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...

What's Floating My Boat + Free Tea Towels

Note: When I got this book and wrote this post, I never connected it with Arajane's post about finding the same book at the Bainbridge Island Rotary Auction! I think it's HILARIOUS, because I remember loving the quilts at the time, but my swiss-cheese-brain never connected them when I found the book. I'm starting to think Arajane and I have a bit of hive-mind going on... take a look at her post for photos of more great quilts!

I'm not going to get into the whole existential discussion of what "modern quilting" is, because thinking too hard bores me and hurts my mind-grapes, but I have noticed that as I am exposed to more of the Quilt Canon, my affections are falling increasingly towards the traditional side of the tracks.

Which isn't to say that I don't love the colors and geometry and innovation of what we call Modern is, because I DO! But I keep finding that the quilts that truly rock my socks tend to be old-school. Like, pre-1900. They are HAMAZING.

I happened to pick up a book at Half-Price Books the other day, and started flipping through it despite its kinda naasty cover, Treasury of American Quilts, by Cyril L. Nelson and Carter Houck. By the time my brief flip-through was over, my head had exploded like, 7 times. Quilters: I highly suggest that you find this book and buy it, or at least check it out from the library. Ladies knew how to QUILT back in the day.

I can imagine that it isn't for everyone, and a few of these do ride the line between amazeballs and vomit, but I'm just so deeply impressed with the skills and imagination and design sense and freedom that I see in these quilts. I see a lot of great quilts, all the time, but these just seem somehow beyond what can be made with an electrically powered sewing machine in a house with modern plumbing with Netflix streaming in the background. They took so much of one's lifetime to complete, and many of them were probably made in community with other quilters. 

I've got nothing against technology, and I'm not trying to say that modern conveniences make quilts less authentic; but to me there's just something in these that make it seem like they have something more.

Aaaaanyway, I'mma stop myself before I get too fluffy and sentimental. What was that about free tea towels, you say?

Well, it is 2013, and I've still got some 2013 Quilt Love Tea Towel Calendars sitting on my shelf, and I would like to send them to good homes. So, while they last, you get one FREE with any order from my etsy store of two 8" x 10" prints, OR one 11"x 17" print. Bam. Adopt one today, they are almost as cute as kittens. (Not really. Kittens are ADORABLE.) The shop announcement will let you know when they run out, and I'll try to mention it here, too. 

Note: Don't put the tea towel in your cart when you check out, there is no coupon code that will take the cost off-- just buy the prints and I will automatically send you the calendar!

Where I Live, In Bits and Pieces. (Part 2)

(It wasn't planned, but I kinda love that the map in our hallway matches two of the paint colors off of that hallway. My preferred color palette is pretty obvious, I guess.)

(All of our couches are always covered with Baxter and Rufus fuzz. It's like furry lichen on the rocky tundra of our furniture.)

 (We have many books. This is but the tip of the iceburg.)

(So, I'm thinking about starting to scan some of the illustrations from the vintage kids' books I've collected, and maybe putting them up on a second blog? Because, I am SO good at putting together blog posts. But it would be nice to share the little treasures that I've hunted around thrift stores and estate sales for, and I think there are probably at least a few other people who might enjoy them. What do you think?)

Where I Live, In Bits and Pieces. (Part 1)

When I was in college, I would walk around with a camera, constantly taking pictures of, pretty much, nothing. Shadows. Doorknobs. Carpet. I did it everywhere I went, but most of the photos I took were taken where I lived at the time, my parents' house.

Now, part of this was because I liked playing with cameras, and part of it was the fact that I was a photo major, and had to turn in a stack of contact sheets at the end of the week, but the largest part was that I've always just loved taking pictures of Random Stuff. Great masterpieces, they are not; but I love those photos, because they remind me of that specific period of time, and the day-to-day details of it.

I've really gotten away from taking those kind of pictures in the last two years- they aren't necessary, and being a semi-functional adult requires dropping a lot of the unnecessary.

But now we live in our first Real house, like Real people, with Real things, and even though I've been a pretty epic fail (at least time-wise) at interior decorating, I do want a record of how we live and how it will change. This is the first place I've live since my parents' house that wasn't just temporary. So I've reconciled myself with how slow each room's development is, because I'm not really in a hurry.

And every room is so far from what I imagine the finished will be; you might have noticed how very close and cropped these photos are. But it's cool. HGTV isn't stopping by anytime soon.

 And yes: It's still Christmas at my house. Deal.

So. Many. Words.

So here's a problem: I'm constantly blogging.

