Sharing Stories in Social Media, Things to Print, and Coming Soon.

I love Instagram. To me, it's by far the best social media thinger there is, because, PICTURES! I love them! Peoples' daily lives! I love to spy on them! Publicly sanctioned voyeurism at it's best, or, uhm, second best. (After blogs, of course.)

And most of instagram is purely fluff- mundane and silly and funny, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, because that's a big part of what relationships are made of. (Pretty much all of my instagramming falls into the categories: dumb jokes, cat photos) But sometimes there are pictures and notes that go beyond the fluff; people who share parts of their life that might not be easy, or funny, or pleasant-- who make themselves genuinely vulnerable, (and not in an obscure-song-lyric-pity-request on Facebook kinda way.) Sometimes social-media-blurbs do penetrate the surface level of engagement we chide them for being. And for lack of better words: that's really cool.

What I'm slowly getting around to is this story: I know a girl named Hope. A few weeks ago, her grandmother passed away. Here's what she wrote accompanying a photo of she and her grandmother:

This amazing woman died this morning at 94 years old. A constant comfort and inspiration, I'm gonna miss her so much until I see her again. Her last words were when I asked her for a Bible verse. She barely opened her eyes and said (in whispers) "thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee." -Isaiah 26:3. Then she said "I love you." Now she is with her earthly husband and her Heavenly Father. "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Psalm 16:11

Which, yeah, made me cry. Even though I'd never met her. Granted, it's not super difficult to make me cry, but still. And it also inspired me to draw a little something for Hope, a visual reminder-- not that she would need it to remember her grandmother, but maybe to reassure her in difficult times.

 And, so, I instagrammed it, to show Hope, and because that's what people do. A few people were seemed interested in it, and so I've made a free printable 8x10 version of it-- you can find it on the "free printies" tab at the top of the page, or just follow this link. 

It's a PDF that contains both the black/white and gray versions; make sure to print it with page scaling set to "none" so it prints at 8x10 and not smaller. (If you're asked for a password in order to print it, it's "print", minus the quotation marks.)

Anyway, it's just a little thing-- but print and enjoy, I hope you can use it.

By the way, since I've been SNOWED IN FOR THE PAST WEEK, I've been working on a tutorial! Nothing exciting, but after making a zillion tea-towels, I've learned a few things the hard way, and really had trouble finding the answers to some of my questions on the interwebs. Hopefully I can help at least a few people out by shedding some light on the little tricks I've discovered. So, coming soon: 

"How to Make Tea Towels, with No Pinning and Hardly Any Ironing!"

Which includes the sub-tutorial:

 "Using a 6mm Hemmer Foot on Medium Weight Wovens, Without Going Insane and/or Throwing Your Sewing Machine Out the Window!"

 So, stay tuned? Or something like that? Yeah...