Friday, June 28, 2013

Pillow Tutorial, As Promised


I'm really happy about how well this project turned out, especially since I haven't done any embroidery since I was about eleven. It was really simple and fun, and you can embroider any text you want. 

Materials:

Pillow form or Polyfill

 2 Pieces of Fabric (enough to cover your pillow form): I used some cream colored stuff from the quilting bin at Walmart. 

Black Embroidery Floss.

Needles

Pins

Thread (to match your fabric)

A computer and printer

  1. Type your text in your desired font and size (I used 72 point American Typewriter font). I hit space between every letter, which made it a lot easier to embroider. 
  2. Print out your text and cut off the excess paper. 
  3. Pin the text to one piece of fabric; you should be able to make out the text through the fabric.
  4. Using Satin Stitch, embroider your text onto the fabric. You should be actually stitching through the paper- don't worry, it will rip off easily when you're done.
  5. Press both pieces of  fabric (just make sure you've gotten all the paper off!)
  6. Pin them together (wrong side out) and stitch three sides together.
  7. I pressed it again, but that's optional.
  8. Turn right way out and stuff with polyfill or insert pillow form.
  9. Sew up the open side
  10. Voila! You now have a snazzy new pillow. 

This is my first crafty tutorial, so I hope you guys enjoy it!

Perhaps this has occurred to you, perhaps not, but Littleton is not exactly a riveting place to live. Some towns are known for their constant activity and non-stop pace. Littleton is not one of those places. Yet you have to learn to appreciate the sedate and serene pace of a town such as mine. Of course, this learning process can be rather lengthy, in my own case, more than four years.
Even though it may not be a great place to live, Littleton is definitely a good place to be from, if only for the entertainment value of it all. One Littleton story can have whole groups of my college friends lying on the floor helpless with mirth, but, as I've said before, coming home for the summer can be a total drag. Fortunately I have people who remind me of the hilarity of living in a small town. Yesterday, for example, I was feeling very very sorry for myself, so I texted my other small-town living friend, hoping for some sympathy. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Friiieeeeeeennnnd, there is literally nothing to do in this town.
Friend: Go donate blood. That's always a good time.

Of course, I absolutely had to laugh. Thank goodness for friends who can, if not fix your problems, at least make you see why everything in your life is utterly hilarious. Honestly, you have to laugh, otherwise you'll never survive life in a small town.

Anyway, I hope you are all having a lovely Friday. I'm headed out to babysit in a little while, which means pool time: Like four hours in the sun, watching as my delicate while skin turns the color of bacon. Ah, it's so difficult to be ginger.

P.S. You remember the embroidered pillow I showed you yesterday? Well, I'm going to be posting a tutorial very soon, so stay tuned!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Summer

Summer has never been my favorite season. I'm much more of a fall girl, personally. I love the crisp back-to-school smell in the air, the leaves changing, the cool weather, which is obviously why I moved to Texas, because, as we all know, fall is a season they have there (sarcasm, sarcasm). In case you wanted to know, summer in the south is just gross- humidity, 100 degree weather, etc, etc. It doesn't really help that the economy in Littleton is sort of shot, and I'm having to patch random jobs together, so I can, you know, eat next semester. But this means that I have a lot of random free time, which means that I'm rather bored.

This summer, however, I am trying really to do something productive with my free time. Okay, I admit it, I still spend far to much time on Pinterest, but I have actually succeeded in getting somethings done. For example, I started on my Junior Poetry project. I may not have chosen a poet to obsess over (read all their works, make a presentation on them, and what not) for the next six months, but I have crossed some off the list: not Shakespeare, not Ben Jonson, Donne is right out. Hey, it may not be actual progress, but at least I'm making my job next semester a little easier.

