Crafting with Posy Roberts

Hello, friends of Karin! I’m Posy Roberts, and Karin and I met nearly seven years ago through fan fiction. In fact, I think At the Deep End was my first slash fic. I was turned and never went back.

Today I write MM Romance as my real life job, and I supplement my income by editing as well. That means my days are filled with a lot of writing, reading, editing, proofing, and at the end of each day, there is literally nothing to show for it. I can’t even flip through pages and say, “See what I worked on today!” because everything is digital. This is where crafting has saved my life! Dramatic? Not if you need to work with your hands. 😉

Back in the mid 1990s, I went to graduate school to become a family therapist. I was newly married, and the stress of reading hundreds of pages

Posy’s first knitting project

a day eventually defeated me. I told a colleague about my struggles feeling unaccomplished, and she suggested I take up something tangible. I wanted something new, so I took a knitting lesson from the owner of the local specialty yarn shop. Never doing things my half, my first project was an Icelandic sweater for my nephew. The focus I had to put into following that pattern, carefully learning about intarsia, well, let’s just say I felt very accomplished at the end of every row, if not every few stitches!

I’ve worked with my hands forever. I first learned to finger crochet before I went to school. I don’t recall if my grandma or my mom taught me, but for a while there were miles of crocheted chains trailing around our house, woven in between kitchen chair legs and wound around cabinet doors.

Cross-stitch overtook me in middle school. I have several projects to prove it, though they are hidden away in boxes today. Along those same lines, I embroider and tried tatting, though my heart wasn’t into either.

Posy’s first sewing project, 1991.

I learned to sew in college in my clothing design class, and of course, made something ridiculously complicated. This time it was a multi-layered formal dress with boning in the bodice. I used fussy fabric, taffeta and lace. My professor encouraged me by saying, “You’ll learn about every technique you’ll ever need in this one piece.” Nearly all I’ve sewed since is drapes, pillows, and hems. And pants for my daughter when she was too skinny yet too long for any commercial ready-to-wear to fit her.

There was my furniture-refinishing phase. I love working with wood, but the tools are costly and the clean up is a nightmares. Plus, you can’t take a table on a road trip. I have a lot of loves that are like that: water-color painting and jewelry making. It’s either too mess or there are too many parts for these to be on-the-go projects.

 

Today I have two loves that help me fulfill that need to see my work.

Back in 2003 I colored my first mandala, so I’ve been doing the adult coloring thing a LONG time. My favorite tools are colored pencils. For years I’ve been using a Staedtler set I bought when in Germany, but for Christmas this year, I asked my husband to buy me Prismacolor Premier pencils. And Oh. My. God! Best pencils ever, even if I still love my Staedtlers.

Crocheting is my other fave. It’s something I can do while engaging in life around me, which is why it’s still my #1 go-to craft. It’s much easier to manage than knitting because I can drop my work, even lose seven stitches, and get right back to where I was in a matter of seconds. I can read and crochet. I can watch TV and crochet. I can have serious conversations with my hubby or teen and crochet, and in the end, I have rows of accomplishment I can wrap myself up in to keep me warm.

Speaking of warm, we’ve had nothing but cold days in Minnesota this year, as you can tell by my latest project, the temperature blanket.

And when I have a little more brainpower at my disposal, I’m also working on this Boho Poncho. I wanted to work on more than one row a day, as I’m doing with the blanket, and I’ve been eyeing this pattern for a long time, even though it’s written in Dutch and Swedish. I’m far enough along to see it’s a poncho, but I’m not sure I’m following the pattern to the letter. I don’t work on this while watching TV, unless it’s an easy row. But I can’t wait to wear this one! Very excited because it screams that hippie vibe I’m all about these days because of my latest book, Farm Fresh, which is set on a modern day commune.

Jude Garrity visits the farmers market every Saturday. As an environmental engineering student, he’s curious about living off the grid and sustainable agriculture.

And one particular farmer.

Hudson Oliva has worked hard to support his commune, where queer people live without fear of harm or retribution. When Jude asks pointed questions about living there, Hudson realizes he needs to be honest about his home. Few people know what the farm is actually about, but Jude is insistent.

Jude moves to Kaleidoscope Gardens, however his sexual hang-ups make it hard to adjust. He’s an uptight virgin living among people who have sex freely and with multiple partners. When Jude finally loosens up, Hudson is flooded with emotions. Falling for Jude wasn’t part of Hudson’s life plan. But when vindictive rumors about the commune begin to spread, love might be all he has left.

It’s at Amazon.

Real life. Genuine men. True love.

Posy Roberts writes about the realistic struggles of men looking for love. Whether her characters are family men, drag queens, or lonely men searching for connections, they all find a home in her stories.

Posy is married to a man who makes sure she doesn’t forget to eat or sleep. Her daughter, a budding author and dedicated Whovian, helps her come up with character names. When Posy’s not writing, she enjoys crafting, hiking, and singing spontaneously about the mundane, just to make normal seem more interesting.