The Lost Art of Making Things

When was the last time you made something with your own two hands, not because you had no other choice, but simply because you wanted to see if you could? For so many people these days the honest answer is that it has been a very long time, and I think that gap says a great deal about how we live now, in a world where the assumption seems to be that almost everything is better left to someone else, bought rather than made, replaced rather than mended. I have wanted to write about making things for a while now, because it sits right at the heart of what slow living actually means to me, not as some romantic idea about living simply, but as a genuine practice of using your hands, taking your time, and trusting that most things are within your reach if you are willing to have a go and make a mess along the way. There is an Italian proverb that reflects my own philosophy of lifelong learning rather neatly, impara l'arte e mettila da parte, which means learn the art and put it aside, and it captures something I believe deeply, that every skill you pick up along the way, however small or seemingly useless at the time, tends to find its purpose eventually. It has shaped far more of my life than just my career, which itself has taken more turns than most, and it has certainly shaped the way I think about making things with my own two hands.

Some of my earliest memories of making things go back to watching my nonna in the south working the finest cotton thread into crochet so delicate and perfect it barely seemed possible, and to my mother, who while sewing simple things for us would tell me stories of the years when she made her own clothes, because there was simply no money for anything else during the war. I started learning properly at seven years old, walking to lessons a couple of afternoons a week at the local convent, where the nuns taught sewing, crochet and knitting to anyone who wanted to come. My very first finished project was a small handkerchief with a crochet border, made as a Mother's Day gift, and I still remember the pride of handing it over to her. Years later, as a seventeen year old, came my proudest early disaster, a pair of jeans I made myself after falling in love with a pair my nonna in the north had brought me, copying them as best I could with fabric from the local shop, crooked zipper and all, and I wore my own imperfect version far more than the original ones, simply because they were mine.

I think of making things as a lost art quite deliberately, because it genuinely was lost for a generation or two, somewhere between the rise of cheap imported clothing and the simple convenience of buying rather than mending, and it is only now, with the cost of living what it is and the environmental toll of that same cheap clothing and disposable furniture becoming harder to ignore, that so many people are starting to look back at these old skills with fresh interest. Every second hand garment you rework into something new rather than leaving it on the rack, every old shirt or worn out pair of jeans you upcycle into something else entirely instead of throwing it away, every hem you take up yourself instead of paying someone else to do it, every sauce you make from what is left in the fridge rather than what a packet tells you to buy, is a small act of resistance against a way of living that assumes everything is disposable and everything can simply be replaced. There is nothing nostalgic or precious about this for me, it is simply practical, and it happens to be kinder to both your wallet and the planet than the alternative, which I suspect is exactly why my nonna and my mother saw it as ordinary common sense rather than any kind of virtue.

What strikes me most, though, is that it is not only the willingness to make things that has faded, it is the very places where you would once learn and gather your materials that are disappearing along with it. Over the years I have watched the fabric shops, the haberdasheries, the little wool stores close their doors one after another, not just here in Australia but back in Italy as well, which surprised me, since I had always thought of Italy as a place where these traditions would simply hold on regardless. Yes, you can buy almost anything online now, but it is simply not the same, no website can tell you how a wool will feel once it is knitted up, or let you run a fabric through your fingers before you commit to it. When a haberdashery closes, you lose far more than a convenient place to buy buttons and thread, you lose the person behind the counter who could tell you which needle suited which wool, you lose the chance to hold a fabric in your hands before deciding, and you lose one more small foothold for anyone hoping to learn. It is part of why I have come to treasure the good suppliers that remain, and part of why I am prepared to wait for the right materials, as I have with that old tablecloth pattern of mine, rather than settle for whatever poor quality import happens to be on the shelf.

