A Holiday Gone Awry
Ah, my poor neglected blog. I miss you. My crafts, I miss you also. But as usual, December is a busy month and life is definitely NOT going how I might like, or how I planned. Life is doing whatever it wants without my input, as usual. So, a brief update first, for those who have missed my ramblings in other forms, starting with:
Traveling. We flew to Washington state to see my brother graduate from college in environmental sciences. Woo! Family merriment ensued. There was snow, which will probably be my only glimpse of the stuff this year. It was a great, silly, noisy, people-filled time. I cooked a lot. It was a nice break because mostly during December I’m busy …- Raising money. Fundraising season is upon me, which means work has eaten my lunch on occasion. It’s always busy this time of year. It’s a hard year for it, what with the economy and all. Ironically, the economic state means both there’s more demand for the services we provide and yet less funding to provide it. Rock, meet hard place. So in the evening I was relaxing by …
- Crocheting. I had most of a sleeve done on my cardigan. Then I found out I’d messed up the pattern, and had to rip out all but two rows (I was on row 42) and start again. RIIIIIP! D’oh! I’d almost be done with both sleeves (and hence the sweater) now except for that! But I had a darn good reason I made such a big mistake, I was thinking about …
Audrey. My pup is a very sick little dog, and has been for about a week now. Although there are four bullet points here, she is pretty much all I’ve thought/worried about for a week. She has been having serious kidney problems, and has been in the hospital getting IV fluids to flush her little body of whatever it was that it doesn’t like. What that “something” is – a bacterial infection? a toxin? we just don’t know. Hopefully we’ll get some answers soon, and she will get well and get to come home. Her condition has been up and down so far. If anyone has spare positive and happy thoughts to send her way, she could really use all the good vibes she can get.
I am planning a few changes to my blog in the next couple of weeks, and a return to my various projects. My blog has been active for a year and a half now, and over that time my life and my interests and my ideas about blogging and crafting and art have undergone a series of mutations. I am nothing if not ever-changeable. I am looking forward to getting back into it and seeing what else I can do.
TTFN, Miriam
Crafting Stress
One of the main reasons that I craft is that I think it’s relaxing. Trust me when I say that the very last thing on earth that I need is more stress in my life, more pressure to do things and do them right, more obligations or deadlines. In fact, I’d bet that not a single person reading this needs any more of any of those things. At all. Ever. Still, there’s plenty of all that junk in life from many sources, and I choose to deal with it by having outlets: sewing, reading, crochet, and cooking being the primary ones, with travel not too far behind.
It’s also why I tend to avoid projects that create stress. Last week, though, I happened upon one that just drove me up the wall: my Christmas tree skirt.
The skirt is pieced and quilted (stitch-in-the-ditch style) in blue and green fabrics. I did all right through part of it – basting, even the quilting. It turned out to not look bad at all. See? It’s my tree –> . It’s a pretty tree. It has lots of ribbon and there’s the skirt down there at the bottom. Never mind that it’s sort of the wrong size now because I have to keep the tree up off the floor due to the depredations of a Certain Cat. Hey, I never expected it would do double duty as a tablecloth!
But when it came to putting on the borders turned out to be too much for me. I got mad. I wanted to throw things. I desperately wanted to find a trash can and not look at it ever again. Nevertheless, I persevered, because one thing I am not is a quitter. Also, I can’t throw things away.
The main problem was that I started this project eight years ago. It’s hard for me to continue those kinds of projects, and I really should learn to just let them go and turn whatever progress I’ve made into something new. Or maybe – and here’s a novel concept – I should finish them faster!! But the fact remains that after a few years or even months, whatever inspiration I once had for a project is gone. And if it’s something for my house it’s likely I’ve changed decorating colors anyway. Plus, my skill level does increase, which means the challenges 8 years ago are probably going to bore me to tears today.
Anyway, I gritted my teeth through it and finished it, so at least it will NOT be hanging around for a NINTH year. Good lord, sometimes I really wish I didn’t like Christmas decorations, because although I think I will like making them, they do often cause a bit more stress than I should really add into my crafting area.
Y’all ever head into stress territory with your projects? Things you just can’t stand after a while, even though you might have once loved them?
The Birches, Days … Five … Six … Etc.
And on the fifth day, I realized I’d gotten myself into some hot water. Do you have any idea how many limbs a reasonably normal tree has? Even quilted trees? Three, four, five, easy. But not so many that it looks crowded. And then if you have a good number of trees to attach those limbs to – that adds up. And limbs and trees aren’t that big! There are a phenomenal number of tiny pieces to cut, arrange and iron (3/4″ wide and 2″ long, folded in thirds lengthwise and ironed) and sew all the minute edges down. And the tiny little pieces don’t want to stay ironed or in place, and the trees all seem to think they need to be somewhere other than where I put them.
And of course, you realize I am a perfectionist of the tenth degree, which necessitates that the limbs of the trees “in front” down nearer the water be in front of the “back” trees, just as they would be in life.
Days Five and Six = trees are in place, four trees sewn. Argh.
BUT I WILL PREVAIL. Later. And that’s probably the last you’ll hear of this project until the trees are sewn, otherwise this will begin to sound like Frodo and Sam’s painfully long and arduous trek across the dangerous wastelands to Mount Doom in book three of the Lord of the Rings. Reading such things is a great depiction of how painful the trek must have actually been, but I’m definitely not going to subject you to my trek through treeland.
