugality, and sanity turned into something tangible we wrapped ourselves in. A mantle of comfort and warmth. Sadly, we don’t know the pattern she used. Committed to her memory, we never thought to ask her to write it down because she knew it like the back of her hand. Consequently, we didn’t learn to knit well enough to write it down.
She didn’t have Pinterest or YouTube. She had know-how and tools she knew how to use. Subsequently, she knew a reliable pattern and a clear vision that enabled her to envision skeins of yarn becoming an afghan in her mind. Although my grandmother knitted, my mom sewed. I taught myself how to quilt. I want to pick up where GG left off, only not with yarn. Undeniably, I’d never do it justice. In the same fashion, with fabric and thread instead of yarn, quilts become the family heirloom afghans.
What I’ve learned quilting for over 20 years:
- There are no shortcuts or hacks to gaining experience. Everyone has sewn a seam wrong, become frustrated, and ripped it out. Likewise, everyone has had a pattern not turn out as expected or as the pattern cover photo showed. Everyone has cut fabric wrong. In reality, experience is gained by doing not watching.
- Invest in a few high quality tools. A great iron, pair of scissors, rotary cutter, a self healing cutting mat, and rulers will last you a lifetime. Find an old sewing machine and pay to have it serviced.
- The items that need frequent replacing can be middle quality – buy the best you can afford without worry. Rotary cutter blades, seam ripper, needles, and thread.
- The key to having a quilt top come out as expected comes down to precision and consistency. The hundreds of pieces of a quilt cannot be sewn together correctly if the pieces do not fit together correctly.
- Learn to measure and cut accurately.
- Learn to sew consistently. I think consistent seams are far better than scant ¼” seams.
- Sew every day, or as often as possible. Make mistakes and learn new things. Excitement + Interest = Success.
Do not give up. Walk away for a time but come back. Ask questions. Try again. Persevere. You can do it. Do it the way your great grandmother did. Then from time to time, teach the next generation. Be a maker of ordinary beauty and heirlooms.
