About

 

Hello and welcome to By the Lakeside, a place where I share pieces of my creative life.  This is the part where I tell you a little bit about myself...

I’m Sandy and I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have 2 teenage boys.  We live a short walk to the lake, near Toronto in Canada.  I have always been creative and found beauty in the ordinary.  I love sewing, knitting, cooking and flipping through recipe books, decorating and rearranging my home, documenting the everyday in my journal and keeping a sketchbook.  I find joy in the simplest of things, even what mug I choose to enjoy my daily cup of coffee in.  There is so much beauty to be found in every day.  

I spent over 20 years as an apparel designer in the Toronto fashion industry and got tired of the frantic pace and never ending fashion cycles.  I missed my family, my home and knew that there had to be a better way of living while still using my creative background.  I found peace in knitting as a hobby and was completely inspired by all of the makers in the knitting and sewing online community.  I made myself a project bag for my knitting based on what I wanted and using fabrics and colours that made me happy (of course, my design background and sewing and quilting experience helped).  It turned into a little etsy shop, then a bigger etsy shop, my own website, and now it has become my full time career.  I love what I am doing and it allows me  more time to spend with my family and create the simple and beautiful life I dreamt of.

I have had a few blogs over the years sharing my motherhood experience, balancing life and a busy career, my family recipes, crafting projects and so on and so on.  I missed blogging and wanted to create a space where I could document and share what I am making in between all of the other things normal life has us do.  I will be sharing recipes, favourite things, crafty projects, snapshots from my studio space and anything else that inspires me.  I’m so happy that you are here to share that with me.

You can find my shop here:  By the Lakeside

You can find my videos on Youtube here: By the Lakeside