Piney's Needle

I started this blog to showcase and document for my children the legacy passed down through the generations of quilters.  Then it became a place where I kept up with my sewing and art projects.  A few months ago, I stepped away from it and tried to combine all my blogs into one at HolyCamp.  But that just wasn't working for me.  So today I came back...to my roots...to my stitches.

If you are a writer, you just have to write and if you are an artist (of any kind) you just have to create.

While I have a normal job, where I sit behind a computer screen all day and work spreadsheets, deep inside me is the desire to do something where people will read it or look at and simply say, "that's beautiful". 

Not for my glory, but for them, to inspire them, to encourage them, or to give them a reason to take a simple breath and be refreshed in some way.  To look at a piece of art (wither it be on canvas, fabric, or paper) and for just a moment lose themselves in the beauty.

I simply want to create something beautiful.

God gave me some talents, I recognize that what I can do with a needle, pin/pen, paintbrush or keyboard is from Him.  But it has to be for than just me, it has to be for Him and through me for you.

So....Piney's Needle.

Once Stitched Together, but always Piney's Needle in my mind.

When we lived in lower Alabama (LA as those in the area call it), I brought in extra money by sewing for shops and families.  At that time it was mostly smocking and sewing clothes for children.  The shop I did commissioned work for was featured in Sew Beautiful magazine and one of my smocked panels was highlighted.  I was pretty proud of my work.

Moving back to Tennessee, about 12 years ago now, I entered one of my pieces in the county fair.  They didn't even know how to judge it, there was no category for smocked and sewn clothes.  I tried sewing for people here (like my mother did, my grandmother, and now my daughter does), but the smocked clothing wasn't as popular in this area as it had been in LA.  So I put my smocking machine away and created other ways.

Quilting seems to be where my hands tend to wonder now. 

I live in an area called Pinewood, my house sits on the Piney River.  I live in a log house and it's very rustic and simple country living.  In my mind I see that river flowing through a needle, bringing all it's beauty and ugliest through the eye and being transformed into a memory, something new, something beautiful, something to be treasured and past down from generation to generation.

So...Piney's Needle.

As I develop the site more and more, there will be links to my Etsy shop where you can purchase some of these treasures.  There will also be contact information if you would like to commission me to make something for you.  I'm going to be doing classes again and teaching.  I might even try to develop the old quilting bee for the ladies in our community to gather face to face and encourage each other over a few loose threads.

Join me as I take a stab at this, be inspired, be encouraged, take a deep breath and be refreshed. 

Beauty...create with me beauty.