Lately I feel as if I don't fit in anywhere in the world as far as an occupation goes. Some days I feel I can teach, while others I think that kids are insanely disgusto. Either way, I've felt a strong draw as of late in the direction of creating my own small sewing business. Don't get me wrong, I'm no seamstress and I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between particular stitches unless I google it, however, I can maneuver a sewing machine and have some sort of spunk and creativity that I'm now referring to as my pet project: "The North Room."
The name "The North Room" derives from the bulk of my childhood and well into adolescence as a place of common comfort and normality that dwells in the home of my Grandma Ruby. She is an exquisite fox of a woman, elegant as most call her, and a crafty "witch-like", warm woman who helped raise my sister and me. In her lighthouse decorated, wall-to-wall cluttered smoky home you will find what everyone in our family refers to as the North Room. Behind the double sliding doors one would normally find housing a utility room, you enter upon an array of a mini Hobby Lobby; every crafter's dream. Rows upon rows of dust covered crusted paints and eager high-end bristled paint brushes. A fabric selection as vast as your local JO-ANN's with the smell of fifty years of unfiltered smokes singing the threads. An antique and incredibly mechanically advanced sewing machine. Satin flowers lining the back wall. Notions galore. Craft and design books. An old un-tuned piano which still are accessorized by my yellowing self-teaching stickers, E, G, B, D, F,...F, A, C, E. And of course, the Christmas tree that generally sits upon festive and lively aloe-vera plants that stays up all year long, year after year, displaying the bare and fatally old electric candlesticks that bring warmth to the room even if the tree is droopy.
The truly magical thing about The North Room at Grandma Ruby's house is that of all my memories from childhood, these are the most vibrant, loved, and truly defining memories that helped craft me into who I am today. Rather than watch TV (don't get me wrong, Arsenio Hall and the birth of The Simpsons), Stephanie and I often were indulged into some fantastic fantasy that we created for ourselves. By playing school, office, or house, we could craft some of the arts Grandma Ruby taught us. We had art class in "school". We did cross-stitch during "house". And quite often in real life when school projects came around, mine were some of the most fantastic. It could be frustrating at times, yes, because Grandma Ruby would often take over creatively, but the glitter and glitz that these simple butcher paper projects possessed always wowed my teachers and classmates.
These crafty skills I have acquired over time from Grandma Ruby (and my mom too) now leave me in a place where I truly want to create something quite unique for women everywhere. I used to cringe at the idea of stay at home moms, and now I desire that occupation more than anything in the world. Not just to take "morning naps" and "afternoon naps" and not work, but to be close to my kids and teach them these wonderful things Grandma Ruby taught me. So maybe, just possibly, in my fairy-tale life that I am living so lovingly, I am destined to have my North Room dream come true and create sewing crafts and art for moms all around who don't necessarily drool over the baby blues and pastel pinks of the Babies-R-Us aisle, rather, prefer something different with a flair for rock, cuteness, and something the Baptist pew-seat-warmers would refer to as "controversial".
Thus, please stay tuned for more updates on this trying process of a fairly idle woman trying to make a small business for herself for the sole goal of becoming a stay at home mommy.
Cheers to moms and Grandma Ruby's everywhere!
Above, Grandma Ruby and me. Christmas 2008.
