Losing Your Handiwork

Losing a hand-made for yourself item is a special kind of hurt among crafters. When I was pregnant with my fourth child, I was in New York, went to the yarn shop Stitches and bought this beautiful cotton yarn and made a special yellow, green and white blanket and hat. And months later, somehow, in the jumble of corralling 3 little people and an infant out of church, I left the blanket behind. And never saw it again.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, I had bought this beautiful - I mean beautiful! - green silky yarn and crocheted this intricate, wavy, fan stitch shawl that truly was the envy of many people. It was perfectly light and lady-like and not at all old-lady-shawl-ish.  Then last summer, I was at a conference, and somehow, somewhere, it was separated from me. I still maintain that someone picked it up because otherwise, it would've been somewhere in the vicinity of where I may have left it. Like my daughter's baby blanket, it couldn't have just vanished, right?

And it's not so simple as "oh, just make another one."  Nope.  Primarily because I'm so mad that I lost the piece in the first place, I don't even want to think about it. Then I delude myself into thinking that no, I didn't actually lose it as in never to be found, it's just misplaced, and someone will turn it in to Lost & Found or it fell to the bottom of my closet.  If I just wait and then look later, slowly, it'll ta-da be there.  Note - this method has not worked yet.

Maybe it's a part of life, this losing things. Maybe it's my own frazzled-ness of not keeping track of my stuff.  Maybe it's an unfriendly crochet-stalker that's coming after my yarn. Whatever it is. Losing the work I've put so much time (and money) into is hard.

Let me know in the Comments - Have you lost - or found - a special handmade work?

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