Recent Posts

close up of a wool tapestry weaving showing mountains and sky

Project: Tapestry Weaving on My Lap Loom

Diving into fiber arts, I warped my tapestry loom and set to work. Here's what I made and the weaving skills I'm working on.
close up of embroidered flowers on black fabric

Modern Quality: Where Do We Get Beautiful Things?

If you go to any major store, most of the stuff you can buy is cheaply made and ugly. Why? Quality and beauty make us happier and healthier. Where can we find them?
Several braided rag rugs stacked on top of each other

Tutorial: How to Make a Braided Rag Rug From Old Sheets or T-Shirts

Upcycle old shirts and sheets into wonderfully colorful braided rugs in 6 simple steps! Minimal or even no sewing; easy-to-follow instructions; lots of photos!
close up of embroidered flowers on the edge of a linen skirt

How I Made A Linen Wrap Skirt With Rainbow Embroidered Flowers

Women's clothing is so often function or pretty—but rarely both. This project was my attempt to bridge that gap by making my own wrap skirt and learning embroidery to decorate it!
close up of sock rag rug

Tutorial: How to Make a Plush Rag Rug from Old Socks in 5 Steps

Save your socks! Upcycle old socks into a squishy, colorful rug—it's an easy way to make something beautiful!
close up of braided flannel rag rug

Making Rag Rugs From T-Shirts and Old Sheets (Reuse and Upcycle!)

I love finding new uses for old stuff. I had a collection of old t-shirts and ripped sheets... what better thing to do than repurpose them into beautiful rugs?
the cloisters at gloucester cathedral: the intersection of two long stone hallways lined with windows, stained glass, and elaborate archways

Recovering Beauty in Modern Life

Beauty is vital to humans, but there's a breakdown of beauty in present culture—in architecture, art, music, more. Why? How can we recover and cultivate beauty?

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About

We're Jacqueline and Randy, a blogging duo with backgrounds in tech, robots, art, and writing, now raising our family in northern Idaho.

Our goal is to encourage deliberate choices, individual responsibility, and lifelong curiosity by sharing stories about our adventures in living, loving, and learning.

Learn more about us.


Connect:

whoo@deliberateowl.com

Start here

Curious about our life and journey? Here are some good places to start reading:

Jacqueline and Randy leaning their heads together smiling at the camera

A Blog About Education, Lifestyles, and Community

A brief history of how the Deliberate Owl came to be and why we're writing a blog about us, our lives, and how we're living out our values.
Priests in red and gold celebrate a traditional Latin Mass

Discovering the Traditional Catholic Mass

How I discovered the traditional Latin Mass a few years ago, why that discovery changed everything for me, and what was wrong with the Novus Ordo Masses I'd attended.