My Steemit Design: Steemit as a place where beautiful things could grow

There are times when I wish that I could get my "old self" back. In my younger days, I was very much in touch with my artistic side. I drew a lot back then. When paper dolls were the thing on my 4th grade, I would use all my spare time making paper dresses. I remember going to my mom's room and inspecting her clothes to find some clue on how best to draw long sleeved blouses, pencil skirts, and balloon dresses. My drawing and designing spree continued on until my high school days. In my second year, my friends and I took on a darker road and designed coffins. I discovered poetry on my third year in high school and I immediately fell in love with Frost, Byron, Shelley, and of course Shakespeare. I was so enamored by these poets that I strived to be one of them and submitted some of my works to be published by the school paper. It was then that I became a romantic and all of my "art" would be devoted to love. And so when I met @steemitph, I showered him with love letters and even gave him a notebook full of sweet nothings, thoughts on mundane things that filled my days when I was without him, and professions of my undying love for him.

And then the kids came. Not that I have any regrets about it; my girls are the most incredible thing that happened to me. But I got caught up; first in their tiny heartbeats that my small sickly body needed to sustain; then the tiring days and sleepless nights to do every little thing for them; to building a future for them that will surpass ours by eons.

So I tucked my sketches, my poems, and that gypsy spirit of mine somewhere so dark that I'm afraid to reach out for it. Of course my children are blameless. It was I who got lazy, who thought I could not make time, who got old and jaded. And like the knight in shining armor that he is, @steemitph came to the rescue once more and ushered me into a platform where he believes I could be my self again.

This damsel in perrenial distress took her time. Yes, I did. It took a lot of self-motivating steemians and hundreds of inspiring articles to make me believe that maybe it's not too late for me to learn something new and revive the artist that's sleeping in a comatose inside me.

It was difficult to say the least. It is always painstaking to mold oneself into another form and leaving one's comfort zone is known to be frightening. But the Steemit platform makes all that bearable. @eroche would always start his post on his Culture Vulture Challenge by saying "Inspiration is everywhere" and I find myself thinking along the lines of "what can I write about this?", "how can I make this interesting", or "would someone need this?" even while staring at the Taho, my usual breakfast on busy school days - and I was able to write something about that too!

I've gotten used to being on auto-pilot while doing the house chores and so thinking about how I could present an idea can be so very tiresome for my lazy brain cells but I remember @surpassinggoogle's article wherein he said "People did sleepless nights to even create steem and steemit. People do sleepless nights all around the world daily, to find lasting solutions against malaria and I tell you; "many of these people, have hardly come across mosquitos. So who are they exerting themselves for? isn't it for YOU & me?"" and here I am typing away at 2 am.

Years of pity partying has made it a hard habit to break. I constantly pity myself because I'm living in such a small world that's revolving on laundry, dishes, and elementary level homework. I almost convince myself that I couldn't possibly write anything when I remember @stellabelle's article saying that you can write about your shoes even if you don't know who you are. But I do know who I am. I still even know that poem-loving, romantic, gypsy designer part of me I haven't seen for more than a decade now. Maybe she could give me something to write about after I dust her off and do some upgrades.

I made time to learn something new and decided to learn embroidery. It's not the most spectacular or glamorous thing to learn but I'm NOT aiming for either of that; I'm aiming to be myself and I've always loved embroidery.

Finding training materials was easy enough. It was the practice that took time and effort. After buying supplies like needles, threads and cloth from a General Merchandise store in the market, I started with the most basic stitches. The yellow line is made up of Split Stitches which are appropriate for text and outline. The line above that (in green) is made up of Chain Stitches that work well as a frame for a pattern. The one in brown is made up of Feather Stitches, another variation of chain stitch which look great as a border to an embroidered piece. And the multiple-colored waves are made up of Satin Stitches that can be used to fill in designs. When I was confident enough with how my stitches looked, I started working on the design.

It's been years since I've drawn anything and it's my first time to draw anything that I will be using as an embroidery design. I made designs on my practice cloth and embroidered them. It was a trial and error method of learning that took hours but provided significant information. I discovered I could only use the satin sticth to fill gaps that are not too narrow or too wide. I also found smaller stitches prettier. Based on what I learned, I came up with a final design that I would use on my favorite pair of jeans, a hand-me-down from my mom. I remember seeing her in these pants in the late 90's but it's still in good condition.

I decided to make two designs on the pants. One would be on the upper part and one on the lower part of the pants. I made sure the petals weren't too narrow nor too wide. I first used the chain stitch on the stem but decided against it after a few stitches. The chain stitch was just too big for the stem and decided it was best to use the split stitch. I used the satin stitch to fill the petals of the flowers. I then had to learn the fishbone stitch that I used on the leaves.

I used the Steemit logo on the design in the lower part of the pants. I created some sort of stencil out of paper that will serve as a guide for when I draw on the pants. I wanted the design to showcase what the Steemit platform is for me, a place where beautiful things can grow so I also decorated it with some flowers that looked like it stemmed from the logo

My finished product. It took me more than a week and I could not be any more proud. It's a very simple design but this means so much to me. I showed this to my mama and she approved of the design and said that the design gave the old pants a new look although she thought it was queer that I used blue-colored threads on the grass (she mistook the steemit logo for grass. hahaha!).

This is how I see my Steemit journey so far. I have been in this platform for 2 months now and I am very happy with the way it has changed me. I am looking forward to seeing how much I would evolve in this platform in the days to come.