cite jardin

i'm going around and around about where my business should be...should i be a trailblazer and set up shop in beautiful garden city? if anyone ever reads this, i have a joke for you:

garden city : boise

vatican : rome

are you picturing it? garden city, a beautiful ancient walled city with priceless works of art frescoed on its ceilings. um, not so much. it's one big giant trailer park, but it's changing. and it IS a city within a city, which i find amusing to say the least.

i feel like i have missed so many opportunities to be a part of something BIG--so many cases of being in the right place at the wrong time...leaving just before the renaissance. olympia, williamsburg, nampa...or maybe i was in the right place at the right time, just not doing the right thing. hello!? i think i may have just unlocked a very huge piece of my lifelong problem--i have NEVER been tapped into my possibilities, and so always in retrospect, i see what could have been. it's not that places change and create opportunities for me. i change and create opportunities for me. so now: i am in the right place, at the right time. this is my mantra for today. welcome to my self-help-sewing blog. so much fun for you, dear imaginary reader.

dreaming in cocca

i just stumbled on the website for cocca, and i'm totally floored, envious, inspired and sad that i will probably never get to go there. i don't even know what city it's in because the site is in japanese. but these photos speak my language. my shop will undoubtedly be smaller and a bit more cluttered with this and that, but a girl can dream...can't she?

every day a new hummingbird

this is just getting weird. one of my favorite artist/crafters (boygirlparty) just released this--today or yesterday:

animal medicine

hummingbird person

how am i so lucky as to have a dear friend who is a life coach who calls me at just the right moment for me to step out of my office into the warmish drizzle on this strange june day and ask me just the right questions to help me feel so much better about everything? HOW am i so lucky?

this week, i will:

set up a time to sew at my mom's house for 3 hours
work on design stuff (tonight)
plan out how to put shelves in my closets w/ bri

and get this: i am a hummingbird person. i have been noticing hummingbird imagery EVERYWHERE lately (including on my shirt that i'm wearing at this very moment) and wondered what the significance was...and then michele said it today, and then read about it from one of her woo woo animal symbolism books and it is true. i am a hummingbird person. i have yet to see a real live one this year, so if and when i do...watch out. the symbolism is this: hummingbirds drink the sweet nectar of the earth, and make it their work to spread it around. they also have an ability to adapt to any situation, to make the best of what they have. to stop in mid flight, fly up down backwards forwards. i always thought they were cool, but kinda silly looking, like you would see one on some grandma's doormat or something. but clearly i need to get over that. hummmmm.

dreamy

i woke up this morning from the most satisfying sleep i've had in a long time. i had the feeling that i had just been dreaming the best dreams, but couldn't for the life of me recall what exactly it was about. but the overall sense was this: i was flitting about--being a bit of a bricoleur--and it kept occurring to me to LET THINGS UNFOLD. in a literal and figurative sense--and what kept happening (this is the murky part) is that flowers (like lotus flowers) made out of paper (newspaper?) kept blooming. like i would walk by a mess on a table, instinctively try to clean it up, then i would consciously think 'let it unfold' and the mess would bloom into a newsprint flower. hmmm.

funny because i work at a newspaper...and i think the connection is this: i need to use this job and this time in my life to serve my higher purpose--instead of always thinking about it in this way that it is *preventing* me from doing what i really should be doing. it can get me there.

last night i made a vain attempt at sewing something that has been flitting around in my head for a long time. i think the idea was a little ill-conceived, and it is official that my sewing machine SUCKS. really bad. so, universe of the internets, i'm putting this out there: i need a new sewing machine. specifically a Singer UX 20 143. not that i'm picky or anything.

no time like the present

welcome to the bricolage blog...

bricolage is a french word (bree - co - loj) meaning 'do it yourself'. it comes from the root verb bricoler, which means 'to fiddle or tinker'. isn't it a great word? it's my favorite--because it's fun to say, and it's ultra meaningful to me, as a self proclaimed do-it-yourselfer. but my diy is not in a home improvement, diy network kind of way. in fact, it's pretty narrow in scope...my bricolage is about fiber arts, fabric & sewing.

and so bricolage is going to be the name of my future business. it will be combination of four things: a fabric store (selling designer and vintage fabrics), sewing lounge (a place for all crafters to come and hang out, work on projects or take a class), personal studio for me (where i will sew my heart out and become really really good at what i love doing) and handmade boutique (featuring items made locally and regionally). This is not my original idea...sewing lounges are popping up all over the country/world, and i feel that it would bring a much needed sense of community to this fair city--as well as provide resources for all interested persons to find their own inner bricoleur.

this is something that i have been thinking about for a long time now, and today i figured that even if it's a year away, i should begin documenting, and putting my intention out into the universe. is the internet the same thing as the universe? hence the title of this post: no time like the present. i just found myself sitting at work, watching the clock, waiting for 5:30. my goal is to NEVER EVER do that again. starting now.