Hilda Chishamba

My name is Hilda Tsungai Chishamba, you can call me Tsungie or Hilda.  I have always been a creative person.  I love crafting as a way to express myself, but also as a way to deal with pressure and stress.  To me, the process of making something is most enjoyable, even more than the final product. 

My earliest memory of crafting was with my late grandmother, when I was around 6 or 7 years old, in the rural areas of Zimbabwe.  She taught me how to weave a bracelet out of reeds.  This was a fun project to do every time we went there to collect clay for making clay pots.  I would make the bracelets while she dug up the clay.  Weaving with long grass or reeds is something done by most kids in my country.  I also remember sharing different ways to weave the long grass bracelets with my friends on our way home from school.  We would weave with four grass pieces to create a herringbone pattern.  There was also another pattern where we used six pieces of long grass to make this beautiful interconnected rope. Making grass bracelets is a memory I hold dear, because it's a craft that my grandmother showed me.  

My favorite materials to work with are beads, yarn and reed fibres.  Beadwork is a big part of African culture, and I especially love making African jewelry.  I enjoy trying out existing patterns and also making my own patterns.  Zimbabweans are a colorful people, and we take pride in our culture.  Our culture uses vibrant colors to depict different meanings. The cultural use of color inspires me in my crafts which are also very colorful and vibrant.  In addition to beadwork, I enjoy crocheting slippers and necklaces, macrameing, and knitting.