I played my violin for the first time in about six months! Obviously I was not about to haul the most expensive thing I own overseas where it could easily be stolen, so I hadn't played in ages, until the other day. Recently I've had a love-hate relationship with music. I love having the ability to play violin, but I really hate not being good and not having the time to actually get good. It's always a little awkward to play really badly and then have to explain that you've been playing for 11 years. But today, I realized that I really should be proud of myself. I have stuck with violin for 11 years, which included 6 teachers, 3 majors moves (one of them transatlantic), and through some of the hardest semesters of my life. I may not be very good, but, dangit, I'm persistant.

I'm also trying to justify my hours wasted on Pinterest by actually doing crafts. I finished one, and i have a couple more in mind. I started this cute little pillow a couple of weeks ago and finally finished it yesterday.  Okay, it's not actually something I saw on Pinterest. I saw a pillow in a shop in England with the same saying, and I thought, "I need that, but it won't fit in my suitcase, " so I made my own when I got home.  The embroidery took me a long time, but I'm very pleased with the results. Perhaps I shall post a tutorial.
Another thing I'm doing is catching up on all the movies I haven't seen and that all my friends tell me I should have seen ages ago. So far, I've watched Ocean's 11 and Skyfall, neither of which I really would have thought to watch, if everyone wasn't constantly telling me that I should. So I watched them, and, yes, guys, I liked them a lot. Maybe I'll vary up my chick flick movie diet. Maybe. Speaking of chick flicks, last night I watched He's Just Not That Into You (recommendation from the Orthogals, not because I was feeling broken hearted, don't worry). It was hilarious and really really embarrassing ("Oh gosh,I have totally done that before!"). While it's not a movie for my younger readers, it is definitely a movie I'd recommend to anyone who is having some boy problems. It could also be titled "Dumb Things Girls Do When They Can't Take a Hint" and basically shows all the common mistakes girls make in the dating scene. Anyway, perhaps this shall be the subject for a later post.

I've even seen some recent movies, albeit kids' movies, but, hey, everyone my age went to see Monsters University, right? Right? Well, anyway, I went to see it last Sunday with my younger siblings, and we absolutely loved it. Little Mike was probably the most adorable thing ever, just sayin'. We also had the most hilarious awkward moment at the theater. We found our theater, and I saw a bunch of people crowding into one door: "What silly people," I thought, "There's a perfectly good door opposite it." So I pull open the other door and try to usher my sister through. She looks up at me and says, "Um, Pip, that's the janitor's closet."And, of course, lots of people would be watching, so with the utmost dignity, I close the door and usher my giggling midgets through the correct door. I was a little abashed, but I felt much better when the movie theater embarrassed itself by playing "The Internship" instead of the G rated movie we had all been expecting. They did eventually fix it, but not before several small children had learned some great new vocabulary words. Ah, well...

Finally, I (along with the rest of the staff) have started prepping for my next actual job! I am beyond excited to be staffing the summer program that I once attended at Ye Olde University. It's going to be the best thing ever, and I absolutely cannot wait!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Coming Home

"Why do you go away? So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. The people there see you differently too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving" -Terry Pratchett

This quote was on the program for our final convocation in Rome, and it has been bouncing around in my head ever since. Coming home is always hard for me. It's hard to readjust to family life, and most of all, it's hard to readjust to Littleton's laid-back pace. And by laid-back, I of course mean, nothing has changed in at least the past fifty years. I am really not cut out for small town living. I just really do not like it at all. I absolutely love big cities with all their convenience and, honestly, anonymity.

I'm a fairly quiet, shy person, and it's much more comfortable for me to just blend in with the crowd. In such a small county as this one, I am constantly plagued with the terrifying idea that everyone knows who I am. I was on the phone in Wal-mart the other day, and when I hung up I realized that half the county (who were, of course, all in Wal-mart because it was a Saturday) now knew everything about my life. I'm sure that in small houses all over the county, gossipy elderly ladies are worrying all about my problems, which is nice of them, but really, they don't need to bother.  They're nice people and everything, but I miss the ability to slide into the background.

