What inspires you to be creative?

Everyone has something that inspires them to be creative. It is very common to have that inspiration change over the years. My journey of creativity has been one of ambition, love and disappointment, all of which inspired me to be creative. 

When I was young I wanted a horse more than anything just like many young girls. I was never privileged to be around them and going horseback riding was a treat that my dad gave me every few years. It was just too expensive for my family to indulge a girl with a horse fantasy. My fantasies of horse ownership was limited to drawing them and I even tried my hand at designing a bareback riding pad for a horse that I never had. I was creative, but deep down very disappointed. That was when I was 12. 

As my teenage years came upon me, I was thrust full force into designing my own clothes, or at least modifying them. I enrolled into home ec in high school and my parents got me my first sewing machine, a used White. I was the only one in the family who knew how to sew and I was also enlisted to repair my dads dress trousers. It was fun but I never fully got involved into dress making or designing, it was color and shape that intrigued me. 

In my late teens and early 20's I embarked on a project of inspiration and love, a full size bed quilt for my parents. It took 2 full years to make it since I was working full time at a job. It was a log cabin design of yellows and browns, and almost entirely machine quilted. It was a PITA to get that quilt through the arm of the sewing machine at times. It was when I struggled with it, that I would put it away for weeks at a time until I felt it was time to tackle it again. It was a day a triumph when I finally presented it to my parents. I was disappointed to learn that only a few years later my dad had succeeded in thrashing the quilt, by sitting on it day after day. He wore a spot in it where he sat on his side of the bed. From that I learned to tell people if they love their quilts and want them to last, don't sit on them every day, you will wear out the top fabric of the quilt. 


As a mother and wife I have made stuffed toys, lots of curtains, Christmas ornaments, home decorations, quilts and blankets and even a few purses. I never really got too involved with clothes making as my interests are just not in that direction.


Then came my adventures in embroidery, machine embroidery that is. I was just in the market for a new sewing machine and my husband happened to be with me. The salesman at the sewing machine store was demonstrating a sewing machine when an embroidery/sewing machine caught my husband's interest. At the time I was selling items on eBay and I was mildly interested in adding a logo or saying to my work. So he asked the salesman to demonstrate the Babylock embroidery machine. Long story short, I got the embroidery/sewing machine and it sews my heavy duty stuff and does embroidery like a charm.


After that I tried my hand at digitizing my own designs to be embroidered. Some work and some don't. Learning from my screw ups are life lessons well learned. 


My creative journey still continues and where it will led me I can never tell.