Homespun E25 | Natalie Doan

hi everyone welcome to Homespun where creativity and Community come together I am your host Misty Don and I am so excited to be joined by my beautiful sister-in-law Natalie and you are going to love learning more about her and her creative hobbies and how she comes up with all the Amazing Ideas that she teaches every Friday here at Missouri [Music] Star Natalie thank you so much for coming and chatting with me it's fun to be here yeah I'm so glad you know everybody wanted to hear from you of course and so I think I didn't think of it sooner because we get to spend so much time together we we know lots about each other we certainly do we have a lot of fun together too we do I love it so I would love if you would share like some of your first sewing memories okay well it's it's a long ways back because you know my mom's been sewing my whole life for sure um I just remember first of all I remember watching her make costumes that's probably my earliest and I think it was um I was under 10 and she was sewing for the San Francisco Ballet oh awesome she was making tutos and there was just tulle everywhere the other thing that um well the thing that I remember about that that was so cool is that you know us little girls were there looking at all these ballerina costumes and mom um she took the time kind of went a little bit overboard but made us like full-fledged ballerina costume so we had these like satin corset things and like these big fluffy tutos that we just played in it was just like for our dress up box yes and so yeah that's probably the the time I very first remember like consciously knowing that my mom had talent for sewing you know she was really good at it well and and to create such magic too for you guys enjoy fun yeah I love that so were you interested in sewing from an early age or when did that kind of I think I was I think I was always interested just because I I wanted to do everything that my mom did I don't know I just always thought she was really special she is and yeah I mean you know she's my mom so like little girls want to be like that but yeah um but yeah as I got older so I remember starting to make my own things uh I don't know probably more around 12ish okay so I may have played around before that I probably took stitches and did you know fun things but there were there's a a couple of things so I remember buying my first sewing machine which was $5 at a garage sale and I still have it it was in those tables it was one of the the neighbors down the street you know I don't remember all the details but I was very excited about that and um and I know that I was in about I want to say fifth to sixth grade okay because um I had a teacher that I went I went to her house and she taught me how to use the machine okay so that was kind of cuz it was a an older one mom wasn't familiar with it at all and I think I think Mom probably was doing a twofold thing she's always been very very good at delegating yes so she was like okay Natalie wants to think or work on this and you know this other person has also invited her over to play with their kids so we'll do a quick little trade she'll teach her to sew Natalie will watch the kids it's good we're all Best of Both Worlds exactly exactly so I went over there and did that and then um the other thing I remember is we did make those big bunnies that Mom she tells that story The the long lard bunnies and all of us had P for with the embroidered faces and so that was fun but then I remember starting to make my own clothes okay and so that's probably probably where I really got you know interested because I could make things that fit me and I could change the length of the sleeves or the length of the skirt or customize it so that it wasn't too big or too small and that was really exciting to me yeah I loved that also because it kind of opens up the world of possibilities and and all of a sudden you realize that you can do those things yeah yeah and it's kind of magical it is yeah I love that well the other thing that I love about you that is I feel like you have so many creative talents so do you mind sharing some of the other things that you enjoy well I I think I have that that Gene that says just whatever it is you got to try it you can do it it's probably not that hard yes so I've done a lot of things I've you know crocheted knitting I love painting and drawing sketching um and and within that I love painting with a acrylics and watercolor and oils I took my first oil painting class when I was like 14 at the local college and it was just a little um a little Junior College in California and uh so that was super fun but um probably around that same time within that same time frame I went and stayed at my grandpa's house for about um I think probably about 6 weeks and we did stained glass together so he had done stained glass for years and we built um a terrarium together so I have this it's kind of like a little Glass House M and you know you're supposed to plant plants in it but I keep dry things in there cuz I never cocked the bottom of it and I didn't want to fill it with dirt I don't know that makes sense you want to keep it pretty yeah so so that's that was one of my best memories of um being with my grandparents but I love that and so i' I've kept doing stained glass I have my own studio now where I I do glass things and I think about him often that's so sweet and she surprises us with little stained glass trinkets that are just so beautiful and I'm like I will never get tired of these they're so special so I'm glad you like them for Christmas she made us these beautiful stained glass flowers I'll have to get a picture they sit on a I have some on on your shelf on the set yeah they're so so fun so very very Talent I'm thinking about having a little party and getting getting the girls together to just do some fun stuff that would be super fun anytime so how do you keep inspiration coming I guess and obviously you have a bunch of different creative hobbies that you enjoy but I know like me sometimes we get in a creative rut and so what do you do to kind of find yourself out of that again that's