Except, you know, in my head. So not so much blogging as drafting. Or narrating. Or Woody-Allening, but not worthy of cinema, and never about wooing-zee-ladies. And so, when I finally get myself all jazzed-up and ready to write things down, all my mental drafts either dissolve into puffs of smoke or fight with one another for attention. Sometimes they try to intermingle, but that's a strange sort of in-breeding, and yields mixed results.

And I stink at typing. I've never learned to Mavis-Beacon it, so I use three fingers and I spend more time going back to correct things than I do going forward.

And, here is the lamest of all excuses, because it borders on being a complaint about an astonishing blessing that I've been given, but since I do a good bit of my work in front of this computer screen, whenever I sit in front of it, I get this itchy "work" feeling. Which is DUMB, because I LOVE THIS WORK! But, you know, at the end of the day when one has spent hours moving things back and forth by FRACTIONSOFCENTIMETERS in photoshop, one is like, whew, I would like to not sit here any longer. Even recreationally. Even to ramble-on to the delightful internets.

AND. This is not an apology, because if there is one thing I have learned from reading the internets, it's that I don't expect much from the internets, and when it apologizes, I'm all like, what? and I start singing "I Will Survive". (No I don't.)

It's not an apology, but it is one of my little brain-drafts, and I happened to sit down and type it. Obnoxiously slowly. Because that's how I roll.

It seems like so many of the bloggers I first read when I started reading blogs are beginning to get all serious and thoughtful about what it means to blog, and what their priorities are, and this also isn't that, because my writing style lacks the depth required for that. I respect it, though. And when I look at the way I blogged when I started and the way I do it now, it sometimes seems like a sad little husk of what it once was. And part of this, surely, is, GACKKK, the fact that I started blogging as a person and at some point I became (somewhat by necessity, but somewhat not) a person AND a product. And sometimes now I feel like I'm verging on only being a product.

Ooooh, it feels dirty. Typing it out loud. Naaaaaasty.

What it needs, in part, is re-categorization. My plan is to pull my mental BLOG folder out of the SOCIAL MEDIA filing cabinet (next to facebook), and put it in the ENJOYABLE SHARING filing cabinet, (next to instagram). How these filing cabinets got divided, I do not know- maybe because no one has written books on monetizing instagram posts yet. (To my knowledge.) I'm still going to talk about the STUFF I make, because, duh, I like the stuff I make, or I wouldn't do it. But I also want to talk about other things. I don't know what. Likely highly uninteresting junk, but there is a spot on the internet for everything, right?

I was going to do a 2012 summary post, because that's how bloggers do. It has been the subject of much mental drafting. I just went back and re-read the equivalent post from 2011, and it makes me laugh at how semi-serious this post is. Har. And even though I'm in danger of completely over-doing it with all the ACTUAL WORDS in this post, I'm going to revisit my lists. (And, like last year, the "you" is me. iamthecenteroftheuniversethankyouverymuch.)

Things I learned in 2012:

-It's never stupid to expect that God will answer prayers. It's actually quite the opposite. But it's also really foolish to assume that he will answer them in the way that you expect. The God of the universe is entirely good, and completely sovereign, and frequently hilarious. ZING.

-Even when you have a good plan, you're going to mess it up somewhere. This isn't a bad thing, and it isn't a reason to be discouraged or sad-sacky-y. Muster up some humility, apologize where you need to, and try and learn from your mistakes. Giiiiiiiiiiiiiirl, you ain't never gonna get past makin' mistakes.

-Your neighbors are (mostly) cool. Trying to live in awareness of your immediate, geographic community is more than your little head and heart really wants to shoot for, but in the tiny places where you've experienced it, it's been so, SO worth it.

-It takes focused, active effort to live on a set schedule. And you're not very good at it, but lack of natural skill is not an acceptable excuse for falling apart on this. Work it, dude.

-You knew this before, but you married an awesome, awesome dude. (And yeah, I know he'll read this, but it's not just for suck-ups that I'm writing it.) He provides for you, he takes care of you, and he has adorably paranoid contingency plans for most things that could possibly befall you. You're a moron if you take this for granted. And you're incredibly lucky, because on top of all that, he loves you.

-You can help, but you can never really solve other people's problems. You can help, but you're not enough to save anyone. Drop the guilt, do your best to be there, and rest in the sigh of relief.

-Memorizing the specific truths that frame and guide the way you live provides incredible solace. Words shape thoughts, and having the imprint of the most important words on your mind and soul provides a shelter within yourself that cannot be taken away.

-You are never not overwhelmed. It's your NATURE. You can try and strategize your way out of it, but them's just the same issues in different costumes. So know that you will always have unrealistic expectations for how much you can do, and how well you can do it, and be ok with the fact that those expectations will be largely unmet, and it is OK. Recognize when it's just pride and vanity chipping away at your soul, admit defeat, and letitgooooooooo.

