Crafts -- good or bad?

I stayed some place recently that had an entire set of animals made out of seashells. Little seashell sculptures if you will. My impression was that these had been around a while. I started thinking about my own fits of craftiness over time. I realized the styles of crafts change, sometimes dramatically. Sometimes I go to a relative's house and see a craft I made, say, 20 years ago. Yes, I was an adult then but it was a different time and those things shouldn't still exist. They should have gone to goodwill heaven long ago.

When I got married, there was a sort of country thing going on in crafts. Lots of duck and bunny based projects. I did t-shirt and sweatshirt painting too. Yes, I did. But it was okay then. So as I look back at things that are now sad or ugly years later, I wonder if there is such a thing as timeless crafts.

I think of knitting and crocheting, hand art that has gone on for centuries. While some things can carry on through time, a lace tablecloth perhaps, some things are scars on the surface of craft-dom. I'm thinking of the knit lady-doll-toilet-paper-covers of the 70s. Now, in the 70s I was delighted by a purse knitted into the base of cut off plastic soap bottle. But I was 7.

Even today when I decide I want to make something and I go look at crochet patterns, I am sometimes horrified. No, I don't want to make a yarn owl, nor a vest that fits no one. It makes me scared that I participate in the art.

I used to be much more crafty-inclined. For some reason, that tendency has been fading the last 6 years or so. Maybe it is a temporary lull. A friend did recently show me how to make felt acorns and I had a spasm and created a whole bowl full. Now I'm making essentially the same thing, only it's holly berries. A small voice in my head is concerned I'm creating something that a few years from now will make me cringe. But in spite of the voice I carry on with the roving wool making the felted berries. Felting is in right now. So it's safe... for now. But everyone who receives one, needs to think about a date to discard it, please.

It seems like many things have had a hey-day. Ducks, cows, bunnies...have had their day. Can you think of any old or new scary crafts?