Making It Mine

by Elizabeth Van Allen 

for scribblesbyartteachervanallen.blogspot.com

Personalizing My Yoga Bag

I like to personalize my stuff.  I don't know if it's just an artist thing, but I don't like looking the same as everyone else.  This summer when I stayed in Disney World I needed a way to mark a few towels as mine so that they wouldn't get gathered up by housekeeping with the rest of the linens.  I know it sounds funny, but I bring my own face towel when I travel because my skin won't tolerate the bleach hotels use.  When it comes to personalizing towels, patches and painting were both out as options.  What I needed was something that would hold up well with frequent washing and drying.

Embroidered Face Towel 

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to delve into the world of embroidery.  To give you a little background on my grand plans in needlework, I started really experimenting with sewing in high school. I decided one day that I wanted to make a dress with a fitted bodice and a strip-work, ankle length skirt.  I hadn't made much past simple pillows, but I'd watched my mother make clothing, curtains and quilted stuff tons of times.  How hard could it be?  Mom got pretty worried when I confidently stated my intent, but she patiently walked me through it and I wore my dress for years.  In that same tradition, I decided that one of my first embroidery projects would be a multi-hued purple lotus flower that looked the same on both sides of a face towel.  If you've ever see the back of a piece of embroidery or needlepoint, you know that is not exactly the status quo.  

Embroidered Yoga Towel

My Yoga Bag and Towel

I added a multi-colored running stitch
 at the seams to brighten up my gym bag

I did some research and finally got it right.  I successfully embroidered the same lotus on my face and yoga towels and figured out first hand why an embroidery hoop can be a very useful tool.  



My next challenge: my gym and yoga mat bags.  I think I nailed it! 

How have you personalized some of your favorite things?

Resolution Success Revisited

by Elizabeth Van Allen
scribblesbyartteachervanallen.blogspot.com/

Every year I make fabulous and life-changing resolutions that will improve my quality of life for evermore.  Several weeks later, they all become long-distant memories of ideas that would have been great if I had gone through with them.

Nama mat spray and rosin 
for my hands makes
 resolution #1 much easier

 After years and years of this I sorted through the rubble of those yearly broken promises and realized that not every New Year's resolution I've made has crashed and burned to a crisp.  Miracle of miracles, a few shining gems have actually survived my tendency towards self-sabotage.  I hope that sharing these few bright points that have improved my daily life will help you make a few reasonable and uplifting resolutions of your own.  And hopefully a few of your New Years goals will remain intact for more than just a few weeks too!

Resolution #1: Pursue yoga for both physical and mental health.  I've been practicing yoga for over a year now and my body has been much happier.  Even practicing an average of once a week I've had less issues and more flexibility.  Combined with regular meditation (ok, ok, with me it's sporatic) I've also reaped the benefits of a clearer mind.  I feel kind of new-agey even admitting it, but that yoga and meditation stuff really does work! 

Resolution #2: Expand my world view, preferably in a way that is way less painful than watching the news.  This is how I re-discovered National Public Radio through WHYY-FM in Philadelphia. My commute has become much broader than just the four lanes of traffic by travelling around the country and world through my radio.

Resolution #3: Find a way to stay awake past 9 pm that doesn't involve propping my eyelids open with toothpicks.  I've had no luck with knitting and the quality of television programming doesn't seem to make a difference.  I taught myself how to embroider this summer and somehow I was able to stay awake even later than 11 pm on some nights.  See next week's post for more on that adventure!

What New Year's resolutions have you kept, either accidentally or on purpose?