Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
My Inspiration
I am often inspired by my ancestors who crossed the plains in the mid 1800's. Their lives were filled with wonderful experiences despite great trials and tribulations. When I stitch a folk art sampler, I transport my mind back to that era and try to view life through the eyes of a child. A young girl's first samplers were a means to learn the alphabet and new stitches. They usually consisted of an upper and lower case alphabet; the numbers 1-9; the date, (which I represent by the reversed numeral); and the child's name. Interestingly, the letter "j" was often left out of the alphabet. I have nine children of my own and an ever increasing number of grandbabies, which gives personal worth to the always present 1-9 numbers and the "x's", (one for each grandbaby). As I stitch a sampler, I view it too as one of my children. I feel as though I must fins each one a good home, where it will be appreciated and loved.
So each time you look at the "gentle art" of my handwork, take yourself back to that wonderful place in time where life seemed to be plain and simple. Accept this heartfelt gift from me to thee, knowing that "I Done My Best".
What is RSS?
Explanation taken from Problogger
What is RSS?
Further
What is RSS?
I have a number of ways that you can subscribe to this site and receive updates. The main one that my readers use is my RSS feed.
RSS is a technology that is being used by millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favorite websites.
In the ‘old days’ of the web to keep track of updates on a website you had to ‘bookmark’ websites in your browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what had been added.
The problems with bookmarking
- You as the web surfer had to do all the work
- It can get complicated when you are trying to track many websites at once
- You miss information when you forget to check your bookmarks
- You end up seeing the same information over and over again on sites that don’t update very often
RSS Changes Everything
What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.
RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published.
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.
It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.
How RSS actually technically works is probably a lesson for another day but the key today is for you to understand why it’s good and how to use it.
Let me say right up front that I’m not the most technically savvy person - but even I can use RSS. At first I found it a little strange to make the change from bookmarking to RSS but I found that when I started that I just couldn’t stop.
How to Use RSS
Get an RSS Reader - The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to hook yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader.
There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features - however a good place to start is with a couple of free and easy to use web based ones like Google Reader and Bloglines. Either one will do if you’re starting out (I use Google’s Homepage Reader) - as I say there are many others to choose from but to get started either of these are fairly easy to use and will help you work out the basics of RSS.
Both of these feed readers work a little like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item - marking the last one as ‘read’.
The best way to learn how to use either Google Reader or Bloglines is to simply subscribe to some feeds and give it a go. Both have helpful help sections to get you up and running.
Note: other options to tracking websites that you might already be familiar with include using pages like MyYahoo, MyGoogle and MyMSN.
Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to - there are two places to look for a site’s feed:
- On the Site
- In Your Browser
On Site Subscription
Over the last few years you may have noticed a lot of little buttons and widgets appearing on your favorite sites and blogs. Little orange buttons, ‘counters’ with how many ‘readers a blog has, links called RSS, XML, ATOM and many more.
They come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few you might have seen:
Browser Subscription
Many internet browsers now have the ability to find and subscribe to RSS feeds built right into them.
When you surf to a site you can usually tell if it has an RSS feed by looking in the right hand side of address bar where you type in the site’s URL. You will see a little orange box like the picture at the top of this post, or little RSS letters, or a similar icon.
Click that and you’ll be locating I Done My Best’s RSS feed.
Other modern browsers will have similar icons.
To quickly and easily subscribe by clicking these icons you’ll want to set up your browser to do it with your feed reader of choice as by default they will probably subscribe you using the in-browser reader. You can do this by going to the ‘preferences’ to your browser and choosing ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Bloglines’ etc as your feed reader.
Once you’ve done this and have subscribed to a few feeds you’ll begin to see unread items in your Feed Reader and you can start reading.
Don’t want to Use an RSS Reader? Email is an Option
If the above explanation all just seems a little too complicated for you then please don’t worry. Many sites also enable you to subscribe to RSS feeds via a more familiar medium - Email.
Here at I Done My Best I know that not everyone is into the RSS thing so at the top of my right hand sidebar there is a field where you can enter your email address and get a daily email with a summary of our latest posts. You can unsubscribe at any time and your email will be kept private and not used for any other purposes than to send these updates.
Further Reading
Monday, February 25, 2008
How it All Started
Many people ask me how I Done My Best began. I have always made things for my home and loved to do reproduction samplers. In 1993, when we lived in Texas, I used to take my samplers to a framer in an antique mall to have them framed. The shop owner repeatedly urged me to rent a space in her shop and sell finished samplers and cross-stitch books.
I always felt that my things were good enough for me, but that other people would find my flaws. I didn't have the confidence to give it a try.
My husband, Dean, kept urging me to do it, and once when I was visiting my daughter in Utah, he went down to the antique mall and rented me a five-foot space. He then called me and told me to come home because I had a wall to fill!
Dean had envisioned me doing cross-stitched samplers to sell.
Obviously he had never stitched one to see how much time they took! At any rate, I needed to come up with something quicker to stitch. So my own brand of sampler was born.
After a few months, the antique mall closed. Two of the ladies who also had booths in the mall decided to open their own shop and invited me to stitch and sell finished pieces. When I brought in pillows and samplers to sell, I would get requests to make another one, or two, or ten, just like the original one. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to make the same thing over and over. I loved doing an original design and then moving on to the next original. My family and friends urged me to begin producing patterns, and when I came to the point where I couldn't keep up with the orders, I finally conceded that patterns were the way to go.