I notice this particularly in one specific circle. When I was in high school, my family was still settling into Littleton, and our social circle was very limited. This was all fine and dandy until my senior year, when things suddenly went bonkers, and the drama level became unbearable. Now, most of my memories of the parish have a distinctly unpleasant flavor to them. I wish it weren't this way, but when you're sixteen, and you feel pressured to conform to some standard that is not your own and which is not something your parents are not sure that they are 100% comfortable with, you start to rebel. Now, let me make this perfectly clear. I am not the rebellious type. As a matter of fact, I am about as unrebellious as a person can be, but, like most people, I do not enjoy being told what to do, particularly if the person doing the telling has no right to do so.

So I rebelled- that is, fled. I graduated a year early, went to college, studied abroad for a semester, and was as generally smug about all my accomplishments as it is possible to be. For a very long time, I nursed a lot of anger and resentment towards those whom I thought had hurt me. Now, I suppose that most of the hurt was in my head, but it always gave me an unpleasant little prick whenever I'm with these people during breaks. I would always try to play up my own importance and accomplishments, so as to distance myself from the offending parties and unpleasant recollections. I would always think, "Don't they know that none of the stuff they care about is important?"

But coming home after a semester of historical, life-changing experiences has taught me one thing. That my own injuries are very small, and that in such a small place small things get blown out of proportion. And I also came to realize that these small matters are as important to these people, as my big, world-renown matters are to me. The lives of people here in Littleton matter as much as the lives of the trendy Italians, the Pope, and all the other people I admired on my travels. Littleton may not be much, but to some people, it's their whole world.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Long Time, No...Read?



Once again, I have sadly neglected my blog, and once again Joy has shamed me into writing another post! So much has happened since Easter, but I'll try to do a quick summary.

I spent my last month in Italy traveling and studying. We took a fantastic class trip to Venice and Florence. It was a spectacular five days, and it was the first time I really fell in love with Italy. Venice is truly one of the most exotic places I have ever visited, while Florence is just plain beautiful. The view from the top of the Duomo is just breathtaking. I also took a trip to Padua with some friends. I was already a big fan of St. Anthony before we went, but after visiting all of his shrines (including the one where he lived in a walnut tree!), let's just say I'm an even bigger fan. I also took a day trip to Tivoli with some friends, and we spent an idyllic afternoon wandering around the villas Gregoriana and D'este.

Of course, right after that, exams hit, and that was just unpleasant, so I'll skip the gory details. Then suddenly our Rome semester was over. I spent a very teary night packing to go to the UK and wishing that I was going home along with everybody else. But I boarded my plane to London and made no attempt to sneak onto the plane back to Philadelphia. Once we stepped out of the airport and into London, however, I had absolutely no regrets. I grew up in England, and being there once again was amazing. My three friends and I had a whirlwind trip through England, Scotland, and Ireland, before they headed home, and I went to spend a few days in Cambridge, where my family used to live. I'm sure I'll write another post about my time in Cambridge, but let me just say that to be "home" for the first time in ten years, was the best experience I had during all five months I was abroad.

After four very blissful days, I came back to the US! As awesome as Europe was, I had really missed my family and friends, and it was fantastic to see them again. I was especially happy to get to spend some time with Joy before she moved. We had a great time, and even though she's only been gone a week, I really miss her.

I had five days at home to get over my jet lag, then I packed my bags and headed up to camp for a week. Now, going to overnight camp is a ton of fun, but working as a camp counselor is exhausting and, very often, thankless work with bad pay. I do enjoy working at camp, but this past week was rough, especially since I was already exhausted from all my traveling. I did survive, however, and now I'm back home for a little while.

I'm at loose ends for the next month, but I'm working on some craft projects, as well as reading some poetry in preparation for my Junior Poetry Project this fall. And watching a lot of chick flicks. Yeah, mostly watching chick flicks, but Y'know...

There will be more detailed posts forthcoming, but I just wanted to check in and say, "Hey" (and that I didn't die in Europe, in case you were worried about that).