In case you don’t already know, Kathy Cano-Murillo is a crafty powerhouse.

Over the years she has given me amazing advice via several online craft boards and has often amused me with stories of her handmade mishaps! It always comforting to know that I’m not the only one gluing my fingers together or doing things (as I did this weekend) like injuring myself with a felting needle!

I was overjoyed to recently acquire a copy of her new book, Art de la Soul, which is a craft primer of sorts. I love the fact that not only does it contain a list of items crafty newbies might need when starting out, but also that it stresses that being a good crafter doesn’t mean you always produce good craft.

Case in point, this weekend while working on some rugs for part of a book, I made my little test square of felt in my bathtub. The final result was completely bizarre looking, kind of like Pac-Man. However, a less-than-satisfactory result made me look for ways to repair my efforts that I wouldn’t have had to learn if my test piece had come out perfect! While I may not yet be a feltmeister, I am more confident with the process now that they went a little pear-shaped.

As long as we continue to stress that creativity does not equal perfection, we will continue to create. And I fully applaud those who recognize that getting messy (and often messing up) with your art/craft only serves to expand your own production and knowledge.

This is the bay window in the back bedroom of my grandmother’s house. It used to be my great-grandmother’s sitting room and still holds a blanket she crocheted before her death. For years I thought that maybe somewhere in the definition of the word ‘home’ was implied that the longer you lived somewhere, the more it became yours. But now, I’m not so sure.

What makes a house a home?

I know for sure that cardboard boxes aren’t part of the equation. As I’ve been almost constantly on the move for a decade now, I’m an expert of what home isn’t. While I still maintain that home is beyond bricks-and-mortar, that doesn’t mean that I’m not currently trying to make my house become more of a home.

But where to start? HGTV and Martha were the obvious choices, as both sites (empires?) have an amazing wealth of information regarding ways to make your domicile something you actually feel like spending time in instead of just a place to sleep and store your stuff.

For a project that I am currently working on, I am making rugs for the home. The second I placed the first one down, my tiny little cottage instantly became more cozy and comfortable, taking on more of my identity than that of a space that once housed industrial-sized sewing machines for upholstery work. There was a small room adjacent to the kitchen and in it, there still were a couple of tables for sewing room lying in the corner, which were due for their transfer.

The space is steeped in creativity in a way that few places I have lived have been, full of memories of thread and bobbins and piecing together. As I continue to add little handmade touches (my rug, my great-grandmother’s apron from the 40s and photographs of my relatives that I found in a chest last year that all have them either making something or showing off their handiwork), I seem to be tapping more into what it means to call a bricks-and-mortar place home while simultaneously aware of the fact that home is primarily about identity and legacy instead of an address.