One day, my daughter Jeana sat me down and made me draw. The whole time, I was grumbling at her for making me do it, but the Patriotic Angel was born! Later that week, I designed five more patterns.
I would draw the design and stitch it, then Jeana would write the instructions on the computer. I was far too afraid of the computer at that point to even turn it on!
I chose the name, "I Done My Best" for my pattern company because I have always felt that no one can ask you to do more than your very best. It seemed fitting, because I am doing the best I can.
That is how I started, and now that Dean isn't her to push me, my daughters are all too quick to take up the slack. I still get insecure about my work. I have a recurring nightmare that one day someone is going to figure out that I'm having too much fun for this to be work.
When I look back over the past, I am amazed at how everything has been laid out for me. Dean had always wanted me to do something like this so that if there ever came a time when he couldn't provide for me, I would have a means of supporting myself. I have been extremely blessed to have everything work out the way it has. I am able to support myself and involve alll of my children in the business. We get to play together everyday, all in the name of work!
I always felt that my things were good enough for me, but that other people would find my flaws. I didn't have the confidence to give it a try.
My husband, Dean, kept urging me to do it, and once when I was visiting my daughter in Utah, he went down to the antique mall and rented me a five-foot space. He then called me and told me to come home because I had a wall to fill!
Dean had envisioned me doing cross-stitched samplers to sell.
Obviously he had never stitched one to see how much time they took! At any rate, I needed to come up with something quicker to stitch. So my own brand of sampler was born.
After a few months, the antique mall closed. Two of the ladies who also had booths in the mall decided to open their own shop and invited me to stitch and sell finished pieces. When I brought in pillows and samplers to sell, I would get requests to make another one, or two, or ten, just like the original one. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to make the same thing over and over. I loved doing an original design and then moving on to the next original. My family and friends urged me to begin producing patterns, and when I came to the point where I couldn't keep up with the orders, I finally conceded that patterns were the way to go.
One day, my daughter Jeana sat me down and made me draw. The whole time, I was grumbling at her for making me do it, but the Patriotic Angel was born! Later that week, I designed five more patterns.
I would draw the design and stitch it, then Jeana would write the instructions on the computer. I was far too afraid of the computer at that point to even turn it on!
I chose the name, "I Done My Best" for my pattern company because I have always felt that no one can ask you to do more than your very best. It seemed fitting, because I am doing the best I can.
That is how I started, and now that Dean isn't her to push me, my daughters are all too quick to take up the slack. I still get insecure about my work. I have a recurring nightmare that one day someone is going to figure out that I'm having too much fun for this to be work.
When I look back over the past, I am amazed at how everything has been laid out for me. Dean had always wanted me to do something like this so that if there ever came a time when he couldn't provide for me, I would have a means of supporting myself. I have been extremely blessed to have everything work out the way it has. I am able to support myself and involve alll of my children in the business. We get to play together everyday, all in the name of work!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
My Trademarks
On every sampler I stitch, I include a few symbols of important events in my life. The numbers 1-9 represent my nine children. The reversed number is the year in which the sampler was designed. For instance, if the 5 is backwards, that pattern was designed in 1995. 1998 poses a problem because I can't reverse the number, so I have to put a running stitch around the 8 for all the 1998 designs.
There is a box with Xs in it on all of my samplers- one x for each of my grandbabies. Lately there have been too many to put in a box so you might see them as a running border of X's. Just below the box are two hearts. These represent my husband and me, and the love we have for our grandchildren.
The largest heart on each sampler is for my husband, who lost his valiant 16-year battle with Lymphoma in February 1996. He is the person who first urged me to develop my talents and to start designing. Over my protests, he encouraged me and gave me the confidence I needed to make a go of my business. Before he passed away, we decided that he would be represented on my patterns with a long, skinny heart, because that is my favorite thing to stitch.
The box with a heart in it is for my grandmother Ruth. She was a sweet, loving woman who, through her hardworking, simple life, gave me the inspiration and hope for the future. I have always thought of Grandma Ruth as a valiant soul. She was an artist herself and taught her two daughters, one of whom is my mother, how to paint and draw. As long as I can remember, my mother has done sketches. Late in life, she began doing beautiful oil paintings and teaching oil painting classes. She is a very talented artist.
And finally, I always stitch "I Done My Best" because I did.
There is a box with Xs in it on all of my samplers- one x for each of my grandbabies. Lately there have been too many to put in a box so you might see them as a running border of X's. Just below the box are two hearts. These represent my husband and me, and the love we have for our grandchildren.
The largest heart on each sampler is for my husband, who lost his valiant 16-year battle with Lymphoma in February 1996. He is the person who first urged me to develop my talents and to start designing. Over my protests, he encouraged me and gave me the confidence I needed to make a go of my business. Before he passed away, we decided that he would be represented on my patterns with a long, skinny heart, because that is my favorite thing to stitch.
The box with a heart in it is for my grandmother Ruth. She was a sweet, loving woman who, through her hardworking, simple life, gave me the inspiration and hope for the future. I have always thought of Grandma Ruth as a valiant soul. She was an artist herself and taught her two daughters, one of whom is my mother, how to paint and draw. As long as I can remember, my mother has done sketches. Late in life, she began doing beautiful oil paintings and teaching oil painting classes. She is a very talented artist.
And finally, I always stitch "I Done My Best" because I did.
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