GIFTS

I have been thinking about patience and how it can aid achievement. Working on a piece of craft, I have pondered how it’s creation requires persistence and perseverance. I introduced weaving to my fourth graders, this school year and only found two students interested. I thought more hands would help complete it swiftly, but the two became one, as one of the students left Ghana with her family. We are finishing the mat row by row, strip by strip and hoping that it will soon be completed.

The fabric for weaving is cut into strips, not perfectly and it does not also require measuring as longer strips can be cut into pieces. Thin strips daintily but firmly knotted around a nail and stretched tautly across to another nail parallel to it in order to complete the row by knotting again. The space between the nails at the same side of the frame are very close, so whilst knotting your index finder scrapes the side of an already knotted nail, making it quiet uncomfortable especially if you are knotting on both sides of the frame. The discomfort, slows you down and is a little off-putting. I guess that is one of the reasons why I only have one interested helper.

I have on a few occasions considered giving up, but the more layers we’ve been able to place on the frame the more beautiful it looks and also the more attached I have become to it. I wonder if the colors selected will make it look even better. I think about color because I wove two other mats for which I tried as much as possible to combine similar colored prints, leaving one with blue as the featured color and the other red as the prominent color, they ended up looking extremely attractive.

The time required to complete making the mat has been on my mind. Patience and time are definitely related. We weave as and when possible, time flies. I guess there really is no rush to complete this beautiful piece of art. I convince myself that, “Nobody is waiting for it!”

There are many connections I can make with the thoughts above, issues in life, writing, drawing and many other topics. I believe we still need the determination to complete the job that we have started, to deliver a beautiful mat, one that is worth waiting for.