Amanda Blake Soule - Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures

H a n dm a d e H o m e

Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures

AMANDA BLAKE SOULE

Trumpeter

Boston & London

2011

TRUMPETER BOOKS

An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

trumpeterbooks.com

2009 by Amanda Blake Soule

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Soule, Amanda Blake.

Handmade home: simple ways to repurpose old materials into new family treasures / Amanda Blake Soule.1st ed.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2106-4

ISBN 978-1-59030-595-9

1. Handicraft. I. Title.

TT157.S6365 2009

745.5dc22

2008045457

Dedicated to my foremothers, all makers of beauty

Florence, Dorothy, Millie, Edrie

To be surrounded by beautiful things
has much influence upon the human creature;
to make beautiful things has more.

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

Contents

My deepest thanks to:

Everyone at Trumpeter Books, who have made the process of making books a true pleasure and honor for me to be a part of.

Jennifer Brown, for the wise, encouraging, and thoughtful way in which she edited and guided this project.

Linda Roghaar, my agent, for her invaluable advice and guidance along the way.

Amy Karol, Alicia Paulson, Anna Maria Horner, and Ali Edwards, for the inspiration, experience and friendship they have shared.

Meg Rooks, Stacy Brenner and my sister Michelle Ames, for sharing their stories, crafts, newborn babies and all manner of other loveliness for this book.

The readers of SouleMama for their support and kindness each day and through the years. Thank you for helping to make so many wonderful things possible!

My familyboth the one I was born in and the one I was so blessed to marry intofor passing on a love of family history, tradition, and old-fashioned Yankee DIY that is both in my heart and at the heart of this book.

My dearest girlfriends Rachael, Jessie, Jean, and Brandie. Words cant express what you mean to me, or the many ways you have contributed to this bookthank you, and I love you.

And my deepest gratitude and love to the ones with whom I am so honored to share my everyday withmy partners in every way, in all that I doHarper, Adelaide, Ezra, Calvin, and Steve. Thanks for keeping me on the path and sharing it with me, my loves.

Each day provides us with the opportunity to create something. What can we make today? Its a question I love to hear from my little ones, and its a question in my own heart each and every day. Making things by hand is a way I share my love and a bit of myself with those dearest to me. Whether it be diapers to clothe my soon-to-be-born babe, blankets to keep us all warm on cool winter nights, or a special handbag for a mamas night out, each time I make something for my home and my family, I feel a satisfaction unlike any other feeling. I find such joy in gathering whats around me, dreaming and stitching it into something new, and putting it to use in the hands of those I love.

Through the act of making I find solace and peace in the small moments of my everyday life. When I am at work making things, I am fully present in the moment as I breathe new life into something, while at the very same time, I am fulfilling a need or a desire for my family. I am reminded rather symbolically that we can only do one stitch at a time, and therefore one step at a time and one breath at a time in this life. Mending, sewing, and creating provide us with a beautiful opportunity to stop running and to relish a small moment in time as we go about our task. When I sit to sew, I am fully aware of the sound of the needle coming in and out through my linen, and that quickly becomes the backgroundthe heartbeatto the other sounds in my life, the sounds of my children playing, the music of our days. I try, then, to carry this rhythm with me through my days and my world. When making things, I am not thinking about what happened or what is yet to come. I am fully aware of what is happening now.

Most all of the things I make are for my family and our family home. Home, as our primary place of comfort, nourishment, love, and soul. Home is our place of peace and comfort both for us and for our children. Filling my home with items Ive made by handthat have, in effect, been infused with love in their makingis one of the ways I show those closest to me how very much I love them. Sprinkling some handmade creations through our home makes it a truly unique representation of who we are. Looking around at the things in our home, I can see who we are, what we value, and how we spend our time. These furnishings become comfort, peace, and the landscape in which our family grows, learns, and loves together.

Much of the making I do blends my love of creating with my love of old things and my desire to use what we have. Repurposing (the act of making something new from something old) is an important part of creating for me. We need only look a few generations back to find people who out of necessity were able to make new things from old, people who had an ability to see a second life in something once its first purpose was finished. Like most women of her generation, my great grandmother FlorenceGrammie Gile to me, though we never metwould buy fabric to make her clothes herself and later turn them into clothing for her children. When the clothes no longer fit the children, they were deconstructed and remade into dolls clothing and toys. Ultimately they ended up as quilts and rugs and rags. Things were truly worn until they could be no longer. My mother tells of visiting my Grammie Gile and of the treasured bucket of empty wooden spools that all the grandchildren used as building blocks and of the paper dolls that they made together out of old Sears catalogs. Nothing was wasted, and nothing was simply tossed aside. When clothing was deconstructed, every button and snap was saved and used over and over again until it could be used no longer. Waste not, want not, my grandmotherGrammie Giles daughterwould say to me years later as she snipped the buttons off her own old and worn clothing. If we dont waste what we have now, we will not need later.