Blog Design Feedback Requested
21 May 2012 6 Comments
in chit-chat
While I’m not particularly looking to have a large blog readership, I *do* want my blog to be easy to read and I want information to be easy to find for those of you who are already regular readers or who are potential regular readers.
1. Is the background design appealing? Or is it distracting?
2. Is there anything you would find it helpful for me to include in the sidebar, or on a separate page that’s linked in the sidebar or in one of the header tabs?
When I visit other blogs, I like having access to a “search” box, a list of categories, and the blog archives, so I’ve included those things in my sidebar. What other things do y’all like to see?
I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a blogroll, maybe on a separate page of its own. Do y’all actually make use of blogrolls on other blogs?
3. If you often read but seldom comment, if it’s because there’s a hurdle in the commenting process, please do let me know.
If there’s any other feedback you have, I’m all ears =).
Spring Visitors
31 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in chit-chat
Every spring sparrows build nests in various spots underneath our carport, and this year was no exception. A recent thunderstorm blew the eggs out of one nest, but the other nest was in a less-exposed-to-the-weather area and those eggs survived. The two babies in that nest somehow crawled or wiggled their way out of the nest today and ended up on the ground below. Same thing happened with the babies in the same nest location last spring!
Last spring my hubby hung a small box (or some sort of other small container) from the carport rafters, right near the nest. He gently tucked the babies into the container and all was well.
We couldn’t find anything today small enough to hang near the nest, so we jerry-rigged a standing nest using a tomato cage, a couple pots, and a wooden post to hold things steady. We situated the standing nest near the bird nest, but far enough away from the fence that the roaming neighborhood cats couldn’t walk the fence and reach the baby birds.
Sadly, when my hubby took the trash out just after dark, a cat came running out from underneath the carport and the baby birds were gone from the nest :(. I am very much Grouchy McGroucherson about roaming neighborhood cats to begin with and this did nothing to endear them to me!
Once the sparrows are gone for the spring, we’ll pull down the nest and fill in that particular corner so they can’t build there again next year. Right where the babies landed on the ground this year, which is the very spot where the babies last year landed, is at our backyard gate entrance — both years it was a close call of them almost being stepped on as my hubby walked through the back gate! We hope filling in that corner of the carport rafters will encourage the sparrows to build elsewhere under the carport, off the beaten path so to speak. And if next year’s babies should tumble out of their nest, we’ll know that we just have to figure out a safer way to get them near the nest, elevated much higher and out of the way of the roaming cats.
Unearthing Treasures
21 Mar 2012 2 Comments
For the past couple weeks, I’ve been slowly going through, sorting out, and reorganizing the things on the shelves and in the closet in “my room” (home office / crafting space). I’ve not been in a hurry — some days I’ll putter around in there for an hour here and an hour there, and other days I don’t go into the room at all. My initial intent was to only weed through my needlework stuff, but then I decided to go ahead and go through EVERYTHING because I haven’t done that since moving into the room over a year ago . . . and even though I’m not a packrat, stuff still has a way of accumulating.
The bookshelves have all been emptied and reloaded, and are more functional now for my work-at-home part-time job. Before, all my office files were stashed in boxes in the (not a walk-in) closet and they weren’t easy to get to. After a year-plus of shuffling boxes around to get to files, it feels WONDERFUL to now be able to put my hands on any particular file simply by reaching over and grabbing it.
There’s still plenty of Pretty happening on the shelves! All of my needlework supplies that I kept are in pretty photo-storage boxes from Hobby Lobby, and I have a variety of clear-glass storage containers as well. All of the needlework I’ve received in craft swaps and have made myself that’s been displayed in there is still there, as is the various artwork that was already in there (much of that needlework and artwork can be seen in older pictures of my office, here).
I unearthed some treasures while cleaning out: a drawing special-requested by me from my oldest niece, and a Scrabble table I received in a craft swap.
My niece, Llexi, gifted this drawing to me at Christmas:
I’d stashed it safely away until I could get a frame for it. Lo and behold, as I was doing the last of my cleaning out I found an unused frame and mat that worked perfectly for the drawing! So I framed it up and it’s now residing on one of our walls. (This is the breed of chicken we have; sadly, I cannot, right now, remember what breed they are!!)
In the summer of 2009, I participated in a Craftster swap and was partnered with Craftster member “KarenLouise”, who made this FABULOUS Scrabble table:
(Not visible is a tin attached to the underneath of the table, and the tin contains the Scrabble tiles.) The table has been used as an end table in our living room, as a nightstand in our bedroom, and most recently as an easily-portable needlework table that held my OTTLite and whatever needlework project + supplies I was working on at any given time. I finally cleaned the table totally off this week, and when my kiddo came into my office last night to chat with me he spied it and asked if we could play Scrabble! For YEARS I’ve longed for someone with whom I could play Scrabble who found it as enjoyable as I, so his request was music to my ears!!
We ended up playing Scrabble for an hour or more and had SUCH a good time. Our goal was to use every tile, and we made that happen . . . even if it meant taking the very last tile, the letter “Y”, and using it just outside the border of the board to make the word “yon” (adding the “y” to the word “on” that was already there). But we DID use every letter ;-).
I wasn’t sure where to put this Scrabble table — space is a little tight in my office — but now that I know my kiddo’s digging playing Scrabble, this table will head back to the living room for a while :-).
In other news:
~ The Hunger Games movie starts Friday!!! This would be a good time to take advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling and catch ourselves a showing one weekday afternoon before schoolkids are out of school for the day.
