{Summer Snuggling} Week 1 - Inspiration Workshop

Maggie, the lovely crafter/blogger behind Gussy Sews, came up with a great inspiration workshop for the summer. While I usually don't have trouble finding inspiration and struggle more with inspiration ADD (read: multiple unfinished projects), I thought this might help bring some focus to all those 'great' ideas. I also LOVE seeing what inspires others and what they create with that inspiration.

This week's inspiration is "Handmade".

There is somethings sacred I believe about curling up with two tiny warm, sticky, summer bodies, one leggy, one chubby, underneath a blanket wrought with hard work and love from your own hands. Just as the Lord knit those two together in my womb, now I am able to smell their sweet hair and they lean on my chest, legs wrapped together under a cover of handmade family love. Quilts are so much more than just a piecing together of fabric and thread. They are a piecing together of us.

I recently discovered Film in the Fridge, and she has one of the largest quilt resumes I've seen in a while (not that I have spent that much time looking!) While my own quilt CV is a grand total of...wait for it...(almost) 1, (see inspiration ADD above), I have been seeing so many great modern quilt designs in the blogosphere that I have had a major itch to make one again!

I found this great fabric the other week and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.

Now I know! The turquoise, orange, brown, tans and whites in my fabrics are the perfect ingredients in a lightweight quilt destined for summer snuggling. I just started piecing the top the other night after cutting my strips.

I already have about 10 blocks out of the 30 completed already (pics to come)! Here is how it's coming along. Yippee! I am following one of FITF's tutorial's. LOVE the design.

So here's my handmade inspiration photo, from FITF:

photo credit

Head over to the workshop at Gussy Sews to find some of your own inspiration and see what other's have found! (There's a button to the right on my sidebar for more info on how to join the workshop)

Fabulous Fall

(Marquette, MI)

The coming of fall stirs in me the desire for sensory fulfillment. There is so much anticipation in my soul for what delights lay just around the corner. While days here have still been hot, the midwest girl in me longs for the smell of cold earth, fallen leaves and the spiciness of baked goods; the sound of crunching leaves under my feet as summer's flourish lies scattered across every sidewalk, street, and wood; children laughing and leaping into piles of leaves; the sight of every tree lit aflame by brilliant reds, oranges and yellows, and pumpkins adorning every doorstep; the brisk chill of eminent change in the air cajoling me into sweaters, scarves and hats, and the warmth from a first lit fire of the season warming my home and my heart; and lastly the tastes of harvest's bounty fused with the sweet spices of the season, savory squashes, sweet-tart apples and warming soups and stews that lure me into the kitchen begging me to create.

I love our home here in Colorado. We will soon begin to spend more evenings with friends as holiday parties commence and I've noticed the subtle way the light playing off the mountains changes with the passing seasons.

Yet, autumn makes me long for home in ways that I do not the rest of the year. My heart pines for family, outings to cider mills, sugar from donuts lingering on your lips long after being finished, picking apples right off the tree and savoring that first bite of the season as the sweet juice runs down your fingers, and the lush canopy of trees over the streets that cocoon you into a tunnel of flames.

Most of all, fall provokes in me the sense of family, community, sharing and love like no other time of the season. There is a sense of coming together to relish in the sensory sensation autumn offers. May you delight in your own traditions and natural beauty of your surroundings, whatever they be. Happy Fall!

Mogul Mom? Momtrepreneur? Moron?

I have always loved crafts (and for those of you who know me well, this is the understatement of the century). A self proclaimed hobby-a-holic, I have always needed something to put my creative energies toward and making things with my hands has always been an outlet for me.

My basement is a rather embarrassing shrine to this habit. Clear storage bins and sliding drawers are stacked to the ceiling in the scrapbooking corner packed full of a rainbow of papers, stickers, rub-ons, stamps, embelishments, tools, punches, and more. There’s the sewing station with spools and bobbins galore, with each shade reminding me of projects past. A side of the road find bakers rack is loaded with baskets of the softest, most touchable yarns, remnants of precious projects that have graced my babies heads, feet and wrapped them in warmth as they were brand new. A storage shelf holds fabrics, pattern books, cross stich projects and floss/thread, my kids’s art supplies (googly eyes, pipe cleaners, finger paints, water colors, contruction paper and more) and some of my favorites: bins of keepsakes from when I was younger: writings, clay figurines, old programs from plays and concerts, and more (scattered in with the occasional 10 lb nursing school text book!). Then there is the banquet length craft table, inevitably strewn with the paraphernalia of whatever creation is attempting to take form.

It is merely a flight of stairs down into this organized yet somehow haphazard space, yet I feel a world away when I am down in my haven of textures and mediums just begging to be combined into something new and fabulous.

Up until about a month ago, everything I have made has always been for myself, my children, or as a gift for someone close to me. After multiple “little birdies” chirped in my ear (you know who you are!) that I really should sell what I am making, I decided to jump in with both (well, one and a half) feet.

I first heard about Etsy from my sister-in-law. What a treasury of unique, handmade and vintage gems. The concept is rather wonderful. I have been able to open a “shop” selling my handmade articles that lets me market and sell my creations to the greater population, have control over how much I make and sell, yet still have relatively little commitment if things should not go well or I get burned out. Sounded good enough for me.

Thus Rosewill Arts was born inspired from my kids’ middle names as they inspire me to be a better woman, wife, and mother every day.

So here’s to becoming a momtrepreneur, for now. We’ll see where this takes me, and for the time being, I’m along for the ride!