My Profile
Hello everyone, my name is Wena' ~ pronounced 1-A.
I am first and foremost a child of God, striving to keep Jesus as the Center of my life. I am an avid reader; yoga, Pilates & step-aerobics lover; proudly my husband's "pain in the rump" 😄; a grandma, mother, daughter, sister & friend; a natural products enthusiast and the owner/designer/crafter behind Nakaya Cottage/TigrisLu Creations.
I spent a lot of time with my grandmother from birth thru my teen years. It was through her creative influences and passion for vegetable/flower gardening that introduced me to the joy of crocheting and horticulture. As years passed, I self-taught myself to loom knit and to machine-knit.
TigrisLu Creations was established in January 2009, and is the medium through which I seek to provide crochet, loom- and machine-knit patterns that are clearly-written, having charts, schematics, photo and/or video tutorials, where applicable to crocheters and knitters of all levels. Nevertheless, as I was also attending college full-time, I could not focus on this endeavor as fully as I wanted, so it was set aside temporarily.
Once we moved to Great Falls, MT in December 2009 (Yaaay, NOT!!), I began to seriously create a variety of crochet, loom- and machine-knit patterns. The isolation of living on a farm and the inability to find desired items on the local market was a blessing in disguise; I soon had a number of originally-designed patterns. We then bought a home in the city with a craft room/office. In that space, my creative juices were released even more as the solitude of music and God's word removed the pressures of the day and relaxed my soul. While I loved our home, I can not say the same for Great Falls, even though I grew to love and cherish a number of people there.
Thankfully we no longer live in that isolated farm house or in Great Falls, MT. My family and I now happily reside in a rural area outside of Weiser, Idaho, where the climate is hot in the summer, with triple-digit temperatures. The winter climate is normally mild, with the exception of the 2016-2017 winter of our arrival, wherein it snowed worse than it had since 1948-49. Having a population of 5, 507, Weiser and its surrounding rural areas support farms, livestock endeavors, orchards, and various sized gardens; the townspeople are friendly, and the whole area is picturesque and peaceful.
I am first and foremost a child of God, striving to keep Jesus as the Center of my life. I am an avid reader; yoga, Pilates & step-aerobics lover; proudly my husband's "pain in the rump" 😄; a grandma, mother, daughter, sister & friend; a natural products enthusiast and the owner/designer/crafter behind Nakaya Cottage/TigrisLu Creations.
I spent a lot of time with my grandmother from birth thru my teen years. It was through her creative influences and passion for vegetable/flower gardening that introduced me to the joy of crocheting and horticulture. As years passed, I self-taught myself to loom knit and to machine-knit.
TigrisLu Creations was established in January 2009, and is the medium through which I seek to provide crochet, loom- and machine-knit patterns that are clearly-written, having charts, schematics, photo and/or video tutorials, where applicable to crocheters and knitters of all levels. Nevertheless, as I was also attending college full-time, I could not focus on this endeavor as fully as I wanted, so it was set aside temporarily.
Once we moved to Great Falls, MT in December 2009 (Yaaay, NOT!!), I began to seriously create a variety of crochet, loom- and machine-knit patterns. The isolation of living on a farm and the inability to find desired items on the local market was a blessing in disguise; I soon had a number of originally-designed patterns. We then bought a home in the city with a craft room/office. In that space, my creative juices were released even more as the solitude of music and God's word removed the pressures of the day and relaxed my soul. While I loved our home, I can not say the same for Great Falls, even though I grew to love and cherish a number of people there.
Thankfully we no longer live in that isolated farm house or in Great Falls, MT. My family and I now happily reside in a rural area outside of Weiser, Idaho, where the climate is hot in the summer, with triple-digit temperatures. The winter climate is normally mild, with the exception of the 2016-2017 winter of our arrival, wherein it snowed worse than it had since 1948-49. Having a population of 5, 507, Weiser and its surrounding rural areas support farms, livestock endeavors, orchards, and various sized gardens; the townspeople are friendly, and the whole area is picturesque and peaceful.
Jumping Forward to the Present...
For the past 8½ years, I have offered these patterns to the general public free of charge. Regrettably, I am no longer able to continue in that format. September of 2015, our lives were drastically changed when it became necessary to move my mother from her home in Houston, TX into ours. This began a period of major setbacks and mandatory adjustments. For the next 2 years, with the help of various doctors and other medical professionals, my mom and my immediate family fought an uphill battle seeking to eliminate, minimize and/or reverse the effects of various health issues with which she had been diagnosed. For sometime she had been dealing with these issues by not really dealing with them.
Through much prayer and leaning on the Lord, we witnessed God's hands in her healing and health improvement. During this time I learned a great deal about caring for gout, kidney infections, high blood pressure, heart issues, and lymphoma. It was quite scary there for awhile; however, my mom is now able to be the woman she thought was lost. She is back to living in her own apartment, able to cook her own food, clean and care for herself!
What does all this have to do with no longer offering my patterns for free?
Well, medical costs are no joke and have placed a large financial burden on us. Thus, to generate funds to help reduce and eliminate this burden, I decided to turn a decades-old hobby into a business venture and sell my own line of health/beauty products; update and sell my pattern offerings; re-design and revamp my website; and undergo a name change that would encompass it all.
Through much prayer and leaning on the Lord, we witnessed God's hands in her healing and health improvement. During this time I learned a great deal about caring for gout, kidney infections, high blood pressure, heart issues, and lymphoma. It was quite scary there for awhile; however, my mom is now able to be the woman she thought was lost. She is back to living in her own apartment, able to cook her own food, clean and care for herself!
What does all this have to do with no longer offering my patterns for free?
Well, medical costs are no joke and have placed a large financial burden on us. Thus, to generate funds to help reduce and eliminate this burden, I decided to turn a decades-old hobby into a business venture and sell my own line of health/beauty products; update and sell my pattern offerings; re-design and revamp my website; and undergo a name change that would encompass it all.
Introducing Nakaya Cottage!
Nakaya Cottage is now the parent company of TigrisLu Creations. Along with my various patterns (which will remain under the name TigrisLu Creations), I am adding my own line of health/beauty products - salt and/or sugar scrubs, bath salts, and specialty soaps - all of which use many of my own garden-grown herbs. These products were created to resolve skin and/or allergy issues suffered by my husband and grandchildren that over-the-counter products did not help, but made worse. And because I wanted to better control what was going into and on my body, hair, etc.
{I hope you will try them, love them, continue to use them, and let me know your thoughts.}
Thank you for your continued patronage. I appreciate your business. 😄
{I hope you will try them, love them, continue to use them, and let me know your thoughts.}
Thank you for your continued patronage. I appreciate your business. 😄