Even as a little a girl I loved to make things. I grew up in River Forest, Illinois, just outside Chicago, in a tiny house with a very creative family. Someone was always making something there. My dad was a musician and a commercial artist, and my mom taught my sisters and me everything from cake decorating to sewing, macrame to embroidery. I had my first “business” at age 13, when I sold handmade model-horse blankets through a classified ad in a magazine.
I went to college in the cornfields of the Midwest to study English, then graduate school in the mountains of Montana to study creative writing, but I never stopped trying to find time to make crafts. In 1998, shortly after I married Andy Paulson and we moved to Portland, Oregon, I was hit by a truck while crossing the street. I had six surgeries over the next nine months to reconstruct my foot, and spent many more months in bed recovering. I began embroidering almost constantly during this time and it profoundly affected me, allowing me to heal both physically and emotionally. It was almost a year before I was able to walk again by myself, and I hand-stitched and knit almost constantly throughout my recovery.
Our life changed dramatically after my accident. In 2000, I left my job as a book editor and started Posie: Patterns and Kits to Stitch (originally Posie: Rosy Little Things), a one-woman production studio where I created handmade one-of-a-kind gifts, handbags, accessories, crochetwear, and original sewing, embroidery, and craft patterns. Andy went to nursing school and became an RN in 2003. From 2003 until 2006, I co-owned Ella Posie, a boutique in Portland that featured dozens of unique, handmade, vintage-inspired product lines in addition to my own.
For most of 2007, I designed, stitched, wrote patterns for, and photographed thirty original sewing projects for my first book, Stitched in Time: Memory-Keeping Projects to Sew and Share from the Creator of Posie Gets Cozy, which was published by Potter Craft (Random House) in the fall of 2008. In August of 2010 my second book, Embroidery Companion: Classic Designs for Modern Living, a collection of thirty decorative embroidery, cross-stitch, and crewelwork patterns and projects inspired by folk art and traditional motifs, was published.
These days, I take care of our not-so-little-anymore girl, Amelia, and work from my home studio designing crafts, writing self-published patterns, and assembling original kits to help you make some of the things that I've designed. I love to take photos and write about stuff at my blog, Posie Gets Cozy. I also love to cook, knit, be in the woods, sit by the pool, fuss with the things in my house, and I am (still) learning to garden. Thank you so much for your interest in what I do. It means the world to me!