Handmade Joy

Handmade Joy

You’ll also find arts and crafts at your local market or county fair: baskets, glassware, woodworking, furniture, pottery, jewelry, handmade clothing, embroidery, scrapbook supplies, paintings, and so on.

A quilt maker was once asked why she toiled through the hours and painstaking attention to detail required to produce a quilt. Was it for the money? “No,” said the quilter. “I do it for love.”

Many crafts such as marriage quilts, beaded jewelry, knitted items, and custom wood cabinets are made for love. They’re meant to be passed down from one generation to the next as family heirlooms.

Others may be sold in your local market or antique shop, but they too are handmade labors of love. To buy a basket or a piece of pottery is to receive a gift that matters—the fruit of someone’s creative passion.

The special joy of another person enters your home, and that joy is passed on to you.

The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship. —Martin Luther