About Kerry and Love Those “Hands at Home”

I’m Kerry and, for me, it’s all about the making. Whether I make it or you make it, or someone’s grandfather made it, whether it’s a cake, or a quilt, or a fiddle tune, if it’s made by “loving hands at home,” I’m for it.

I grew up on a farm and learned to make stuff really early; everybody in my family made stuff. I’ve been a sort of serial crafter/artisan, focusing intensely on one or two things at a time, then moving on to add something else. Some of the hobbies with which I’ve had full-blown committed relationships over the years are drawing and painting, metal smithing, quilting, baking, guitar playing, and candy making. But it could also be said that I’ve never met a craft I haven’t tried, so I’ve had flirtations with crocheting and knitting, rug hooking, polymer clay, beading, ceramics, needlepoint . . . the list goes on.

It’s not just about me making things, though. I can’t get enough of the stuff other people made, especially if it has the look of age about it. I amassed a ridiculously huge collection of vintage linens because they were embroidered by hand (I imagined my grandmothers’ hands making them) and these tablecloths and dish towels were being sold for pennies at flea markets! I couldn’t let them sit there, unloved.And the handmade doesn’t have to be a tangible object and it doesn’t have to be made by hands, per se—I’m just as drawn to a traditional folk song as I am to an old hand-stitched quilt. If it’s made by you, or me, or the humans who came before us, and it bears the imprint of the individual who created it, I’m for it!
Other basic info: I’m a former college professor and administrator. I took early retirement and moved, with my husband (who loves to make stuff, too!), to a house that desperately needed loving hands. We live on fabulous Lake Champlain, in upstate New York. I indulge my current obsessions, candy making and acting as a sort of Humane Society to find loving homes for vintage linens, with an Etsy shop called KerryCan. If you’re curious, you can check it out here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/KerryCan. I promise you this blog is not meant to sell you stuff, though!