The craft rhizome

One of my cousins started up a craft circle some years back.

Our routine used to go something like this:

1. Turn up at host craft circle member’s house on a Sunday afternoon.
2. Sit down and spread craft crap over all available table, bench and floor space.
3. Consume amazing-smelling home baked cakes with multiple cups of tea and/or Milo.
4. Gossip.
5. Do craft if there’s time left over.

They were halcyon days. Although we knew they were good, we did not know how good. Our circle was far from being perfectly formed, but on most days we managed a passably wonky hexagon. We knitted, crocheted, sewed, embroidered, patchworked and quilted in carefree, child-free oblivion.

Other days we just ate cake.

Then last August, Ali had a baby.

I had one in October.

Mel had hers in January.

In February, my sister moved back from London with her two kids.

And all of a sudden, our craft circle not only doubled in size thanks to the newly developed junior divison, it grew nappy bags, refrigerated teething rings, and a sleep schedule.

Departure times are no longer determined by how much cake is left, but by offspring crankiness levels.

Our days of leaving ANY craft-related implements on the floor are OVER (rotary cutters, I’m talking about you).

We get about the same amount of craft done, though. At least we are fairly consistent in our unproductiveness.

Yesterday we had a craft afternoon. Five grown-ups, four children. One crawler, two toddlers, one kindy-ager. It struck me, as I redirected my 11-month old away from the shower recess for the third time, that we no longer have a craft circle.

We have a craft rhizome (and dude, I’m as perturbed as you that I remembered something from Deleuze and Guattari).

In botanic terms, a rhizome is essentially rootstock – it’s organic and branches off all over the place with roots and shoots. It follows no pattern, doubles back on itself and does not detangle with conditioner. This is what craft afternoons now look like. Instead of a group of women circled around a common love of making handmade things, we are a group of mums, aunties, and nanas who spend most of their craft afternoon:

1. Pursuing small humans all over the house;
2. Unpicking mistakes in our handiwork that are made whilst attempting to supervise chaos and coordinate pursuit of small humans around the house.

It’s just as well they’re cute. And that there’s always cake.