Welcome to Of Ruffles and Rifles

My name is Cheryl Licht and I love ruffles. I love everything French country, curved legs on furniture, and anything reminiscent of things from long ago. I have had a love affair with blue and white ever since I set eyes on the June edition of Victoria magazine back in high school. Clothing inspired by historical costume and design always makes my heart go pitter patter, perhaps that’s why I find Anthrophologie so enticing and inspiring.

Have I mentioned I love ruffles? And by the wisdom of God, I am surrounded by four boys, our rifles. The tea parties and ballet recitals I imagined having with my little girls, for ten years were met with the beautiful reality of an amazingly, incredible husband and our four boys. The boys love war history, and shooting guns, fishing, sports, Legos and being covered in dirt in the wilds of Alaska. But our story was not complete, and God graced us with yet another, and now we have a Ruffle, one sweet little girl, amongst all our Rifles, the boys.  (You can read more about that story here.)

The title of my blog came about one day as I was sewing ruffles, and one of my sons observed, “Why do you like ruffles and we like rifles?” The name stuck. I had actually been mulling over a title for several months. How do I encapsulate what I want to accomplish on my little space in the blog world? And this was it. The poem by Robert Burns goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”. I don’t remember the rest of the poem, and I don’t need to, my ending goes like this… “but, God.” The more I wrestle through life, the more I realize life is more about the process than the product. The things I want to see happen may or may not happen the way I planned, but God always steps in and has the ability to make beauty from broken down messy junk. As a type A, introverted, task-oriented person, I love the beautiful finished product. But am I embracing the process, when things look messy and ugly and out of order?

This blog is about restoration; restoration of lives, God’s most prized possession, His crowning creation, and about restoration of things I create, whether that be furniture or sewing or whatever I can make more beautiful out of something unassuming. I have been sewing since I was four, my mom tells me. I have always been able to see pattern pieces in my head and make most anything. Besides being a wife, mom and lover of Jesus, sewing and being creative is my most favorite thing in the whole world. It brings me life and joy, and I am excited to be able to share that and other truth the Lord has revealed through his Word and through life in this space.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are abundantly blessed and inspired in the process!