kind of tough because I don't I don't necessarily know that I ever get into or out of something like that you know what I mean I don't know that I think of it that way okay so I feel like I have I have a ton of creative inspiration but maybe it's just that I have a ton of lists of things I want to get done or do and so I feel like if I'm not feeling like painting today I can always go and and you know work in the glass or work in the garden or go for a run or a hike like there's so many different things that I want to do that I don't usually feel like I lose creativity altogether I just lose I I lose like motivation in one area that makes sense does that make sense and so so really I have to um I have to work out what has to be done right away and then what I can do after that you know so so if I get often I will give myself sort of like a fake reward system where I say if I get this done then I can do that I like that and so I time block it and I try really hard to get my stuff done first thing in the morning because that's when I have my most the most energy to do something that I don't want to do especially the hard things exactly and then in the afternoon it's like okay anything else I get done today is great and if not I'm going to do these things that are easy like watching a movie while I fold laundry or buying a quilt those are easy things for me so those are the things I save for low energy parts of my day yeah which for me is like the afternoon and evening yes so that's that's part of it um the other thing I think is just knowing that I have so many different creative Hobbies yeah really and I could pick a new one up any minute now it's true it's dangerous yes totally but like those things keep me it keeps me motivated to just um to try new things but also to like apply the concept to the other things that I do and so I never really feel like I'm uninspired just kind of out of time or maybe not quite organizing my priorities in a in a way that is super beneficial to me where I'm at does that make sense oh absolutely I understand that so much I mean often I'm like I'm I don't know how we do as much as we do we have an amazing team around us so much help yeah so much incredible help and that's the truth is like it wouldn't be possible without all of the people that help make this thing go but um yeah I have to be really careful myself of like prioritizing my day and and managing my own expectations of what I can get done in a certain amount of time because that's what I often find I'm bad at is I'm I like think I can cross 10 things off my list and I can really only get four and then I feel buried me too yeah and so so one of the things that I do is I kind of create like a reverse list of like okay if I didn't if I didn't accomplish the things I really thought were super important what did I accomplish today and so then I kind of go back and I try to like review what I spent my time on and what got done and feel good about the things that I did accomplish even if they weren't necessarily on my list at first maybe I didn't you know maybe I didn't know that they were that important right or maybe I spent my time on the wrong thing yes you know I me it happens yeah so I kind of try to review but um but I like to I like to try I'm not great at it and I'm certainly no professional but I like to try and be happy with myself for the effort that I make right yeah I think that's the the healthiest way to approach it right we're just doing the best we can every day and I think it's a good reminder too that we all need to be a little gentler with ourselves in that whole process because it's so hard we can plan as much as we want and still like curve balls are going to sneak up in our day and we have to be able to also roll with those punches so to speak yeah so it it's easier said than done but for sure well so did you ever Envision yourself having a creative career did you think that would happen so no I always thought that I was more left brained more like serious and studious and you know I thought that I would be doing something research or science oriented you know um but I always loved this stuff I just thought of it more as like this is what you get to do in your spare time is your hobbies and and free time and creativity but that I would be working you know like my work would actually be much more serious and and you know I don't know just just more like a researcher job I guess so when did it occur to you that you were like really great at this and it could be a thing for you I don't think that's ever occurred to me that I was really great at this oh you're great at I feel like I am um I'm I'm capable and I I'm willing to try and uh I think in these kinds of careers like if you're not afraid to fail then you're never going to try and a lot of it is just quantity over quality we say that all the time like not every quilt's going to be a winner we put one out every week that's true so we have to kind of remind each other of that yeah I can't I can't put so much pressure on myself and and worry about perfection because I've just got a job to do and so here's the next thing yeah well and for me I've gotten a lot uh easier on myself with time with the amount of time that I've put in over these years now that sometimes I know I'm going to love and feel really proud of what I make and sometimes I'm not but the thing that I also love about what we do is then you you put it up on YouTube these other people share and other people love it even if you don't and all of a sudden it's like okay it's all right well what I love about that is that um people will say well this thing that I saw you do made me think of doing this thing exct and I'm like okay so if I can Inspire creativity that's it that's it for me I would much rather have people say I I thought about trying this thing or I thought about doing that because of something that you suggested than have you know everybody just make exact replicas of the things CU I think that's that's great and it's awesome for practice but it's it's like just doing the same math worksheet over and over like let's do something different it's so true