As a kid, I had the irritating privilege of growing up with an amazingly artistic mom. Trained at the Alberta College of Art and an excellent self-taught seamstress, she was always making something or other. My childhood has a timeline of fabrics: pink floral print from a blanket Mom made me when I was 6, purple cotton from the jacket I wore when I was 10, colourful musical notes patterned on that dropwaist dress I adored in grade 6.

It was my mother who brought me up in a culture of crafting. We were always making something: drawing, painting, paper machê-ing, cutting and pasting.

Every kid who’s grown up in that environment will know the frustration of never being able to make their crafts look as good as the grown up’s. But as I got older and more capable, that frustration faded. What didn’t get less annoying was my mom’s constant use of the following phrase:

“I could make that.”

We’d be in a store, looking at clothes or jewelry or whatever, I’d comment on an item, and her invariable response would be, “I could make that.”

“I know, Mom, but are you going to?”

It wasn’t arrogance, but fact. Yes, she could make the item, and it would certainly be of better quality than its store-bought counterpart. But just because she could sew a strappy dress with a cuteness factor of a hundred or so didn’t mean she’d do it in time for me to wear it to school on Monday morning. I was happy to pay for convenience, but Mom wasn’t a fan.

The thing is, this line of hers drove me nuts growing up, and now… I’m sure you’ve predicted the outcome. I do the same thing. I see something cool in the store, and I wonder how I could replicate it. Because I’ve got my own electricity bill now, for one, but also because it’s fun.

So there you are, this blog is titled for my mother (but I assure you I’ll try to get more original from here). It will be about many of the things that I could make… and do. Possibly about some of the things I could make but don’t, or couldn’t make but wish I could, or try to make but end up with a haphazard muddle of sadly deformed materials instead. And hopefully, it’ll be lots of fun.