Why Gosh O'Hemlock?

I think I had a magical childhood. At the very least it was fantastic. Being the oldest of four girls, I thought I was always in charge. Three of my cousins lived next door (okay, a mile down the gravel road). And I got to see the other seven on a regular basis. We had horses and dogs and barn cats. We even had mean roosters that would peck at my ankles when I went out the back door. We packed peanut butter sandwiches and disappeared into the woods behind our house for the day. We swam in the pond, skinny-dipped in stock tanks, ran throught sprinklers, camped out in the back yard, and rode our horses bareback. We wore hand-me-downs (I put garage sale finds in this category too) and hand-made clothes. I'm not sure how old I was when my aunt taught us "The Antisdel Song". We sang it with gusto and believed every word. It goes like this: "I'm a hayseed. My hair is seaweed. My ears are made of leather and they flop in windy weather. Gosh O'Hemlock, I'm tough as a pine knot. I'm an Antisdel can't you see!" It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized it was just an old camp song that she had substituted a few words in. It made no difference though. As children we were important enough to have our own family song! So now at 37, with four children of my own, 17, 13, 10, and my youngest (a big surprise) 7 months, I need a creative outlet. My mother passed along a love of sewing and knitting to me and I got to thinking about my childhood hand-me-down clothing. I'm sure she didn't realize it, but my mother was on the cutting edge of "green living" over 30 years ago. This is where my idea for repurposed (aka hand-me-downs) and embellished clothing came from. My creative juices are just beginning to flow, so I'll try to post some pictures of my one-of-a-kind Gosh O'Hemlock creations as they become available.