love I love that concept like if we can just inspire people to be creative because that's really what it's all about and I say that often it should be fun right you should be playing and and getting to be creative and enjoying the process and if we take ourselves too seriously you lose that joy in the creative Journey so right that's and that's sad it is sad that's not what we want no so is there any words I guess of advice that you would share with maybe a new quilter um to just keep them going so honestly I think the thing that I think is the most important is to know that everybody struggles with the same things you're struggling with yeah we all have you know days where our stitches skip or our fabric slides or whatever we sew the block together wrong sides out instead of right sides in you know you just or whatever I just said the same thing twice you know what I mean though where we have I pick I pick stitches almost every single quilt I make that's what I was going to say I I can't think of one where I haven't had to use the seam rer there isn't there's not a quilt I've made that I haven't made a mistake on whether I put the fabric upside down or the block upside down it's going to happen sometimes my points don't match sometimes my fabric puckers sometimes my quilt the borders are wavy and I've done hundreds of borders right you know what I mean so so there's things that I I would suggest have good tools right your tools are important it's totally okay to start with you know just what you have right because a sewing machine that sews a stretch Stitch is a straight line yes will get you a quilt right yes but if you have a dull or chipped blade in your rotary cutter cutting is going to be frustrating yes if you have you know a sewing machine where the thread that comes out of the needle all the time it's going to be frustrating yeah and so you can make your life easier with better quality supplies and practice and patience yeah but honestly like we all have the same things happen to us we do it's so true and you just have to be brave and keep trying and try again and sometimes the other thing that I think um uh is so cool is like so there's a a quote and I can't recall the at the moment who said it but we can get that and yeah anyways he says um he says that in order to be really good at something you have to be willing to be brave enough to be really bad at it at first and you just just have to keep doing it it's so true and I think that applies to everything in life right like it does we're not going to get good good at a thing unless we're willing to just try mess along the way nobody that is considered an expert started out as an expert exactly you just have to keep doing it I love that and and if you love it don't give up yeah because there's so many things too that have developed from people who were willing to do it even though they didn't fully understand it and they are the ones that develop new techniques y they're the ones that say hey did you know that if you do this and this you can get that and you're like what I've been following the rules this whole time so you need to know that's the other one that I love is know the rules so that you can or know the rules like a professional so you can break them like an artist yes that's the other quote that I love and and hopefully we'll find sources for those because I'd like to give them proper credit but they they live in my mind all the time I love that I love that so much well is there any other maybe creative hobby that you haven't tried yet that's still on your list something that I really want to try let's see see well I have things that I've started trying that I want to put more effort into like um woodworking for one thing I've I've started I've done some carving and I want to get better at that and practice that more but you know time yes and then and supplies and then um I love messing around with the with Clay I'd really like to make some like really cute um pin pin Toppers like straight pins where you make the clay thing and put it on top of the pin that would be so fun so yeah I love that that that's been really exciting to me lately um gosh I don't know that's okay that's perfect I always love making books that's another thing I want to get back into we got to do that together and that was so fun I just found all my supplies from that creative Retreat did I I was going through my stuff I think everybody's in this like yeah sort your things mode because I mean it's the beginning of the year and yeah spring cleaning whatever it is whatever mood we're in or whatever might be in retrograde yes we're all going through our stuff right now it's true so yeah I found my stuff too and I'm like I got to do that again yeah that was really fun we we've done that often we we try to fulfill our creative buckets by trying a new thing and um I I want to do it like a pottery class next where we actually throw the pots I used to do that when I was young and loved it I was never good at it I did one so I took a Class A pottery class and I made a bowl yeah by the time it fired it was this tall and it hold my mom puts her paper plates on it I think to this day but it was supposed to be a whole bowl and now it's just this like flat thing with like inch sides yeah I don't know how it turned out that way that's awesome well we should add that to our yeah we need to go we need to go do some pottery um the other thing I want to do is I want to make myself some clothes again I haven't done that for a long time I just bought a new dress pattern cuz I I was thinking the same thing yeah and it's I'm sitting there I've got to find the fabric and we'll do it together we need a sewing night we totally do we should do that I love that well thank you Natalie for taking this time to talk to me and you're welcome letting everybody get to know you a little bit better and I will see you again soon and of course tell everybody where they can follow along with what you're up to well I'm on Instagram and YouTube at Missouri Star Quilt Company that's right so she'll have a a fun new tutorial for you every Friday so we'll see you soon be cool bye [Music]