Craftiness, Day 1

I have been woefully absent this month, I know. I have been taking some time off both work and blogging. But never fear! I have abandoned neither!

My children are growing older, leaving the nest, flying the coop. Early in August, I flew to St. Louis for a few days with my eldest daughter, who will be living there for the next five years. Now, she’s been living on her own for some years, so her move didn’t change the constitution of Mary’s house, but it sure does feel like I have an Adult Child when that child is living in an entirely different country!

My son and middle child has been living with a bunch of college compatriots in a townhouse across town for two years now. Various stepchildren have begun college, and even gotten themselves married.

What does all this growing up and taking flight mean to Mary? It means that, for the first time in DECADES, an empty room in my house. A room that is not required to house one of the hordes of children. A spare room!

But not a guest bedroom, oh no. Guests can fend for themselves. This room? Is MINE.

This room is a craft room.

It is furnished with our old dining room table, and enormous rectangle perfect for sewing machine and work space. (Given that we no longer need to regularly seat ten, we now have a smaller, round table. With a leaf, just in case!) My ironing board sits there. There are shelves in the closet filled with fabric and plastic bins. It’s not done yet — I’m envisioning a warm cream and deep red colour scheme, and lots more sewing-specific storage — but it’s MINE.

I have my very own room, a space just for me, for the first time in… goodness, could it be thirty years?

I think it could.

Good lord.

And in that wonderful (though teeny) space, I have been sitting and CREATING.

Emma asked me to make her a pencil case for school. No sweat!! Because, hey, I have a fabric stash, and now I can actually get at it! Her pencil case is made from leftover fabric from the blind I made for the dining room a couple of years back, and the zipper from a pair of jeans. It’s lined with denim from the same jeans. (Yes, they were pink jeans. No, I never wore them.)

When he saw it, youngest stepson also wanted one. His is a nice, understated blue denim, also from the fabric stash. In fact, the only thing I needed to purchase was the zipper for the second case.

(Update: Youngest stepson has requested that his blog name be “Cloud”.

“Cloud?”
“Yeah, it’s my favourite video game character.”

Okay, then. ‘Cloud’ it is.)

(That pink thing is a bit of fluff from the pink denim, which I noticed only when I uploaded the pictures.)

I’m so pleased. More importantly, so are the kids. Which pleases me. 🙂