Posts by Nat

Day 7 of 31DBB: aaaarrrggghhh!

Posted by Nat on Jul 25, 2010 | 3 comments

I am so overwhelmed.  I think my brain has hit its capacity.  Between figuring out Twitter, managing followers and somehow adding followers, joining BlogFrog, committing to the challenge, trying to craft/sew, evaluating my blog and where it’s going, completing the tasks in the challenge and wanting to accomplish EVERYTHING I am, well, overwhelmed (oh- and remaining a decent mother & wife, to boot.  And friend.).  You know that feeling you get when you’re reaaaaallly excited for an upcoming, happy event?  Like your wedding day, or the birth of a child (yours or someone else’s), or a big party or something like that.  You get that build up, that “something big is coming feeling,” or that, “crap- I have so much to do I hope I get it all done” feeling.  That’s me.  There’s so much I want to do, so much I want to accomplish.

Add to that the fact that I have just a few weeks left of summer and then I begin my final year of teaching.  I am dreading that on many levels.  I don’t want to teach anymore, but we need me to teach just one more year.  I am sure it will all be fine, everything will work out, and one year from now I will look at this post and laugh.  Hard.  But right now I am so excited, stressed, and, oddly happy about this summer.  I’m achieving so much, yet have so much more to do.  The best part is that I’m really excited about blogging.  True to my header, I really have no idea what I’m doing in several areas, but I love it.

That, my friends, is rad.

Whew!  Thanks for the vent.  On to Day 8!

p.s.  If you’re wondering what I did on Day 6- we had a ton of reading.  If you’re wondering what I did for today, Day 7, click here. Or look up above and note the new pages I’ve added to this here blog.  🙂

Day 5 of 31DBB: A Blog Confessional of Sorts

Posted by Nat on Jul 23, 2010 | 4 comments

This blog challenge is great- it’s really helping me, step-by-step, understand this new world of blogging.  In my family blog I post about things mainly to help my distant family, both extended and immediate, keep up with what’s going on.  I also have a wonderful group of mommy friends who blog (check out my blog roll on my family blog).  We all read each other’s blogs, and I think (and hope) it will keep us in touch when all of our kids are in school and our lives get even crazier.

But this blog is different, and I want to make something of it.  And blogging to achieve and audience and perhaps, someday make some money off of it is a completely different ballgame.

Today’s task in the 31 Days to a Better Blog Challenge is simple:  email someone who comments on your blog.  It also talks about the importance of communicating with readers and writers of blogs you like.  Here’s where my confession comes in….

I’m a lurker.  (Is that a word?)  I lurk.

I LOVE to read blogs.  I LOVE to get ideas from them.  I LOVE to laugh at witty remarks and stories, to ache for bloggers who are going through hard times, to wonder at other people’s lives.  But I rarely comment.  I think this parallels my social life, too.  I’m really shy in situations where I don’t know people in gatherings.  I’ve had to work hard to extend a greeting or introduce myself to someone I don’t know.  My friend of 10+ years, Jane, is the exact opposite.  She doesn’t know a stranger.  I’ve benefitted from that for quite some time- 10 years in fact (thanks, Jane!).

When I read someone’s blog I am often in awe- there are so many wonderful writers.  And even some who don’t write well, necessarily, but their lives captivate me in a beautiful way.  I have a hard time thinking that my comment would add anything to their world.  I think I’m wrong, though.

So my confession is also going to turn into a conversion, I guess.  I need to start commenting more.  I started when I got into SITS a while back, and try to remember, but my new credo is going to be that if I visit a blog, I shall comment upon it.  It might be short and sweet (I really love the word “rad”!), but at least I’ll leave a comment.  When I think about it, it’s rather silly to want people to comment on my blog and not expect to comment on others in return.  What goes around comes around, right?  So here I go- off to comment.

I’m off to dig through my comments and email some peeps, because it truly is nice to receive comments on your blog.  You spend time putting it together, and when someone takes the time to read it’s amazing.

Martha! I Made It! #2: The Duvet

Posted by Nat on Jul 22, 2010 | 15 comments

This is going to be a long post.  I hope you read it and validate my psyche, because after this project, I need some validation.  Whew!  I am, however, totally okay with you just looking at the pictures and then posting a comment (ha!).

