Why Piney's Needle?

I've been trying to write the story of my heritage of thread and fabric passed down from my mother and my grandmothers.  I'm hoping to have it in a format where I can do some self publishing and sell the story at an event I'll be a part of in May (more details to come at a later date).

I mentioned to my daughter, who does screen printing on T-shirts, that I needed a logo and within minutes, she was sending me this first draft of her idea.

I love it, but I know that some people might not get it.  So here is why I call this place on the internet, my Etsy shop, and my home-based business, Piney's Needle.

Almost 50 years ago, my parents moved their young family to a farm in the Pinewood community of middle Tennessee, about an hour west of Nashville.  The farm is bordered on one side by the Piney River.

Nearly 12 years ago, my husband brought our family back to the Piney, where we built a log house in the field where I once rode horse, cut hay, and worked cows.  I am surrounded by my family, with my childhood home right across the field and both my brothers just down the road from me.

My dream, like my grandmother's and my daughter's, was to have a little shop to sell my creations and teach the techniques to others.  The dream is still there to build a little shop that overlooks the Piney River, to quilt on the porch while I listen to the water flowing by.  Doesn't that sound like a place where you would want to join me?

Piney's Needle was born from those thoughts and dreams.  Like the river cutting through the land in a smooth, effortless, beautiful design, that was how I wanted my stitches to be.  So Piney's Needle I have become.  I still have some work to do to have my work smooth and effortless but I'm getting the beautiful part down just fine.

Mark Your Calendar - June 22, 2013

Do you have some art or craft projects you would like to work on but just don't have the time?

Gather your supplies and projects and head over to my house on the Piney, Saturday June 22nd.

For a few hours we'll gather, chat, and create something beautiful!!  This not a class but a gathering of folks that love to create, there is no cost. 

We all have some unfinished project, even if its just sewing some buttons on a shirt.  Maybe you just need help with getting your pattern for the Double Wedding Ring to work out or finish up that Nine Patch you started a couple of years ago.  Bring them!!!  Would you like to try your hand at smocking?  I'll have my machine out.

I have a few sewing machines if you need them, or you can bring your own.  I've also got the space for cutting out your project or simply sitting & sewing.  Or maybe you just need a day with some friends...come on over!

I would love for you to come over and join me in this old fashioned quilting bee type of setting.  We'll start about 9:00 and go until 12:00 or however long you want to stay!!

I'll have some light refreshments but you are welcome to bring something.  There will be no childcare, but your children are welcome to come, but you'll have to watch them and FYI...my stairs and lofts are not toddler friendly yet.  I do have a big yard away from the road.  The house is not wheelchair accessible...sorry. 

Piney's Needle

6794 Piney River Road N

Bon Aqua, TN 37025

 

Off Hwy 48 - in the Pinewood area, Hickman County

 about 5 miles south of I-40, exit 163

Red-roofed, log-house sitting out in the field

931-996-8064 - Deborah's cell

boutwell_d@bellsouth.net

 

Let me know if you can make it and if you need anything special or better directions (GPS is not always user friendly out here).

The view from my front porch.

The view from my back porch.

 

My house.

Another view from my front porch.

 

Hope to see you!!



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.