I got my crafty talent from my mom, but she can’t use a sewing machine. She likes to do hand-stitching, like knitting, crochet, and cross-stitching. Unlike her, I’m very impatient for that, the only hand-stitching that I enjoy is crochet.

Seeing me doing crafts, my mom always asks me whether I have things for her to do too to keep her busy, because she is getting bored with crosswords. Actually, it’s because she can never finish a crossword when it comes to English questions.

My mom is a simple Indonesian muslim woman, she doesn’t understand any English and for her the world is just about Indonesia, she doesn’t keep up with what’s happening in other parts of the world. It’s because her life was not like mine, she went to school because it’s what she had to do to work. She went to school not to study, not to read and nor to get knowledge. She didn’t have time to critically think about the history, literary works or gender equality. For her life is simply living.

I saw that I have embroidery hoops that I haven’t used, I thought I could train my patience, but maybe not right now. So, I grabbed some fabrics and a pen, and started drawing on the fabrics, my mom then did the hand-stitching. She finished one project quite fast. I want the hoop arts to have messages in them. The funny thing is that my mom who does all the hand-stitching doesn’t even have any idea what they are about. She never questions. Just believe that her child is doing right. I wish I had that faith to something.

These are some of the works she has finished so far. You won’t believe these nasty fierce hoop arts were made by a sweet, simple, 64 y.o Indonesian muslim woman.