Jane of Many Trades, Expert at None

Most of my day is spent in an office, sitting behind a desk and staring at a computer. I’d like to say I am 100% dedicated to the work in front of me, but like all of us, I am guilty of letting distractions get the best of me. When I am temporaily pulled away, I find myself making to-do lists and dreaming up new projects to tackle. My evenings and weekends are usually spent attempting to carry out these “great ideas” -- Some are successful and some are complete disasters, but regardless of the outcome, there are always lessons to be learned from the mishaps along the way!

To preface any blog post that follows, please know that I am by no means an expert! According to my diplomas I am an accountant, and my business card reads, “Financial Analyst”. I use sewing, decorating, baking and crafting as my creative outlet away from the structured business world. Most stories I share will be accounts of my first attempts and tend to develop in one of the following ways:

1. Complete fabrications often preceded by thoughts of, “wouldn’t it be nice if...”,
2. An attempt to imitate something I find in a store for a cheaper price -- which doesn’t always end up being the case,
3. Seeing a project in a book, article, or blog with actual step by step instructions and thinking, “I could totally do that!” -- these tend to have the highest success rate,
4. A request from a family member, co-worker, or friend who is over-confident in my abilities, or
5. A desire to make a necessary and/or functional item coordinate with everything else.

As you have probably guessed, a lot of my projects are centered around sewing. I inherited my sewing machine from my wonderful Aunt when I was in high school. At the time, I knew very little about how to use it, and made just a few simple projects before running out of the original bobbin thread. I was far too intimidated to wind a new bobbin and feared I would never get the needle threaded correctly if I tampered with it. So, my machine eventually got lost in the back of my closet, and stayed hidden away for many years.

My latest apartment move; however, brought the sewing machine back out and gave me the opportunity to revive an old interest. I am more determined than ever to be good at this hobby and am always thinking up projects to try so I can develop new skills. Although I am no longer afraid to wind bobbins and change out thread, I still spend ample amounts of time researching techniques and always have the instruction manual close by, just in case I get lost! AND, to make sure this recently revived hobby does not get neglected again, I have created a space all its own…

This is what I lovingly refer to as my ‘sewing nook.’ It is where I spend many hours designing, measuring, pinning, stitching, sometimes re-stitching, and ultimately creating -- most of the time -- what I've set out to do. I cannot stress enough, I am a beginner and learn more from trial and error than anything else. My journey through each project, whether successful or not, is what I want to share -- and, with an apartment that needs personalizing and two puppies with more belongings than myself, there is an endless list of projects just waiting to be tackled and stories to be shared!