crafty and frugal

A sweater that I really like recently developed a hole. Sad. Typically, I would use the opportunity of a holey sweater as an excuse to buy a new sweater. However, because of recent budget cuts in our household, I can't really justify a shopping trip.

Luckily the hole in the sweater was along a seam, so entirely fixable. Unfortunately sewing a straight seam is really a challenge for me. And the hole, while on the seam had frayed out a bit, so I worried that trying to fix the hole with a straight seam would make the sweater look puckery. Seeing as the hole was on a front shoulder seam, puckery sewing would be noticeable.

While I cannot stitch a straight seam, I am pretty good at embroidery, do I dug out my handy copy of Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches. Mostly I look at this book and never do any stitching, but this time I found a lovely decorative stitch and got to work.


Here's how it turned out:


And here's the detail:I must say I am pretty proud of myself both in terms of craft and frugality. Now I just need to learn how to darn socks.

Beautiful

You must go to this link and look at pictures of beautiful sea slugs. They are truly amazing. It always stuns me how much detail and variety and beauty there is in the world and how most of the time it goes unnoticed.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/nudibranchs/doubilet-photography

At the U, Will's research focused on a sea slug from this nudibranch family. It wasn't quite as stunning as these examples, but it was a lovely critter.

do I need to fire my editor?

Since my teaching career isn't going quite the way I'd planned, I have decided to be a freelance writer. Right now, it's just been a bunch of query-writing and sending. And self doubt, endless amounts of self doubt. I have often thought about trying to write for a living, but I have always been terrified of the whole prospect. What if my writing really sucks? What if I am a fraud? What if it's true what they say about teachers? It is only out of desperation and a realization that I have nothing to lose that I have decided to take on this adventure. But still, each time I click send on a query, I am certain that someone is out there laughing at me and pointing.

Despite my terror, things are going fairly well. I've had some positive response. No jobs yet, but I do have several strong leads that should (cross your fingers) work out.

Yesterday, I heard back from the editor of a local food magazine. In her message, she said that I should call her to "blah blah" about some ideas. I was excited about the reply, but thought the "blah blah" comment was a little weird.

Well, today I copied the message to that editor in order to refashion it into a query for another editor. And there, in the message, was this sentence: " I look forward to blah blah" Yes, that's right, those little notes that I make to myself to indicate where I need to add/ clarify? Still there.

I am both mortified and amazed. I mean, the query worked right? So maybe I need to worry less about the laughing and the pointing and just say whatever the hell I feel like. Really, I am the queen of worrying about what I say and whether it annoys, embarrasses, offends, etc. In new contexts, I can hardly speak for the worry.

Perhaps this is a lesson that I just need to get over it. blah blah, baby, blah blah