The other day, two of my daughters were sitting in the shade of a big maple tree with a pile of extra large leaves, probably nine inches long and six inches wide. Sitting beside that pile, they had a pile of long blades of grass, I’d say 12 to 15 inches long. They were using the long blades of grass, to sew the leaves together.

They were sitting on the ground with their legs crossed, chatting in a friendly manner, and sewing. Intrigued, I asked them what they were doing. Lyn, my 13-year-old daughter excited answered, “We are sewing blankets out of these leaves.”

I was really quite pleased to see them getting along so well and working together. I was also glad that they were staying out of mischief for such an extended period. Since I was so pleased, I said, “Wow that is a neat idea to learn how to do that just in case you ever have to survive in the wilderness.”

Well, that was all the praise Lyn needed to be stuck on her new hobby, leaf blanket sewing. Everyday, when I can’t find her, I just have to go outside and look under the maple tree. There she is, sitting with her baskets filled with leaves and grass, sewing away for hours at a time, oblivious to the rest of the world.

For a few months, she was stuck on making potholders with one of those little weaving kits that have been around for tens of years. It has a small plastic frame and you stretch the strings across, then you use a crochet hook, to weave in and out of each string. Only she just couldn’t get the in and out part quite down. She also couldn’t quite figure out how to crochet the ends when removing the potholder from the frame.

Therefore, the finished products were about half the size they should have been and in the process of unraveling. Of course, I thanked her for mine and told her how much I appreciated it. She made me a couple more so I could have a set and then proceeded to make some for her teachers and grandparents.

When she was hooked on beads, we all got new key chains, mostly in the shape of snakes. Her friends each got several friendship bracelets and a key chain. Then she moved on to gimping and they all got those bracelets and necklaces. I think I’m going to really start praising her cleaning jobs.

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