My grandmothers, Carolyn Gumm and Ruthe Dahlseng are the inspiration for this blog. Not out of trendiness or because they "read a great book," my grandma's were frugal and crafty. They both spent most of their lives in rural Minnesota on farms, growing and canning much of their families food. Their children were encouraged to spend time outside, not because they were "following a Waldorf-based philosophy of child-rearing," but because that was simply what they knew and where they lived. Sewing clothes, toys and other goods for the home was a part of their regular lives.
I love to sew. I love to thrift store shop. And I am learning to re-purpose older items into newer useful ones. This blog will be a written extension of these interests. I have a lot of respect for my grandmothers and the frugality and healthfulness that was a part of their lives. Translating the skills they practiced all their lives into my modern life is the goal of this blog. I live in a small 2-bedroom apartment on a busy corner in Chicago. We have no backyard and a very small, very close-to-lots-of-traffic shared front yard. This means that I have to be creative with how I immerse my children (I have one-year old twin girls and another on the way) in nature.
My hope is that this blog provides useful tutorials and ideas on sewing clothing, toys, repurposing older items, thrifting for the home, urban/eco parenting tips and sharing simple healthy recipes. Selfishly, I am also hoping that the discipline of writing this blog will help me to carve regular time in my busy week as a mother to create and sew. As all mothers of young children know, it is easy to get "lost" a bit in motherhood. Hopefully, this blog and my creations I share will help me to rediscover a hidden sense of self.
Ok. We are off!
