About

My blogging encompasses three areas of my life: sewing, knitting, handcrafts—documenting the items I sew or knit; my love of the travel—documenting cruises my partner and I take, trips to visit my children, and travel with friends; and my circa 1927 home in Youngstown, Ohio, including renovations we undertake to make the house more liveable.

For years, I’ve been writing long and involved travelogues about my travel, including galleries of the photos I took. But that was a very time-consuming method, and when it took me months to write the account of our cruise to Alaska in May/June of 2023, I decided I wanted to find a more succinct way to write these accounts. Now I’m trying to write one page per day of travel, and including just a few pictures of each of those days. I’m also trying to add functionality for interested readers to subscribe to the blog posts so they can read or not, without my having to get involved in posting to social media the arrival of another post. We’ll see how successful this new method is for me.

Navigating the Space

• The sewing pages have always been posts, rather than pages. They live under the tab Handicrafts.
• The old, longform travelogue pages live under the Travel tab.
• The new, short travel posts are found on the first tab, Cruising.
• The pages documenting the changes to my circa 1927 home in Northeast Ohio are under the tab, My Old House.

We’ll see how this progresses.

Personally Speaking

I am a transplanted Southerner. I grew up in Orlando before the Mouse came to town. In those days, it was a quiet town, known for cattle ranches, orange groves, and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. A lot has changed in that part of the world since then. I left the Orlando area at age 25, moving first to Sarasota, and later to Fort Worth, Texas; Irving, Texas; Gaithersburg, Maryland; Hillsboro, Virginia; Washington, DC; Tucson, Arizona; and—since 2008—Youngstown, Ohio. I’m the mom of two sons, and a devoted grandmother.

I began playing piano by ear in when I was 3½, and started lessons in accordion at age 5, followed by piano at age 6 and organ at age 8. I played clarinet in the school band in 4th grade, and oboe from 5th through 12th grade. I played a little guitar in college—it was the 60s, after all. And I dabbled with a banjo in college, but never mastered it. I always sang in choirs, both in school and with symphonic choruses as an adult. My favorite was Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, where I sang from 2009 to 2014. Now I work as a collaborative pianist, accompanying voice students at Dana School of Music (Youngstown State University) and for YSU Theatre Department productions, along with various community theatres in the Northeast Ohio/Northwest Pennsylvania area.

Artistically Speaking

I started sewing when my mother enrolled me in a Singer sewing class at age 13. My mother always sewed and made my graduation dress and recital dresses throughout high school and college. I have loved visiting arts & crafts fairs throughout my life. In my early 50s, I had the opportunity to take classes to learn all sorts of art forms. I’ve studied, with passion for each: sewing; quilting; fabric dyeing; glass (cold: stained glass and mosaic, warm: fusing and slumping, hot: lampwork beadmaking); pottery (hand-building and throwing, although the wheel doesn’t really like me); beading, bead crochet, and jewelry-making; knitting; and felting.

What I’m learning lately about myself is that I love learning new things, rather than perfecting any one technique. I love sewing a T-shirt from a pattern and figuring out all the ways to make the resulting garment my own. When my grandchildren were young, I loved finding projects that enabled me to teach them to sew. I am especially entranced by off-loom beadweaving (Peyote stitch, brick stitch, and so on) and silk dyeing.

My blog posts currently focus on bags, which I greatly enjoy making, whether as gifts or for myself.

Professionally Speaking

I have enjoyed a career as a writer and editor specializing in technology and legal issues. After taking a break from technology in the early 2000s, I regrouped to focus on web content for a variety of companies, including two years as web editor-in-chief for IBM storage division. I hold a B.S. in computer and information systems from University of Maryland University College, College Park, MD, and a J.D., specializing in transactional law, from Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, DC. I am the author of A Guide to the Hatch Act: Law and Procedure, published by Dewey Publications in 1993.

You can reach me at jancrews (at) gmail (dot) com.