Interior Thoughts & Sweet Memories

   Good evening! I'm excited to be back posting new goodies for you all. The past few days I've been feeling under the weather, & now the whole house is in boxes! We are a close family of five now 9! (with a niece, nephews, and a brother-in-law!) Growing up we moved quite a lot from house to house, and I'm seriously so grateful that I lived in a variety of houses, each with a different style and wonderful childhood memories & stories that are wrapped up in each one. We moved from California to North Carolina (at the time i thought it must be in a different country, it sounded so small and far away! i had never heard of it!) right before my seventh birthday, and it was a new and exciting thing for me, although it was much harder on my siblings, they were teenagers and the concept of how drastic a move we were actually making didn't occur to my seven year old mind! All of our beloved family was/is there, and my mother is one of six kids (who all have kids & most of their kids have kids too), and together we make such a big close, and loving family (there's nothing like it!) So you can imagine how hard it is some years to be on the other side of the country, especially during the holidays! 

We fell in love with North Carolina not too long after we moved here. I experienced my first snow here (& being from Southern CA that was a huge deal to me!) In the first five years or so of us living here we moved 5 times! That's like a different house each year, and some we lived in for less than a year & we had a knack for choosing some very interesting and cool houses. We lived in everything from a simple suburban subdivision home to a farmhouse on a hill with a classic big oak tree and a barn and cows and horses on either side, to a crazy unique house hidden in the woods on 27 acres with an upstairs that was entirely glass windows and wooden beams that overlooked the land! It had a pond and a creek with all sorts of nature and creatures i loved to get into as a kid. We had a giant magnolia tree on the property that i used to climb into the if you've ever been in a big magnolia tree you'd know their limbs are the best to climb in! I swear i never wore shoes while we lived at that house!  

One of the best and most treasured memories i have from my childhood were the many people we shared our homes with. My parents are wonderful & giving in so many ways, i love those qualities in people because of them. As a kid, they always found a way to open up our house to people. I don't remember a house where we didn't have people living with us! We used to have a lovely family (of 6 or 7 i believe) from Australia  that had an rv outside of our house, I had so many kids to play with & sleep overs all the time. We also had a family from Holland whom we still love and know, another amazing family from Australia, a lady from Japan while we were in CA, and several others live with us at some point in these houses. When i think back on it now, I am grateful I was always surrounded by different cultures and experienced so many different types of families. It is always such a pleasure to be surrounded by people!

& lastly, what brings all of these sweet memories back to mind is the fact that we are moving this coming weekend! So much change is going on, & I'm loving every minute of it! Being in a different house is always a new opportunity to make changes in my life, especially when it comes to interior style. It's a chance to make everything how you want it for the new season in your life. This last house we have loved and are now leaving was during my senior year of high school. My bedroom here is a most amazing shade of teal, with mustard yellow damask curtains and grey printed bedding. I've loved it, and I'm ready to move on! I have many plans brewing for my next place of rest and inspiration. I'll clue you in on those plans once my stuff is out of boxes ;).

The biggest change to come for me is starting in the beginning of January! I'm moving into a dorm, getting a roommate, and off to college! I am planning to get my Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Commercial Photography and perhaps a minor in Journalism, but who knows if that'll change?! What a crazy new life change this will be for me, & I'm so looking forward to furthering The Quail Stitch into this new journey. It's sure to be devoted to more design finds, LOTS of projects (outside and inside of school), personal style, ideas, etc etc...all the stuff I love to share with you. So be sure to spread the word!

The holidays are approaching and I must pack more boxes! I wanted to share with you some of my favorite memories from my favorite houses. They have had an impact on me in ways I'm just now discovering! My love for interior spaces, home design etc probably stems deep down from all the adventures I had in my crazy & unique houses.

Thanks for reading my thoughts... I want to know yours! Happy holidays from The Quail Stitch.

xoxo.

& now...for some upcoming posts on some interiors i love, & you'll love too!

my thoughts on. individuality & style

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

“How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”

-Coco Chanel

I think for years I tried a bit too hard when dressing. I went through many phases, as most people do, I still often buy the wrong things, in the wrong season, I'm not a trend follower to my knowledge and don't really wish to be! Fashion has always and will always exist, and i believe it transcends the multi-billion dollar industry it is ran by, because it is so much more than we know. It involves history, science, art, politics, when we picture an event in history, the fashions of that time effortlessly comes along with those images. 

 I believe that clothes are essential today, that the way we present ourselves is actually important, and I'm surrounded by people that put a lot of effort into their own style. It's kind of ironic in a way though, in the fashion world there is so much emphasis on individuality, the desire to separate yourself from the pack, yet fashion is so unifying in the sense it is essentially composed of looks that are specifically designed for the time that we live in and the people living in that time. Although the vintage look and styles are always reappearing, fashion is constantly recreating itself for the time we live in. It's an endless cycle. 

People have all sorts of opinions on the matter, all i know is i dress how i like. i've had people ask me where they should go to shop, how to go about changing their style, and i never know what to say on the matter. i usually dress wrong for the season, i'll wear shorts in the winter, and just layer like crazy. I'm a bit of an impulse shopper (if i'm cold at the time, I subconsciously will buy a sweater!)  I never wear makeup, i gave that up late in middle school, i felt more comfortable about myself once i stopped putting blue eyeshadow (yikes!) on in middle school and realized i didn't like it at all haha! but that's me!

 if you want to change your style, i say do it gradually. My dad told me one year before a high school prom that he had once asked a girl that he thought was pretty to prom, and when they met up on prom-day he didn't recognize her, and it was not a good change! He told me guys hate that (That always kept me from being too drastic each year! haha)

You are different at different points in your life, and your style often times reflects that. I used to have spiky short super layered hair (ha!) and wear v-necks and rosaries and i wanted to be super hip decked out in american apparel. but at the time (my sophmore year of high school), that was just me. It was reflective of what i was going through at the time, and who i hung out with, and what life was like. I wear what makes me feel like me, and i suppose that's one purpose of fashion at work, the flow of the pack that tells me i'm not being stylish enough to follow the latest trend, yet it's always there to back me up and say when i don't follow it's okay, because i'm just being different, "being myself". 

and essentially, that's all that matters.