Episode 68 // blocking party (AUDIO)

Show Notes:

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

-George Sand.

Where to find me
bzmama on Instagram
tanyamarie on Ravelry
thesamplergirl on Facebook and Twitter
tanya marie on Pinterest
The Sampler Girl Ravelry Group
last video episode on youtube

HAPPENINGS
Wonder exhibit at Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
Homemade Donuts recipe

OFF THE NEEDLES
Highland Peaks Shawl, design by Mina of Knitting Expat Podcast
Hideaway Nappy Cover
Castlelaw Hat, design by Clare Devine
Cozy Memories Cowl
Maya's Shawl, design by Justyna Lorkowska

ON THE NEEDLES
Paris Toujours, design by Isabell Kraemer
Transatlantic Baby Blanket, design by Emily Play

KAL NEWS
Christmas Eve Cast On Winner announced!
Baby Knits KAL on The Sampler Girl Ravelry Group / through April 30th
French Outlander Shawl KAL on Canada Let's Swap Ravelry Group

LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
Caithness Collective, audio podcast
The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg, historical fiction about George Sand / Impromptu movie
Karie Westermann Blog
The Crimson Field, Season 1 on pbs, period drama about WWI set in coastal France in a tented field hospital

ENDING THOUGHT
Lent
#tanyalenten2016 on Instagram

gratitude / love your blog

My goodness, we're in the last week of April ~ hard to imagine. Wasn't it just January? This month I've been participating in the thoughtful blog prompts from a playful day's love your blog challenge- the last one is on Gratitude.

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What does it mean?
How can you feel it?
How do you show it?
How do you give it?

Being gracious. Thankful. Truly, truly thankful. Blessed. Knowing that you are loved. Believing that you are worthy.

Putting yourself behind and letting someone else go forward. It's hard to do and see in this world, this big wide world of people. All rushing around to get somewhere, do something, be someone. But it's always so refreshing to encounter a fellow human being putting you first in a line, letting you go before them in traffic, or getting a thank you in a quick smile when words aren't necessary. Helping each other out, strangers or not, is vital.

There's a feeling. Something within that makes you stop a minute, savour the thought, the gift, the token of assistance, trivial or monumental. It makes you grateful. Gives you a warm sense of hope and in turn you want to share it, show others than you care, that you are grateful for them, even people you will never see again. By doing good things for others, this flower of thankfulness blooms on. Opens your eyes to things you might have been closed to before. I think that's a flower that should be in everyone's lifegarden. After all, grace comes in the thanks-giving.

Gardening is an instrument of grace.

-May Sarton.

ugly / love your blog

This week's prompt from a playful day's April blog challenge is ... u g l y. Kate writes about jealousy that creeps up when we cruise blogs. Here are my thoughts for this week's contribution.

Blog envy. 
It happens - these 'perfect' blogs display larger, crisper, more beautiful images than we feel our own blogs show. The background wallpaper and layout of the blog has a Zen to it and you glide easily along its offerings. When you want a similar look, you tweak your own template and thus mess it up, spending way too long wondering how to get it back to the basic look you had initially! Or you grab a wallpaper and change things around to freshen up your blog's look only to last appealing until you click on a new blog that draws you in and is more appealing to look at, to read, to go back to.

Blog content envy.
Also happens. These blogs convey a wonderful look into a home that's cleaner, more decorated and far more 'together' than ours. Perhaps their crafts look better in some way than ours, their designs are more frequently published (and popular!) than we can crank out, their time is assumed more abundant than ours, and every one of their recipes prepared looks like the work of angels. Even the pictures of their children are always smiling, always CLEAN, and always happy. And please -- the clean shaven, always-bringing-you-breakfast-in-bed type husbands are in these pictures too. Really.

Blogging. Keeping it real.
My goal. I read a lot of blogs. Some make me feel inadequate. Some irritate me because I'm pretty sure their lives don't look like that 24/7 and they're trying to show that it does. And I'm not buying it. Some blogs inspire me and push the limit to a positive turnout. Some just take me back to Pinterest to waste more hours searching links and pinning things I'll never create or fix or do. The blog that grabs my attention most and keeps me coming back is the one that shares from the heart (and you can tell!) and whatever the type post it is, it connects with me. Pulls me in. Everyone is different and we all subscribe to different blog appeals but personally, I find keeping it real is honest. What you share can affect others one way or another and why not be positive. Be you. If a blog doesn't promote a good feeling, click out.

