ramblings

Why blog?

Posted by Nat on Aug 10, 2010 | 6 comments

(Side note:  this is part of my 31DBB Challenge- we’re supposed to write an opinion post.  I’m way behind, but better late than never…{I want to win a free camera} So here’s my opinion.  If you’re new, yes, this is a crafty blog, but I have something to say that has nothing to do with crafting- hope you like it!)

I have lots of friends in my “real world” (as opposed to my blog world) asking me about blogging in the last few weeks.  It’s interesting to see the reaction people have to why a person blogs.  As someone who became an avid blogger (via my family blog) and general internet nerd during my year leave of absence from teaching (ah, that was such a nice year), I can see how people who work full-time, or even part time, sometimes look at blogging as, well, rather strange.  When you take a step back and look at what blogging is, it’s overwhelming.  If I take too much time to think about hundreds of people hopefully/possibly reading about me, what I do, or what I think, it’s kind of crazy.

There seem to be lots of opinions out there, and most of them are strong.  Here are some of the vibes I get from various people I have spoken to about blogging, and also my response to those opinions.  No one has ever outright said these things to me- they are just vibes I pick up on from time to time.

“It’s dumb.” (or any other negative adjective you’d like to insert- stupid, useless, waste of time, etc.)

What I think: It’s not dumb.  Perhaps if you find a blog you don’t relate to it might seem dumb or irrelevant, but it’s only irrelevant to you- it might be someone else’s inspiration.

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“You can’t really make a living blogging.”

What I think: Heh.  Oh really?   Oh reeeeallllly?  Then why does Darren exist?  Why does Dooce exist?  You can make a living blogging.  But it’s something you have to work your arse off doing.  Is it a living you’d choose?  Most likely not since you don’t think it’s possible.  But hey- to each his/her own, I say.  I’ve spent a lot of time on my blog this summer and hardly anyone is looking at it….yet.  I hope that will change, but even if it doesn’t it will make me happy to leave a mark in this huge cyber-world.  If it makes me happy, what do I have to lose?

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“You have too much time on your hands.”

What I think: Nope. I definitely don’t have too much time on my hands.  I have two children, I hope to have a third in the near future, I’m going to be teaching in a few weeks, I’d like to workout on a regular basis, I have a house to organize and keep clean, and I also have this little thing called a relationship with my husband.  I’ve got plenty to do.  But I like blogging.  So sue me.

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“You’re addicted to the internet and social media.”

What I think: Hell, yeah, I’m addicted to the internet and social media!  I love it!  If you don’t, more power to ya.  I still get out of the house, I have a social life, I have friends (hi, friends!) and I think I’m doing okay balancing my life as best I can.  But I love Facebook for the way it allows me to keep up with old friends and new, I love Twitter even though I have yet to fully grasp it, and I love blogging because without it I would never have found inspiration to start sewing and keep making stuff I like.

I’ve often seen comments on friend’s Facebook status that make fun of people who take the status update to an extreme.  Sometimes, being the rather sensitive person I am, I’ve wondered if they are commenting about me (then I remember that I rarely post about going to the bathroom or what I just ate- unless I’m out to dinner and having something ridiculously delicious- then I share).  But at the finish of this post I shall worry no longer.  I’m going to own my blogging and social media loving self and live. it. up.  I think it will be advantageous when my kids are older- when they are talking about the latest and greatest things on the internet I may actually know what they are talking about.  And I will meet so many people on this journey of mine that I can’t possibly sit around and wonder if everyone approves or disapproves.  It’s official: I don’t care.

What is blogging to me?  It’s a way to record my journey and to share it with other people.   It’s a way to reach out across the country and the world to say, “Hey!  Check this out!”  I have so many friends who blog not for the recognition but to just write, get their thoughts out, and have a place to reflect on their life.  Blogging is the new form of a diary for so many people.  It will track my children’s lives, it will track my learning process, it will keep me sane in many ways.  I have so many things I think about- blogging is where I process and manipulate my brain.

So, what interesting comments have you received about the blogging world?  Do you care what your friends/family/colleagues thing about your blog?  Your interest in social media?  I’d love to hear from you!

Shhhh… I’m trying to concentrate.

Posted by Nat on Aug 10, 2010 | Comments Off on Shhhh… I’m trying to concentrate.

Well, the time has come.  I have gotten as far as I can on my own, so the next couple of days are going to be spent two places.

Here, because I need to get crackin’ on some projects:

And here, because I need to get some schooling on the innards of my blog:

I love WordPress.  But I do not know WordPress well enough.  We shall see if this book can change that.  Time will tell.  Wish me luck!

Man, oh man!

Posted by Nat on Aug 5, 2010 | 1 comment

I am so thrashed!  I have just spent oodles of time updating my widgets and categories.  Still working on the categories.

I have ordred “WordPress for Dummies.”  I feel like a dummy, so hopefully that will help.   I have countless posts in my cue, and so many projects to work on.  And school starts in 2 weeks.  Yee.  Haw.

Wish me luck!  My next task is going to be to try and put Twitter and RSS feed buttons in my sidebar.  Yikes!

Ack!

Posted by Nat on Aug 4, 2010 | 4 comments

Hello everyone!

If you have come to see me via my old url, craftingcrazy.wordpress.com, then you should know you are in the presence of genius.  No, not me.  My husband.  I am so excited!  In the last 24 hours I successfully claimed a new domain (crafting-crazy.com), set up my new blog with WordPress.org, and got all of the domain stuff switched over.  Now I have to figure out how to get all of my posts (all 20 of them) over here and we’ll be good to go.

Thanks for hanging out with me!  I’m so excited to start this new adventure!

Nat

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