~ In spite of not being very “into” doing needlework right now, I’m somewhat intrigued by Sharon B’s “Sumptuous Surfaces Embroidery” class, which begins May 10th. That kind of needlework is so very outside the box of the type of embroidery I usually do, yet I’m intrigued by it. There are some pretty examples of work done by folks who’ve participated in past Sumptuous Surfaces Embroidery classes, shown in this Flickr group. The only drawback, for me, of joining the class is that I’d need to buy an assortment of flosses, as I only have DMC stranded cotton, and I wasn’t really looking to *add* to my needlework supplies. Yet . . . my mind keeps going back to possible project ideas for the class ;-). I’m not rushing to sign up, though — my guys and I each get a certain amount of fun-money each month and this class + supplies would eat up a month’s worth of my fun money. And while I’m sure the class *will* be fun, I have a certain something that’s been on my office wish list for over a year, and now that I’m not spending my fun money every month on needlework supplies, books, magazines, etc., it’d sure be a good opportunity to get that long-wished-for item. Decisions, decisions! #firstworldproblems
10 Mar 2012 5 Comments
in chit-chat
I don’t know how many of you who use Pinterest actually read the Terms of Use when you signed up; I didn’t. If I had, I likely would not have created an account.
Emily at The Floss Box has a good post today about what you actually agreed to regarding Pinned content when you agreed to the Terms of Use.
I’ve deleted my Pin boards, but I kept my account so that I can occasionally search to see which of my photos are ending up there, and to provide a link to the original source if the Pinner has not taken the time or had the courtesy to do so. For what it’s worth, no one has ever asked me for my permission to Pin any photos of mine (including photos of my needlework), and it’s more than a little frustrating to find them there with no credit whatsoever to me or to the original source of the photo (my blog or Flickr account). If you see something of mine there, please let me know so I can ask the Pinner to edit their Pin to include original source info. And just so you other needleworkers I know are aware, whenever I’ve come across anything of yours at Pinterest for which you’ve not been credited, I add that info in the comments of the Pin — we’ve gotta have each other’s backs, kwim?
I’ve taken Pinterest out of my sidebar, but a link to my Flickr is still there. Anything I’ve ever done in the form of needlework is still on my Flickr account :-).
Edited to add the following info:
1. Pinterest has a code you can add to your site to prevent pictures from being pinned. Go to this link & scroll down a bit: http://pinterest.com/about/help/
2. Unfortunately, that option is not available for wordpress.com bloggers: “WordPress.com is a multiuser blogging platform and we cannot access the metadata and insert the Pinterest opt-out code to prevent our images from being pinned.” ~ source: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/opting-out-of-pinterest?replies=6
3. Even if you add the “no pinning” coding to your site, someone can still copy and save the image and pin it that way.
4. Here’s some info about how Flickr uses Pinterest’s “no pinning” coding to block pinning of images if the Flickr user has chosen privacy settings not allowing photos to be shared socially: http://marketingland.com/flickr-uses-nopin-meta-tag-to-keep-some-images-off-pinterest-6811.
I actually don’t mind if photos of my needlework are pinned — I’m proud of the needlework I’ve done! But it would be nice to be credited accordingly. While I’m not a huge fan of having watermarks across photos, it’s something I’ll consider doing for future photos I share online that I would want credited back to me — no way, however, am I going back through 4 years of needlework photos and adding watermarks ;-).
Frustration
04 Mar 2012 5 Comments
in chit-chat
The “April Showers” embroidery I showed in my last post is a no-go. As I began stitching around the appliqued pieces (which I’d adhered to the background fabric using fusible web), they began to detach from the background fabric. As a last-ditch effort to salvage the project, I tried a blanket stitch on the raincoat pieces to help hold them to the fabric, but it detracted too much from the pattern of the fabric — busy print + blanket stitch = *not* visually appealing.
I’m so frustrated with my needlework endeavors :(. I can’t seem to bring my projects to completion. I start something, thinking “Okay, I definitely will finish THIS one,” but I’m not getting any of them finished, for one reason or another.
So, I’m stepping away from needlework and other crafting for the time being. I guess I shouldn’t be totally surprised by this decision — last month I made the decision to leave my local Embroiderers Guild group, and I’ve not been participating in the StitchMAP needlework group either (other than my involvement in the Bastrop donations project).
It’s not that I’m not interested in needlework anymore — I still enjoy reading needlework blogs and magazines very much. But the drive to put needle to fabric just isn’t there for me like it used to be. I kept pushing for it to be there, but tonight I accepted that it’s just not there . . . certainly not in a way I need it to be in order to get past the little speed bumps that pop up on projects (like the April Showers embroidery).
Maybe that passion will return. I hope it does!! Preferably sooner than later ;-).
Moved
10 Mar 2011 7 Comments
in chit-chat
I’ve decided to no longer keep a blog. I’ll continue posting pics of my crafty endeavors on my Flickr photostream.
Many thanks to those of you who have commented on posts here, whether it was once or often =). I hope you’ll add me to your Flickr contacts, if we’re not already contacts.
I originally started this blog as what I thought might be a companion to an Etsy shop, but I never took the step of starting an Etsy shop — primarily because I felt, for me, it would begin to feel like an obligation, and I want my needlework to remain a hobby. In recent months, I’ve realized that my desire to blog has dwindled considerably, and pretty much anything for which I post pictures here I’m also posting pictures at Flickr. So I’m going to eliminate the double-posting and utilize only Flickr.
If, at some point, I start making needlework patterns or I want to start selling needlework I’ve made, I’ll blow the dust off this here blog. In fact, I’m retaining the blog URL for that very reason. Because the saying is true: never say never!!