Beginnings / love your blog

Let's start at the very beginning

A very good place to start

When you read you begin with A B C

When you sing you begin with Do Re Me

-lyrics written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sound of Music  

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Continuing with Kate at aplayfulday's love your blog challenge, this week's prompt is Beginnings. So ... let's begin!

As one who creates things with her hands, I tend to want to start projects more than begin them. Does that make any sense? It is all how you look at it, really. A new pattern calls. A new yarn entices. A new fabric comes in the mail. A new thread wants to be used. A new technique begs to be tried. As my husband likes to remark about my knitting obsession ... "if you give Tanya a ball of yarn, chances are she'll knit something with it" ... and sooner than later!

So it's exciting to start - to get everything you need for a project out on the table (or in your lap) and ... begin! There's a magic to it all since I've never started this exact project before and truly it makes me very happy, the beginning of it! Usually it isn't long before the project has taken great shape and hits the middle of the road and I'm already off thinking of my next start. Startitis, as I've heard it called. That itching to stitch something NEW, that yearning to cast on something NEW and DIFFERENT. To keep plugging along and finish that project I was so giddy at is the rub.

I love to cook and bake so the beginning of a recipe is always really important. Scanning the ingredient list and making sure I have all the items. Several times I have begun and then realize I didn't have baking soda as remembered or misread the amount of brown sugar I needed and came up with 1/2 cup short ... beginning to prepare in cooking, just as in handmade projects, is just as important because you won't get very far if you aren't equipped with everything needed to get that start off to a good one. With reading, I love to begin a new book. The library is my second home. I'm forever borrowing books and the night table holds many titles that pine for my attention. It's such fun to begin that first chapter, get introduced to the characters and be whisked away into the story. 

Beginnings are very special. They are the firsts. Following where they lead is the journey to behold. Let's go!

(Messalina shawl design by Kay Jones)

Interactions and Community / love your blog

I listen to aplayfulday audio podcast as it inspires and allures the creative within. Her April love your blog challenge reached out to me so much that I had to jump in and participate!

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I've been blogging as The Sampler Girl since 2008, however those very early posts have been archived to my files and the farthest back that is available can be found here. I tend to rearrange and spring clean my blog as I do my house so yeah, it happens. Currently, I am very happy with this blog home and I hope you are too.

Writing has always been a passion of mine and a creative outlet for my soul to speak here online - to share with those who click in. Keeping journals to jot down favorite quotes for design inspiration (cross stitch or knitting) as well as poems, passages, and scriptures that sing to me, began with my best friend in high school in 1987. She and I purchased matching Flavia notebooks and copied favorite quotes (and recipes!) for safekeeping. The idea of this type journal, as opposed to a diary (which I kept since the third grade, with sentences choppy and short about marrying the boy from recess who threw the dodge ball at my knee or the grade I got on a pop quiz) took on a life of its own and has been part of my life ever since. I've never been good at memorization so the art of writing down, sometimes with a dull pencil at two in the morning or with a fancy felt-tip pen sitting at teatime, has been my way of remembering for later. The art of blogging takes this journal theme into a bigger notebook of sorts.

Why I Blog
To share!

When I click 'Publish' on a post, it immediately pops up for you to see from where you are in this big beautiful world. I'm a blog reader too and love to discover worlds of writing that are similar to my own: ones that delve into the very same mundane mom days I live / ones that share good eats that are simple and leftovers-driven / ones that paint a knitting journey that beckon me onward / ones that embrace my heart with color, yarn and background depth of story / ones that lighten my spirit on a gloomy day / ones that bring hope with truth / ones that echo everyday with simply joys. I design what I like to knit or stitch ... simplicity. So in turn, I blog what I like to read, what I know, what I live and what I believe. 

The Blog Community

Years back I had a blog counter which told me how many times you stopped by for a visit. I caught myself getting too mired by it to checking how many readers came by this day or that, etc ... and soon removed the counter. It was a good guideline for me in the beginning but then became more of a hindrance. I blog to blog, not to count readers. Comments to posts are always welcome and a true gift to me from you as you've taken the time to write me your feedback, share a story or memory and then the conversation takes off. We're all in this passion for creativity together and it's all the sweeter when we can chat about it, right?

Blog Love

I may not journal here every day, but I do in my head. Does that count? Often I make notes about what I want to include in the next blog post and can't wait to tell you, to show you! It's exciting to write it down and makes me accountable for what I say. My brain rarely shuts off. There is just so much to learn about, so much to gather to love, so much to grasp and feel, so much to make with your hands. There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do and I'm forever grateful when a new morning springs for more simple joys to be savored.