Crafting and gardening have been part of my life for as long as I can remember — and if you trace it all the way back, it started with sewing clothes for my Barbie dolls as a little girl growing up in northern Kentucky.
That creative spark never faded. Over the years it grew into cross stitch, quilting, embroidery, cooking from scratch, and a deep love of digging in the dirt. These aren’t just hobbies. They are how I think, how I rest, and how I make a house feel like a home.
From Kentucky Hills to Florida Sunshine
Growing up in Kentucky, life had a rhythm set by the seasons. You started the garden on Memorial Day weekend and put it to bed by Labor Day. The hills were beautiful, the winters were real, and the months when nothing was growing outside were filled with quilting and cross stitch instead — needle and thread standing in for trowel and seed.
Then I moved to Florida, and everything changed.
My parents always talked about retiring to Florida someday. I wanted to be close to them as they aged, so I made the move — and they stayed in Kentucky. They didn’t move. I did!
Florida living is a different world entirely. More people, more congestion, and a pace that took some getting used to. But there is a beach minutes away, the sun shines most of the year, and I can garden in January. Zone 10A means something is always growing, always blooming, always asking for attention. I would not trade it.
The Life Behind the Blog
I live in Largo, Florida with my husband Tony, my adult son Chris — who is getting ready to spread his wings and move out later this year — and Chester, my constant companion, a smart and mischievous tuxedo cat who supervises everything I do.
My days are full of things I love. Raised bed gardening and felt grow bags. A developing night garden centered on a night blooming cereus I call “Mom.” Recipes built around what’s growing outside. Cross stitch projects that travel with me everywhere. Quilts in progress. And a deep, abiding love of family history.
That last one led me to create a second blog — Stories Gathered & Remembered — where I write about the real people in my family tree. The Fullers, the Tolivers, the Raths, the Brattons. Their stories deserve to be told.
Why Thimble & Tansy
A thimble for the needle arts I love. Tansy for the garden — a sturdy, useful, old-fashioned plant that has been quietly doing its job for centuries. Together they just sounded right.
But the name was the easy part. The harder thing to find was a blog that felt like home for women like me.
There are wonderful blogs out there for younger women discovering quilting and gardening for the first time. But I wanted a gathering place for older women — women with empty nests, women who have been doing these things for decades, women who are living alone by choice or by circumstance, women who love what some people dismissively call “granny crafts” and wear that label proudly. Women who have earned their expertise and their peace.
That is who Thimble & Tansy is for. And if that sounds like you — you are in exactly the right place.
What Thimble & Tansy Is About
This blog is my gathering place. A space for gardening from seed to harvest, recipes worth making twice, needle arts for the love of it, genealogy how-to’s for the family history curious, and a quiet monthly thread I call The Ready Home — because a well-tended life includes knowing you are prepared for whatever comes.
Grow. Create. Remember.
That is what we do here. I am so glad you found your way to Thimble & Tansy. Pull up a chair, pour something warm, and stay a while.