Arts and Crafts FAIL

Today in my Irish folklore tutorial, we made crosses for St. Brigid's Day, which was February 1. We were supposed to make them last week, but as I think I mentioned in my last post, the teacher mixed up which classroom we were supposed to meet in. St. Brigid's day is for St. Brigid, an Irish nun, and now, well, a saint. The day is to honor her and feast, and typically marks the beginning of spring in Ireland.

Well, I had already experienced a wee bit of anxiety last week, because in the past I haven't had the best experiences with arts and crafts. At a Circle K event in October, we were making cloth pumpkins and used a roll of toilet paper as the base, and had to wrap some of the TP around the roll to make it look rounder, but mine didn't turn out quite like everyone else's. It's such a sad feeling to look around and see everyone's looking like they are supposed to while yours is different in it's own pathetic way. :)

I was determined though to make a cross because I thought it would make a good present for my mother. I watched intently as the lecturer performed the first few steps. We were making them out of reeds she had picked on campus. I tried bending mine and then wrapping them, but it wasn't staying together very well. Then we had to keep turning it and wrapping the reeds in different places, but I think there's something wrong with my brain that can't think artistically sometimes, or it's just my fear of screwing up that blocks that part of my brain from performing correctly, if that makes sense. The thing was not staying together and I was getting super frustrated and I was ready to just throw the reeds in the trash. It was sad looking around the room and seeing people plow away on their crosses. Katie got finished with hers and held on to my reeds while I wrapped them around. I don't have very strong fingers apparently. So, in the end I got my cross, another Katie Andrist original, and it's waiting for my mom when she comes to visit :)