DANG. It smells serious up in here. Like a fart in an elevator. Whew. I'll try to calm it down, and be a little less Dear Diary.

Marching Orders for 2013:

-Be a responsible human. Do things on time, and then smile smugly and have a sip of coffee, because that's the reward for being a Real Life Adult. Or something like that.

-Watch less tv, (repeat from 2012!) and be more disciplined with your use of time. The way you use your time shows what your priorities are, don't ignore that.

-Vegetables. Right? Yeah.

-Keep a tiny, underwhelming journal.

-Be hospitable, have people in your home, and try to make your home habitable to the point that people want to be there.

-Finish those projects that aren't hard, but have been mentally categorized as "indefinitely postponed." Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. (See 2011: The Bathroom. And now 2012: The Great Reorganization.)

-Memorize more.

-Go outside MORE. You're still a dirty hermit.

So. Serious like a fart. At least it only happens once a year, right?

(Images chosen from my "for blog" image folder. Plane vortex is SO farty though, right?)

Duh. I Forgot Something. You Sew!

I made these sewing themed cards, and I totally spaced and forgot to put them up in the etsy shop. Duhhhhhhhhhh.

I think they're kinda adorable, with sweet vintage sewing machines on both the front and back, (See any you recognize?) and the cheesiest compliments you can give. What can I say, I love me a good pun.

Since I was such a fool, I'm offering free domestic shipping on all of my greeting cards, in addition to the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales...

Sooooo, for the rest of the day: all prints are buy 1 get 1 free, all tea towels are buy 3 get one free, and until Wednesday, free shipping on all cards!

Doot-doo-doo-DOOO! That's all I got. As you were.

A Sale, Black-Friday-Style.

 Well, first off, Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans! And Happy Thursday, other humans! I hope you are all having a fun and hopefully relaxed day with people you're fond of. It's a day for gratitude and thankfulness, so I apologize for the following semi-commercial interlude, but I wanted to tell you, reaaaaallllll quick-like, that I am going on sale. And, well, it won't be TOTALLY Black Friday style, because there will be no mobs or human crushings or cheap electronic devices or throwback TV series DVD sets, but, you know. I'm not that ambitious.

Ok, so. Here's the deal: I haven't been able to sell fabric for a while now, and so of course! some of the prints have made the rounds on pinterest and I am getting requests for them and it KILLS me to say, oh, yeah,  sorry, can't, no. Firstly, because I desire the approval of EVERYONE ON EARTH, and secondly, because I like trading goods for money. It's kinda what I do, I guess?

BUT. What I can do is sell finished goods, made of my fabric. And remember how I mentioned, not too long ago, that I love me some tea towels? Yeah, you know where this is going.

ASL tea towels, my friends! In 7 happy colors! I tweaked the design to make the hands stand out and add a bit more color,  and I kind of love it. Not that I'm biased or anything. (I am.)

And I didn't forget the boats, or ships, or whatever you call your sailing vessels... All of these are printed, like the calendar, on Spoonflower's linen/cotton blend, and squish up and wrinkle in that perfect way that only linen can. Both ASL and boat tea towels are $18 each.

But I digress. Not only are there many new goodies in the shop, but from this Friday, (November 23rd, also known as Black Friday, also known as the Worst Day Ever to Need Thread at JoAnn), until the end of the day Monday (November 26th, also known as Cyber Monday, also known as the only day of the year my husband buys video games) I will be sportin' these dealzzz:

All PRINTS, buy 1 get 1 FREE! (same size or smaller)
All TEA TOWELS, buy 3 get 1 FREE!

This includes the 2013 Quilt Love Calendar Tea Towel, so if you want to pick some up as gifts, this is the best time to do it!

How the Game is Played: Buy the amount of items that will NOT be free, and then in the "notes" section of check-out, tell me which items you want for your freebies. Please, please, please don't buy all the items and then send me convos saying one of them was supposed to be free, or etsy-refund-technicalities will hasten my gradual descent into madness. Por exemplo: You want to buy two prints, and get two free. Put two in your cart, buy them, and then tell me which two you would like for free. Cheers! Or: You want to get a free tea towel- put three in your cart and then write in the note what you would like your fourth to be.

(I apologize for getting all second-grade-teacher on you just then, I know everyone is probably like, "duh, wegetitalready." I'm paranoid, though, and just want to make sure everything goes smoothly and no one ends up paying for stuffs they don't have to.)

(Oh, and, sorry about the delay on these, but tea towels are made to order, and will take approximately 1-2 weeks to ship out. Just so's you know...)

H'anyways. Commercial end, Lauren out, celebrate!