Here on Stitch and Boots my main objective is to help people learn as many of the skills an urban homesteader might need to know that are within my realm of expertise to share. I want to be a conduit to DIY success in cooking, sewing, fixing, cleaning, and growing. Sometimes with the help of much-loved and respected friends, often on my own.
In my former life I have been many things including: fast food cashier, electronics salesperson, shipping manager for Weston Wear in San Francisco, custom costume designer, needlewoman, assistant designer at Mulberry Neckwear, color swatcher at Mulberry Neckwear, coffee jerk (several times), technical writer, unpaid novelist, retail store owner, product designer and manufacturer for my own retail store, metal grinder (very briefly wonderfully satisfying), housewife, stay at home mom, and currently I am a headline editor for an online ad network.
I shut down my Etsy shop that followed my retail brick and mortar store because I wanted to be done with sewing for commerce. I have a good job and not a ton of time. Having a good job at this time must be counted as one heck of a blessing and I couldn’t be more thankful that I have one. However, in spite of both my husband and myself being employed, like so many people we know we make very little money together and we are facing the tough prospect of a winter with no extra room in our budget for things like heating our house*.
I have some wonderful back-stock from my retail store that I made myself and I have decided to reopen my Etsy shop to sell what I have and to make some new things for it as well.
I have thought a lot about what my purpose is, what my usefulness to people is, and I believe that the real service I can offer to people is to help them learn to do things for themselves. Trying to sell people ready-made things isn’t my main goal nor my ultimate gift. The service of helping to teach others to do for themselves needs to be free. I need to offer this as a real service. A thing I do not for commerce but for sheer joy and personal fulfillment. Money, just to have lots of it, is not an end goal I have, though I admit that like most people I don’t despise the dream of being comfortable.
Most of the things I am listing in my Etsy shop are things I’d like to do as tutorials here so that everyone can, if they want to, make them for themselves. What I would ultimately like to do is to offer tutorials on how to make all these projects for yourself and then offer patterns only for sale at some point.
One pattern I will be working on this coming week is a little pattern for the mushroom applique I designed for the men’s shirt smock project.
I hope that all of you will visit my shop if only to say hello and see what’s going on there. I know that so many people are in the same situation that I am financially and aren’t in a position to be shopping. I am going to include links to my Etsy shop in any post where it seems appropriate but I ask you not to feel importuned in the least nor pressured to buy. If I have something for sale that is exactly what you need or want then I will be delighted to provide it to you, but what I really want is for you all to continue visiting to see what new recipes, projects, and plant profiles are being added to this urban homesteading database. I want all of you to continue to feel empowered to do things for yourselves.
Here is a link to my newly minted Etsy shop:
I have some new recipes to post in the next few days so come back soon! Thank you all so much for spending time reading Stitch and Boots, this is one of my greatest achievements in progress!
*I’m not kidding. The interior of our house has been between 53 degrees and 56 degrees all day. We’ve always been known to keep our house at a fairly crisp cool temperature but this is ten degrees lower than we usually go.
Congratulations!!!
Nice aprons.
A few thoughts on gifts you could make for yourself; hope one or two prove helpful in surviving your long winter:
1. window quilts (crazy quilts from scraps if need be)
2. rice bags for warming freezing feet. Put some lavender or whole spices in them for fragrance
3. A quilted shawl. Possibly flannel.
4. A copy of The Long Winter from the Laura Ingalls series, to help you feel a sense of camaraderie about having to endure a long, difficult winter.
5. Figure out a time to pick up frozen plums from me, to make jam, and thus help warm your house.