Delia Randall

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Have you heard the word “hygge” (HOO-guh) being thrown around lately?

Despite how it’s spelled, it sounds more like something that would elicit a “bless you” from your neighbor, but it’s also a wonderful Danish concept about seeking and embracing special cozy moments. It’s about slowing down, creating comfort and connection with people and things we love. As a maker, I can’t think of a better way to incorporate more hygge in my life and in my home than through handcrafting. 

Stitching the stress away

The hygge of handcrafting is two fold for me. It creates hygge in my life as I do it and it creates hygge in my home long after it’s completed. Before I realized my love for making, I studied recreation and efficacy in college, and I learned that doing something you enjoy every day translates to you feeling more capable in other areas of your life. All those Pinterest memes about how crafting is therapy, absolutely ring true for me. It gets me to slow down, focus, and channel the chaos into something tangibly zen. When I’m stressed, I stitch it away. When I’m happy, I capture it. When I feel overwhelmed by life, those small craft victories give me the gumption to keep moving forward. The act of curling up on the couch, my latest crochet project in hand, my daughter snuggled under the same soft blanket, while it gently rains outside my window, is a quintessential afternoon of hygge for me. 

My grandmother was a crocheter as well. Her specialty was finely worked lace blankets, but my favorite blanket from her is the simple afghan that lays at the foot of my daughter’s bed. It’s the splash of color that makes her room fun. It’s the promise of extra warmth whenever she needs it. It’s her roots, to remind her of who she is and that she’s loved. It is the embodiment of the deepest kind of hygge. A hygge that can only be lovingly handmade.

Capturing the magic in making

Honestly, handcrafting isn’t always such a sentimental process for me. It often serves as a practical solution, like painting my kitchen cabinets to save money, or sewing my kids clothes because store bought clothes don’t always fit. But I try to remind myself that there is magic in making. I doubt my grandmother realized that the blanket she made from scraps of left over yard would become a cherished keepsake and a symbol of the creative legacy that she would pass on to her daughters, grand and great. Even in the most mundane of makes, is a thread of the tapestry of a creative legacy and hygge in the home.