This project started a long time ago in my head.  Michael and I have been dreaming of getting a king-sized bed for months and months.  When your husband is 6’3″, you need a big bed.  In mid-June Michael noticed that Macy’s was going to have a stellar sale on mattresses and said we should go ahead and do it.  I was so excited and petrified.  We chose gray for our master bedroom, and while I like the gray, I’ve had a hard time deciding what to do with the bedding.  I don’t want more gray bedding- to dreary and plain.  And supposedly gray is neutral, but I think it’s a tricky neutral.

I did have two sources of inspiration.  I saw this photo in a magazine and loved the look of orange, white and gray on the walls.  (My dog is cuter than that dog, BTW.)

Then I saw this photo in (you guessed it) Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts.  It’s on page 150/151.

(I took this photo with my iPhone and hope I don’t get in trouble for posting it, but couldn’t find it online anywhere).

I didn’t like the idea of having a white comforter. With a little black dog who likes to snuggle in our bed while we get ready in the morning, I could just see it getting covered with little black hairs.   And Michael and I are hard on things- white would just get dingy and dirty too quick.  But the tones in Martha’s book were a bit too muted for me- I wanted something a bit more striking.

I headed to BB&B and found some sheets.  I chose a copper color- it was as close to orange as I could find.  I did like it a lot.  I wanted to add a second color as an accent, so I chose an olive green that was near it because they just seemed to go together.  What follows is a sort of pictoral journey, if you will.  But if you don’t want to scroll through them, I’ll put the finished product first to save you the scrolling (aren’t I nice?).  🙂  Ta da!

(Please don’t look in my closet– it needs some work.  Should have closed the dang curtain…LOOK AWAY!)  I think the white pillows made it look complete.  I love it.  Really, I do.  I’m just not sure about the color combo with the gray walls.

Now, onto the process….ah, the process…

One of the wonderful things about Martha’s book is you get templates and patterns.  Lots of them.  This particular template was a doozy, though, since it’s soooooo big.  Many pages to tape together.  I also used that to cut out the teardrop templates.

I set to cutting out the appliques.  There were a lot of them.  It took me an entire morning- I caught up on a lot of Oprah.  The process outlined in the directions basically tell you to use the template to trace the pattern onto your sheet with transfer paper and a tracing wheel.  Transfer paper is also… a doozy.  I even bought the same transfer paper used in Martha’s book- you can find it here.  I wish I could tell you that I love transfer paper and it worked like a charm. I do not love transfer paper, and it did not work like a charm.  After 45 minutes of tracing the pattern onto my sheet, I pulled it away and there was very little to show for my lower back workout.  So I had to resort to my own brainpower because I wanted to get to sewing.  Bad.  What I ended up doing was placing the appliques and tracing them with disappearing ink.  I learned, however, that on this particular sheet at this particular time of year, the disappearing ink disappears quickly- overnight.  So I worked one circle at a time.  I placed the appliques on the inner circle and then sewed them down.  Then I worked my way out from there.

Tracing paper (and Sophie, wondering what in the world I’m doing)

One of my learning moments was the stitching for this project.  Martha’s book talks about using a satin stitch, but I couldn’t find anything in my sewing manual about satin stitching.  So I zig-zagged the appliques to the copper sheet (Martha and her editors said that would be okay).  Let me tell you- a king sized sheet- that’s a lot to work with.  This was my world for several days:

Things moving along…

Here was my problem, though- sometimes the zig-zags turned out okay (pre-trimming)…

And other times they pulled away- either due to my poor stitching skills or they just pulled out of the threads- a little bit of both.  When I saw this happening, I became a bit depressed.  I spent so much time on this project, and felt like it wasn’t going to pan out.  Then (enter angel chorus music) I asked my friend Kari for help.

Thankfully, Kari didn’t have to make a special trip- she was already coming over for a get together.  I brought her back to check it out and she set me straight on how to satin stitch.  Basically you set the zig zag setting on your machine at opposite ends to make it as wide and as close together as possible, and ta-da!  Satin stitch- looks much better, eh?

Once I finished up the satin stitching (several days later) I was finally ready to make the duvet.  I followed the directions in Martha’s book on page 147.  I’m glad I took my time with this part.  My white sheet was significantly larger than my copper, AND they were both larger than my comforter, so I had some work to do.

Ready to sew it up!

Up close in our room.

And the final product again.  *sigh*  I love it.

Day 1 of the 31DBB Challenge!

Posted by Nat on Jul 19, 2010 | 3 comments

What was I thinking?

Posted by Nat on Jul 11, 2010 | 2 comments

….or WAS I even thinking?  Not sure.  I will have more to post about this soon, but thought this might entertain some of my crafty friends.  If you hear moans and groans of frustration, it’s probably me.