When Small Things Make You Smile

Sometimes, the smallest thing can make you smile. In this case, it’s a little panda tucked securely into a hand-sewn fleece sleeping bag, with a one-inch square cotton pillow for extra comfort.

The craft item was entered as an exhibit at this year’s Howard County Fair in one of the Children 11-and-Under Needle Arts categories by Amelia W.

In a world gone online, with thumbs flying over slick screens, Amelia’s needlecraft feels like an archaeological find. It creates a sense of wonder: a little girl realized her panda needed its own special place to settle in for the night, so she set about to create that even though crafting is not high tech.

Long gone are days when model rockets turned on display stands at Potomac Toys in Columbia Mall, while a dozen or so storefronts away, Inez sold needlepoint canvases and skeins of Elsa Williams yarn. Perhaps it was an omen in the 1980’s, when leather goods Tandy Corporation bought Radio Shack and paired the two stores at locations including Catonsville, only to drop the craft side of its business entirely to concentrate on the then fledgling PC market.

These days, while the release of a new iPhone might bring lines to the Apple store, some Home Arts categories at the fair only see one or two entries.

The world would do well with more Amelias, although I imagine it took some guts for her to temporarily surrender her panda to the fair, to leave her (or is it him?) in a display case with other crafted inspirations. Hopefully that her entry won a ribbon made it all worthwhile.

If you’ve never visited the Home Arts Building at the Howard County Fair, think about doing that next summer. Maybe even take on a craft project and enter it. The process is easy, and the Home Arts folks are friendly. For details, check out the fair’s web page for exhibitors (https://howardcountyfairmd.com/exhibitors/) and click the link for Entry Date & Times for Open Class - Home Arts.)

Preston Pairo (www.prestonpairo.com) has been a resident of Howard County since JFK was elected President. He is a lawyer and author, whose grandmother taught him to needlepoint when he was 14, and, yeah, his friends teased him about that, but he got over it. He also used to launch Estes model rockets into the sky behind Mt. Hebron High School, when most all you could see looking north and east were fields and trees.