A collection of stories, creative musings, works in progress, and little sparks of inspiration from behind the scenes at Little Willow Wisp.

Pull up a chair, stay awhile, and see where the wisp wanders next.

Why Little Willow Wisp? 

Names have always felt important to me. Maybe it’s the part of me that loves stories and folklore, but I’ve always liked the idea that a name can hold a little bit of a story all on its own.

When I was trying to find a name for this creative space of mine, I kept coming back to two things: Willow and the mysterious little lights known as will-o’-the-wisps.

Will-o’-the-wisps appear in folklore as strange, flickering lights seen at night, particularly over marshes and other wild places. Depending on the story, they might be spirits, fairies, mischievous creatures, or mysterious lights tempting a traveler to follow them deeper into the unknown.

Naturally, I love them.

I’ve always been drawn to mythology, folklore, fairies, old stories, and that wonderful little question of what if? What if there really is something hiding just beyond what we can see? What if the woods are a little more enchanted than we think? What if some of the magic we believed in as children never really went anywhere?

Then there is Willow, a word and name that has its own very special place in my heart.

Put the two together, and somewhere along the way, Little Willow Wisp appeared.

What originally began as the name of my little handmade shop has slowly become something more. It has become a place for all the different pieces of my creativity—sewing, embroidery, crochet, illustration, storytelling, experimenting, learning, and whatever happens to capture my imagination next.

That’s also part of why I’ve created The Wisp Journal.

I wanted a place that didn’t necessarily have to be about something I’m selling. Somewhere I could share what I’m making, things I’m learning, stories and folklore that fascinate me, little bits of inspiration, and perhaps the occasional wandering thought.

I don’t know exactly where all of it will lead.

But perhaps that’s appropriate.

After all, sometimes you just have to follow the wisp. 

Stitches Through Generations 

There is something about handmade things that has always felt different to me.

Maybe it’s knowing that before something existed, there was simply a person, an idea, and a collection of materials waiting to become something.

My grandmother was a talented quilter.

I remember her beautiful, intricate quilts and the kind of craftsmanship that only comes from patience, practice, and countless hours spent working with your hands. As I’ve gotten older and developed my own love of sewing and fiber arts, I think I’ve come to appreciate that even more.

There’s a strange little connection that happens when I sit down at my sewing machine now.

I’m certainly not making my grandmother’s intricate quilts yet. Some days I’m sewing a bag. Other days I’m embroidering, crocheting, cross stitching, drawing, or attempting something I’ve never done before and hoping for the best.

But I’m still taking fabric and thread and turning them into something that wasn’t there before.

And I love that.

Handmade objects carry tiny pieces of their makers with them—not in some grand or perfect way, but in the choices we make. The fabric we couldn’t resist. The colors we put together. The stitch that isn’t quite perfect. The place where we had to rip out a seam and try again.

Someday, I would love to make one of those intricate quilts myself.

Not because I expect it to look exactly like one my grandmother would have made. In fact, I hope it doesn’t.

I hope it looks like something I made—with everything I’ve learned from the people who came before me mixed together with all the strange, whimsical things that inspire me now.

Maybe that’s one of the loveliest things about making things by hand.

We learn from someone else, add a little of ourselves, and then keep passing the thread along. 

The Things You Don’t See 

Sometimes I look at Little Willow Wisp online and think about all the things that aren’t there.

The projects I finished but never photographed.

The drawings tucked away in sketchbooks.

The fabric I bought because an idea immediately appeared in my head.

The half-finished experiments.

The things I’ve made and given away.

The ideas scribbled somewhere that I fully intend to come back to.

And, of course, the projects that exist very clearly in my imagination but haven’t quite made their way into the real world yet.

It can be surprisingly easy to look at what is visible and convince yourself that you haven’t done enough.

I’m a woman with ADHD. I’m also a mother, an artist, a maker, and a person trying to build a career and figure out what I want my future to look like.

That means creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

It happens between responsibilities.

Sometimes inspiration arrives when I don’t have time to do anything with it. Sometimes I start three things before finishing the first. Sometimes I’m intensely excited about an idea and completely absorbed in it—and sometimes something I desperately want to finish sits untouched because getting myself to begin again feels inexplicably difficult.

There are days when my mind feels like it contains a hundred open doors, and I want to walk through every single one of them.

For a long time, I think I saw that as evidence that I wasn’t accomplishing enough.

I’m beginning to see it differently.

Because when I stop measuring myself against everything I haven’t done and actually look backward, I realize I’ve made quite a lot.

I’ve learned skills I once didn’t have.

I’ve made things with my own hands.

I’ve drawn pictures that once existed only in my imagination.

I’ve tried things that didn’t work and figured out how to try again.

I’ve built a little shop.

I’ve created a website.

I’ve started putting pieces of myself and my creativity out into the world.

And I’m doing all of that while living an ordinary, complicated life outside of Little Willow Wisp.

Maybe that’s worth celebrating.

There is a strange pressure that comes with putting creative work online. Numbers are everywhere—followers, listings, likes, views, sales—and it’s incredibly easy to look at someone else’s middle and compare it to your own beginning.

But a number cannot show you how many times someone almost gave up.

It can’t show you everything they’ve learned.

It can’t show you the ideas sitting in their sketchbook, the project waiting beside their sewing machine, or the courage it took to finally show somebody something they made.

And it certainly can’t tell you what they’re capable of becoming.

Little Willow Wisp is still small.

I’m okay with saying that.

Small doesn’t mean insignificant, and it certainly doesn’t mean finished.

There are so many things I want to make, learn, write, draw, sew, and someday share with the world. I don’t know exactly what this little creative space will eventually become.

But I know that I’m building it.

One drawing.

One stitch.

One idea.

One slightly chaotic creative adventure at a time.

And if you’re building something too—whether it’s a business, an education, a career, a family, a piece of art, or simply a version of yourself that you’ve been trying to find—I hope you’ll remember to occasionally look backward.

You might discover that the distance you’ve already traveled is much greater than you thought.

And maybe we don’t have to have everything figured out before we’re allowed to be proud of how far we’ve come.

Sometimes even a little progress is its own kind of magic.