Welcome to my life’s work!
I have a passion for homemade EVERYTHING. It started a long time ago, in my great-grandmother’s kitchen, when I asked her why her canned peaches always tasted better than any others. Her answer:
“Because I make them myself”
That answer opened my eyes and changed my life. I started paying more attention to the meals she cooked, and the vegetables and fruits she grew in her garden. I started noticing that she made or altered most of the clothes she wore and they always fit better and lasted longer than anything I wore.
As I grew older I started noticing that all my grandparents made things, real things, useful things, that they used on a daily basis. So I started asking more questions, of all my grandparents, about all the things they knew how to do. Their wealth of knowledge amazed me, and I decided that day to learn from their examples.
I started with fun things, because at the time I was about 15 and no one wants to do boring things at 15. So I learned to bake and make candy and I loved it! I started baking pies, cookies, and muffins, and making my great-grandmothers fudge. Once I had pastries and croissants under my belt I decided I needed to learn more skills, and that was when I found knitting.
A friend had started knitting and showed me a basic knit stitch, and once again I was hooked (crochet pun totally intended). I started making scarves and selling them at craft fairs and boutiques, but I wasn’t skilled enough yet to make the really pretty things, and my attention to needles started dwindling.
Sometimes being an adult gets in the way of your hobbies
By this time I was in college and working full-time and I out of necessity I had to learn how to really cook. For that don’t know baking is NOT cooking, a fact which took me many years, and many, many failed recipe attempts to understand. I can mess up a recipe I’ve made hundreds of times, but that almost never happens with baking. I am just a baker, who cooks relatively well.
After graduating college, I returned to my beloved hobbies and started learning new knitting techniques and making my own recipes. I also started learning more about gardening, but in my urban setting it was difficult to grow much of anything. About 2 years ago, we moved to a rural town in Southern Oregon and my green thumb really started to bloom.
Can we just stop right here and acknowledge how delicious homegrown tomatoes are? YUM!!
Now in my 30’s, I really get what my great-grandma told me so long ago. Everything I make myself is just better than anything I can buy in a store. I have issues with most clothes because I have long legs and arms, so most pants are floods and most “long-sleeves” fit me like 3/4-sleeves, but if I make them myself I know the sizes will be just right.
Over the years, I gleaned as much instruction from elders as I possibly could. From great-grandma, I learned about gardening, canning and being a card shark, from my grandfather I learned about woodworking, from my maternal grandma I learned colors and hues and seeing the beauty in everything, and from my paternal grandmama I learned about real cooking, with real ingredients.
This site is a dedication to all the people who made me who I am today. It’s a place for me to share some age-old wisdom that has been glossed over in the hectic, fast-paced, world we live in. I hope you enjoy your time here.
Kween's Krafts 