At some point in our parsonage living, Mom embroidered the words Home Sweet Home, wrapped them in floral embellishments, and enshrined them in an oak picture frame. We carried this stitched declaration with us from house to house like a certificate of occupancy. Hanging it on the wall near an entryway made us official. As a preacher’s wife, our mother was adept at making homes out of houses that didn’t belong to us. Through the years of packing and unpacking, our cherished belongings told and retold their stories, spun and spilled their secrets, always marking their special places in time.

Home Sweet Home never resonated until I left it, first for college, then for work, then for life. Out of a sense of Mother and my innate creative forces, I was impelled to craft a home sweet home of my own. Many of her treasures grace the crooks and corners of my living space. Some are hand-stitched or machine-sewn, pieced together from sewing box scraps, made whole by the will of her fingers and beautiful through the grace of her soul.

Her pine knot sewing box, handed down from my grandmother, sits near my easel in my art studio. Retooled and repurposed, its threads and bobbins are now used to fashion trout flies—graceful pheasant tail nymphs and pale morning duns. Although I can’t stitch a lick, as Dad would say, the box reminds me that home is not bound by footings or foundations, walls and zip codes. It’s not made sweet or happy by furnishings, fabric, or even Mom’s beautiful embroidery. Home is built from a place deep within you; a place of belonging and shared history with others; a place that provides the constancy of love, space enough to grow, grace enough to leave, and shelter along the way.