Tattered & Mended: The Story Behind the Story

Apron I made for my mother when I was twelve.

There are some projects you choose …
and then there are the ones that choose you.

Tattered and Mended didn’t begin with a business plan or a publishing checklist. It began the way so much healing begins, quietly. In the background. In the soft places of life where grief lives, where love lingers, and where the heart keeps reaching for something it can hold.

For a long time, I thought I was simply making art.

But somewhere in the process, I realized I was doing something deeper.

I was learning how to hold what remains.

Because when we lose someone we love, the world doesn’t just feel different, it is different. And yet … their presence doesn’t disappear. It changes form. It becomes memory. It becomes scent and sound. It becomes certain songs you can’t hear without tearing up. It becomes a kitchen chair you still glance toward. It becomes the way your hands still reach for them in the dark.

And sometimes, it becomes fabric.

A denim jacket that still smells like home.
A flannel shirt that once held a heartbeat.
A stack of quilts folded carefully and put away because the idea of using them feels like erasing something sacred.

If you’ve ever held onto something like that, you already understand the beginning of this book.

The Why

I’m writing Tattered and Mended because I believe we all carry stories, and many of them are stitched into the things we keep.

This book is about grief, yes.
But it’s also about love and legacy.

It’s about the way love doesn’t end, it transforms.
It changes shape.
It asks for a new language.

And for me, that language has often been made of thread and needle, paint and paper, scent and warmth, texture and time.

I’ve come to understand something that surprised me:

Mending isn’t what I do.
It’s who I’ve become.

Because mending is not just repairing what was torn.
It’s learning how to live again.
It’s learning how to carry what hurts without hardening.
It’s making something beautiful without pretending the broken parts never happened.

The Process (The Part People Don’t Always See)

The process of creating this book has been equal parts art and reverence.

Each story begins with a woman, a man, a life, a loss … and a handful of pieces that mattered. Sometimes those pieces come from a cedar chest. Sometimes from a closet that hasn’t been opened in years. Sometimes from a box that has traveled through multiple moves because no one could bear to let it go.

And then we begin.

I listened.
I asked questions.
I learned who the person was, what they loved, what they wore, what they carried, what made them laugh, what made them who they were.

Then I began to create.

Not to replace what’s gone, because nothing can do that.

But to honor it.

To shape something wearable, repurposed, and tangible that says:

I see you.
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming.

Sometimes the sewing is the easy part.
Sometimes the hardest part is simply holding the weight of the story with tenderness and care.

There are moments I sit down to sew, and what I really end up doing is remembering.

There are moments the fabric feels like a doorway, and I have to pause and breathe before I step through … a threshold.

And there are moments when I realize the most sacred part of this work is not the keepsake itself, but what happens in the person receiving it.

Because it isn’t just clothing.

It’s a continuation.

It’s a way of saying:
Love still lives here.

What This Book Is Really About

On the surface, Tattered and Mended is about up-cycled garments or keepsakes created from cherished relics.

But underneath, it’s about something more timeless.

It’s about how we carry legacy.
How we hold memory in our hands.
How we make meaning from what remains.
How we keep going, even after the unthinkable.

It’s about the courage it takes to let grief transform you instead of closing you down.

And it’s about creativity as a holy act, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s honest.

Because there is something deeply human, deeply sacred, about taking what was torn and saying:

I will not waste this.

I will make something from it.

I will let it become part of my healing.

Why I’m Sharing This Now

I’m sharing this now because I’m still in the middle of it.

I’ve created.
I’ve listened.

I’ve gathered stories and shaped them into something worthy of the people they represent. And I think there’s something powerful about letting you witness the process, not just the finished product.

We live in a world that celebrates the “after.”
The polished.
The final reveal.

But I’ve learned that the most meaningful parts of becoming happen in the “during.”

The quiet.
The in-between.
The slow stitching of a life being rebuilt.

And that’s where I am.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’ve ever loved someone deeply and didn’t know what to do with the love after they were gone … this book is for you.

If you’ve ever kept a shirt, a scarf, a quilt, a jacket, not because it was valuable, but because it held them … this book is for you.

And if you’re in a season where you are learning to mend, not just fabric, but your own heart … I hope you’ll stay close.

I’ll be sharing more behind the scenes as Tattered and Mended continues to unfold, story by story, stitch by stitch, arrangement by arrangement.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for witnessing.

And thank you for believing, as I do, that what’s been torn can still become beautiful.

Closing Blessing

May what we’ve lost become what we carry with tenderness.
May what we mend become what heals us too.
And may every thread of love find its way forward.