Happy Valentine's Day to all you fabric lovers!

I decided months ago to fall involve with fabric again. I thought about how a few years ago it seemed I was having a secret affair with fabric!
I would plan time around her (I can't tell you why fabric is a female, but she is in my heart), I would sneak in alone time with her, and pine away for vacations with her and my girlfriends!

When I started this little pattern design company and then ultimately my retail shop, I found fabric starting to add a little pressure. She was becoming a responsibility in my life. I still got a pitter-patter in my heart when I saw a new line of fabrics, but I began to worry about sales and need rather than how she made me feel. So easy how we let work take over our lives.

These past few years have been filled with new added responsibilities. Fabric was absolutely not in the foreground of my thoughts. I even considered a new occupation? I was missing my husband. A companion. And I was feeling quite unlovable. Then I remembered how I used to love fabric. I used to have to be called from my sewing room to join my husband for some activity. Ugh! So frustrating. Just one more stitch please. 

I knew I had to fall in love again. All over again. With fabric.

So, I began dating fabric again. I remembered how she filled my mind with new ideas. Exciting things to be made. Fun with friends in sewing groups and excursions to find new amazing projects. Fabric fills my heart and time again!

Today, I can say, I spend lots of time in my sewing room. Fabric is there to greet me in the morning and there to say, "Goodnight, good work Barri." in the evenings. My heart is filled with joy and appreciation.

February has always been a special month for me. (It's my birthday month!) And for all of us, February is the time of year to celebrate the special loves in our lives.
For this new February, I am introducing a series of "Little Quilties". For February, for love, for you to celebrate with me this special month. 

​There will be a new Little Quilty every month. You might have caught a peek at other little quilties if you have followed my Facebook and Instagram Pages. You can count on these social media sites and the Bareroots website getting filled up with lots of new things!

For additional February fun, I have added a free download of this XOXO Love You Pillow. There are kits available for this sweet cushion. This will be up for only the month of February. Then it will be going into a new project book I am working on.

This February, I celebrate my loves.
I love sewing. I love my family and friends. I love the Sierra Nevada Mountains where I live. And I love so many of you who stitch and sew and have kept me in love with handwork. There has hardly been a day that goes by without an email, a Facebook post, an Instagram photo, a phone call, or a visit in my little shop in Bishop, CA, where I haven't felt the love and joy from a quilter or stitcher. 

This February I share and remember my love.
My husbands birthday was a few days after mine. I remember fondly how we celebrated Valentines day, our anniversary and our birthdays in the same week. "Our Week", he called it. I lost him just a few days before our week was to begin three years ago.

This February brings a milestone in my life. I will celebrate the love I had been given. Use the love that has carried me through the past three years. And start this new website and blog at this most special time of the year.
I am ready to create new things again. Venture into a brand new February doing what I love, sewing!

Forever Happy Stitching,
Barri Sue Gaudet