Jill Smith-Mott
Posted By Craft Corps on March 30, 2009
Jill Smith
Name: Jill Smith-Mott
Age: 36
Location: outside of Austin, TX
Profession: teacher, writer
Craft(s) of Choice: KNITTING, spinning, quilting
Blog: winstonandchloe.wordpress.com
I knit, spin, crochet, quilt. Sometimes I feel like I should have been born 200 years ago. There is something about using my hands to make the things I need (or want, in the case of Anthroplogie scarves), providing for my loved ones, and feeling like I’m frugal.
I love the idea of using scraps to make a quilt, even though I usually buy my fabric. Of saving yarn leftovers to combine them into something new. Recycling sweaters into something new and desirable. It makes me feel connected to my past, my ancestors, and my grandmothers who struggled through much leaner times than now.
My favorite things to make are beanies, bowls, and blankets. Not because they start with the letter B, but because they are essential things. To make them beautiful and give them away fulfills something in me, even if my recipients are tired of getting handmade things from me. I just don’t care; it’s part of the process.
Also, like a crow is to shiny, I’m attracted to all of the colors and patterns, of fabric; the limitless possibilities of combining yarns and stitches into textural patterns and designs; and the only slightly controlled chaos of combining fibers into lengths of color to be plied, and knit. The possibilities, happenstance, and perplexities of random choices coming together to make something beautiful and useful, doing it yourself, improving a skill, giving a gift, and saving money are integrally satisfying. I feel like it’s what I should be doing.
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