That question — “Why don’t I just make one?” — didn’t surprise me as much as it probably should have. Because the more I sat with it, the more I realized it wasn’t new. I’ve asked some version of that question my whole life. I just hadn’t noticed the pattern until now.

Making is how I play. It’s how I learn. It’s how I explore the world. If something catches my interest, I don’t just want to admire it or think about it abstractly. I want to try it. Touch it. Work it out with my hands. I don’t need to master everything — I just need to experience it.

Over the years, that curiosity has taken me in a lot of directions: making paper, mixing bath bombs, creating my own home cleaning supplies, sewing clothing, bags, aprons, embroidery, wood burning, diamond dot painting, ceramics — I still have my pottery wheel in storage. Some of those things stuck. Some didn’t. That’s never really been the point. The point is that making is how I think. It’s how ideas move through my hands and become real. It’s not about productivity or perfection. It’s about exploration. About asking what’s possible — and then giving myself permission to find out.

That instinct showed up very clearly with the Giddyup Glove. I was crocheting constantly. Not casually — constantly. Every spare moment I had, my hands were working. Stitch after stitch, day after day. I wasn’t just making things; I was working something out. Testing ideas. Adjusting shapes. Trying to translate a feeling into a form that actually worked.

Those early crocheted versions still exist, packed away in bins in my garage — physical proof of how far the idea had already gone before my body stepped in and forced a pause. And then I had to stop. Not because I wanted to — because I had to. My hands made the decision before my mind was ready to accept it. So I packed everything up. I stepped away, telling myself I’d come back to it later, once my hands felt better.

But even though the making stopped, the thinking didn’t. The idea didn’t fade or lose its shape. It stayed with me, surfacing at random moments, uninvited — while doing other things, while resting my hands, while giving myself time. Months went by like that. I wasn’t actively working on the Giddyup Glove, but I couldn’t let it go either. It felt unfinished — not in a stressful way, just in a quiet, persistent way. Like something that hadn’t reached its final form yet. So I waited. Not stuck. Not forcing it. Just holding the idea, letting it stay alive without pushing it forward — trusting that eventually, a new way in would reveal itself.