That thread, if you will forgive the pun, has never really stopped. I sew, I knit, I crochet, I cook and bake, though I will happily admit cakes have never quite been my strength, I make my own pasta, I have taught myself basic soft cheese and sausage making, and I have made curtains, cushion covers and even outdoor shade sails for my own home over the years. What draws me back again and again is not really the finished object, though I do love having something to show for the effort, it is the particular kind of calm that comes from working with my hands on something that takes time and care. Some of my friends still laugh at me for saying that cooking relaxes me, but there is real truth in it, and there is nothing quite as effective at clearing my mind of whatever is troubling me as getting properly stuck into a piece of pasta dough or a slow simmering sauce.

There is a saying in Italian that captures why handmade things feel so different from anything bought, ci sono le mani e l'anima di chi ha fatto quella cosa, there are the hands and the soul of the person who made that thing. I still have a shawl my mother made me when I was seventeen, and it sits close to me in my hobby room even now, decades later. Making things has never followed any particular schedule in my life either, I might not touch a sewing machine for months at a time, or leave a piece of crochet half finished and forgotten in a basket, and then suddenly find myself spending an entire weekend absorbed in it. Some of my happiest hours making things have been with my granddaughters when they come to visit, teaching them the same small skills that were once taught to me, and watching something of that same thread of learning pass on to yet another generation.

If I had to choose one thing I have made that I am proudest of, it would have to be a crochet blanket I made when my grandson was born, which has since been passed down and used and loved by every grandchild who has come after him, and is still being used now that they are well into their teens. There are still things I have never quite managed, an old crochet tablecloth pattern from a magazine I have kept since I was a girl living with my parents, one I have attempted more than once and abandoned each time, not because the pattern itself defeated me but because the fine cotton thread I remember from Italy has never quite been matched by anything I have found here, and I would rather wait for the right materials than rush a project that deserves better.

If there is one thing I would say to anyone who tells me they simply cannot make things, it is that nothing is too difficult if you are willing to put your mind to it and accept that you will make mistakes along the way. I made my first pair of jeans with no training and no real idea what I was doing, and while the results were far from perfect, another Italian proverb sums up what I learned from it rather better than I ever could myself, sbagliando si impara, you learn by making mistakes. That, more than anything, is what making things has taught me over an entire lifetime, and it is a lesson I think applies just as well to almost everything else worth doing slowly and properly.

There is something I think about often when people tell me they would love to make things but simply do not know how to start. I had to walk to a convent twice a week as a seven year old and rely entirely on the patience of the nuns willing to teach me, because there was genuinely no other way to learn in those days. These days, if you want to learn how to turn a heel on a hand knitted sock, or finally attempt the kind of crochet border my nonna made look so effortless, you can search for it and watch someone show you exactly how, slowly, as many times as you need, from your own kitchen table. In many ways this is the easiest moment in history to learn how to make something with your own hands, since between video tutorials, generous online communities and patterns shared freely by other makers, all of the knowledge I once had to seek out in person is now sitting there waiting, and it really only takes the willingness to have a go.

Looking back now, I know how fortunate I was, curious enough as a child to want to learn, and lucky enough to be given the chance, first by the nuns at the convent, then by my mother and my nonne, to impara l'arte e mettila da parte, to learn a skill and simply have it there waiting for whenever I needed it. You do not need that same good fortune anymore, not in the way I did, because the opportunity to learn is more freely available now than at any point in my lifetime, and the only real ingredient still required is the willingness to begin. Pick up whatever is closest at hand, a needle, a hook, a wooden spoon, and let yourself be genuinely bad at it for a while, because that is exactly how the rest of us began. Making things is not some skill reserved for those who grew up surrounded by it, it is one worth rediscovering at any stage of life, and I would love nothing more than to see it find its way back into more homes, one imperfect first attempt at a time.

If you would like the fuller, more personal story behind everything I have touched on here, I have written a companion piece for the blog called A Life Stitched Together, going right back to a wooden spoon doll made at my nonna's kitchen table and forward to a bag I stitched together from an old pair of jeans only recently.