My earliest memory of the horrors of homemade crafts happened at my late Aunt Helen’s house in Franklin, a rural setting with weathered-barn board outbuildings, a large raspberry patch and a root cellar with jars and jars of put up preserves.

It’s the same place where my sister said I scarred her for life by locking the door when the neighborhood St. Bernard was running loose.

Those were the days when women still wore aprons they made and embroidered dish towels and pillowcases, but that’s not the hideous part.

It was the crocheted doll-head toilet roll cover that sat atop the toilet lid, covering, you guessed it, a roll of toilet paper.

There was a matching toilet seat cover so thick it was hard to put the seat down, so it stayed open a crack.

I couldn’t understand who would do such a thing and why. I felt somehow my childhood might possibly be impaired if this was the norm, and we didn’t have anything like it at our house that even came close.

The only craft in our minimalist house was the burned matchstick cross on the wall made by my brother as some Scout project, so to this day I have this aversion to crafty clutter, including lawn ornaments and knitted dish towels you button to the oven handle.

My friend insists that as a public confession, I tell the story of the day in high school when I opened all my presents before Christmas and then rewrapped them. We were maybe 16 years old at the time, suffering from some kind of defiant syndrome, or maybe that was just me. It was the year my family decided to make all our gifts for Christmas, and we were sure we’d get a kick out of looking at some corny stuff.

I myself had taken empty Chianti wine bottles and dripped multi-colored candle wax all over them — Italian-restaurant-style — and stuck a candle at the top. When my mother discovered the mess, I spent days on my knees, scraping wax off the basement floor.

In a dress box marked with a Gimbels-Schusters label was the worst homemade item I’ve ever seen.

It was a knitted or crocheted mustard-colored skirt and top, with a vest included. The entire ensemble had been lined with satiny material, in the same mustard color.
Nothing was right, the arms were off and the skirt was crooked and lumpy, with half the lining showing around the hem.

This was my gift from my older sister, a recent college graduate, just married and poor.
I thought of all the hours she put into it and cringed.

Somehow, opening all my gifts was no longer funny.

I got back at her one year by making family portraits out of stuffed pantyhose. You’d have to see it to believe it.

It’s right up there with handmade purses made of pipe cleaners and an empty milk jug.