#MargParg

 March 6, 2024 Ok, lets be clear.  You don't need an Etsy shop to have a creative space. A sewing room, back bedroom, studio, craft area is not a by product of some lucrative, business venture.  It is whatever you like and find solace and peace and a place of your own, reflecting you and your interesting crafting life.  There will be photos of Michigan makers and their spaces of creative ideas, reflections of their personalities and storage of many different types of craft supplies and work tables and nostalgia. I will begin with my own space that I have curated and organized, sort of,  and its not perfect which works for me. Its an old house with crumbling basement walls, occasional spiders, old cabinets, and my stuff. Some artists/creators just like their dining room table.  Very cool.   For me, I need a space that can remain a mess until I enter again and pick up where I left off.  Not need to iron, vacuum, put away the pieces and parts of...

 February 25, 2024 Where to begin, well with a new grandchild recently born, its a good a time as ever to tell my story of creating, making and doing. In an earlier post I mentioned the magazine: Where Women Create.  Love this idea and concept and whomever zeroed in on publishing photos and stories about this is a genius. Fascination with the how and where and what of the path of a maker is about the love of life. About me.  I started out in a small house with my parents and one sister.  My mothers parents lived a mile away in a small house and we had lots of years of gathering and making.  Many of the memories are from making to make do, save money, economize, you get the drift. We did ok.  My parents funded both by sister and my college education.  Sent us on a trip with the church choir to England.  Taught us many life skills, most of which were from the position of make do, save money, and economize, but that's my origin. At a very young age I...

 february 5, 2024 Last Thursday was the beginning of the redo. And old built in cabinet that was somewhat functional, but old and rickety was wrecked out and removed. Making way for the new/old cabinet to fill the space and be a storage spot.  It was a journey of used furniture stores armed with measurements and no idea what could work.  A drive about 35 minutes form home started the search.  A used furniture destination of 30,000 square feet of possibilities.  However after wandering for an hour in this vast collection, not one piece was quite right.  On the way to this place I stopped off at the local goodwill.  Not looking for anything in particular.  Figured the right cabinet would not appear at such a place.  However.... As I wandered around the Goodwill store, my eye caught sight of an Elna sewing machine.  My personal fav brand of machine.  It was priced at $12.  I plugged it in and found it to be in working order. ...