Today has been a tough day. Not because of anything that I could point out to someone where they would say "Oh, wow... that sounds awful." Just... tough. But, then, every day is tough anymore. Not just physically (I have a noticeable level of disability from Multiple Sclerosis) but mentally as well.

As far as my creativity goes, I deal with a pretty heavy level of procrastination. I have lived long enough with this never-good-enough perfectionist voice in my head (thanks, Dad) that literally *nothing* I do is good enough any more. My husband and my friends tell me I am nuts. Perhaps they are right.

I am in my head a lot. I spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out what it is that I want to do in a particular moment. I was a mom for so many years that when it came time for me to turn to myself and figure out what I truly wanted all I heard was the soulful, unintelligible sighing of a ghost. That just won't do, obviously, so my quest for the second half-century of life is to take care of and indulge ME. It seems like it should be pretty straight-forward, right? Not so.

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching for the last couple of years. I have chosen a spiritual path that keeps evolving. I am not sure where it will end up. I feel like I am always just on the brink of some major realization... like what I seek is just on the other side of a door that I cannot figure out how to open. Heavy drugs? Sensory deprivation tank? I need to find that key. Perhaps I already carry it dangling and clanking from the key-ring I carry with me every day. Who knows.

I realized fairly recently that I have been spending my time and energy on something that doesn't feed me. I am doing it for my husband, for my friends... and there is much joy in that. I love them all very much and I enjoy helping them realize whatever it is that has driven them. But there are those moments in the middle of it that I pause and just stare off into the distance and realize that wherever it is that I am is not where I want to be. One solution to this conundrum would be to drop this life and disappear... take off. But that cannot happen. I am tied to this place with my husband and to sever those ties would take part of my soul with it.

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So... now to sewing and a direction I am going that has me excited again. I blogged forever many years ago... before marrying my husband. I taught myself HTML (back when it was just plain HTML), made lots of webpages and blogs. Then I got married... stopped writing... stopped blogging. Over the last 10 years, I have used mainly Twitter and Facebook. So.... now to be back to a journal-format blog *and* be able to connect it to Twitter and now Instagram (which I had purposely avoided). Just... wow. Facebook has become a sort of drudgery for me. Lots and lots of friends in that hobby that I get little joy from nowadays. Same stuff, same people, same topics... I just want to widen my focus. For example, I don't want to limit my historical sewing to 600-1600 A.D. How about some 17th and 18th and even 19th century stuff for a change??? But I am getting sidetracked.

As I posted a few days ago, I am participating in Bimble and Pimble's Sewvember Sewing Photo a Day Challenge for November 2015.



Since I came in on it late, I am posting to Instagram two days at a time until I am caught up. So far I have posted:
Day 6: Slow or Fast
Day 5: WiP (Work in Progress)
Day 7: Stash
Day 4: Inspiration

You can also see the slideshow of my photos in the Instagram feed at the bottom of the right sidebar on this page.

And, yes, that is the current state of my fabric stash. I ought to be ashamed. And, yes, that is an old school projector.

I jumped in with both feet and am currently falling down the rabbithole of Instagram and Twitter with my smartphone. Add these to my Facebook-timesuck addiction and I am pretty much braindead.

I am working on altering a Viking apron dress and patterning an underdress.

Since I feel like I am drowning in social media (refreshing social media compared to the drone of Facebook), if I don't pop up here within another week or so... someone send help. :/

So, yeah..... just discovered THIS:
Bimble and Pimble's Sewvember Instagram Sewing Photo Challenge

I have had my head in Facebook-sand too long!

So I dug through the nightmare of logging back into various accounts that I haven't touched in years.

Now to find the time to do this, too!

Sliding by on the trajectory...

Most recent discovery.... the joy of making self-fabric cotehardie buttons!!  <3

So... I am done working for the day. I have weaving and spinning and sewing in my head... I know that I need to start on the weaving project that I got the yarn for.

I was just on Ravelry and I started writing something that really didn't fit in the forum I was on... but I feel that it is important and valuable to me as a person. So... I am going to post it here:

Hello. I am fairly new to Ravelry (been a member for along time but haven't really been on the site very often).

I have wanted to spin since I was very young. I took a spinning wheel class about a year ago in preparation for buying one of my own. However, since I now have Multiple Sclerosis and my feet are numb, I found that I couldn't treadle correctly (the wheel kept circling backwards and I couldn't tell what I was doing that was making it happen). I kept trying and trying, moved to different wheels with different treadle configurations and I couldn't make it stop happening. I was so frustrated that I left in tears and never went back.

The teacher reached out to me so many times... she was so helpful and kind... and I was just having none of it. At the time, the M.S. issues were still so new that I hadn't really accepted it yet in my head. But... I am different now. I know that I have M.S. and that changes what I can and can't do and I am okay with it. Now I am back with a new determination to enjoy spinning somehow.

A couple months ago I contacted her and she, of course, remembered me. I told her that I wanted to buy a spindle and some roving. I showed up at her shop and she gave me a one-on-one, free-of-charge class on how to spin with a spindle. She even gave me an old spindle that she had and lent me a new one to use also. I bought some gry wool roving of some sort (it is in a bag and I just look at it sidelong and covet it).

I think I am afraid of trying... and that means that I am just a big, huge chicken. :(

Hello. Long time, no post.

I am preparing to weave something and I felt the need to document my journey. It has been years since I have done it and I have to take an old, failed project off my rigid heddle loom. It's a little bittersweet... I had meant it to be a baby blanket for Little Michael but I chose a yarn that wasn't strong enough for the warp so some of the warp ends were breaking and the entire thing just started feeling saggy and lost some of its integrity while I was messing with it in frustration.

So... in true "me" form, I put it aside out of anger and haven't touched it for years. Literally. Little Michael will be 4-and-a-half soon.

I am going to take a picture of the loom with its saggy fabric to post to this blog as a record of sorts before I do a hem-stitch and cut it off the loom. And the battery to my digital Rebel is dead (because it, too, hasn't been used in a very long time) so I am going to wait until tomorrow to do all this.

I will be back to post soon. Really. :)

Well, here's the scoop. Tiny stuffed animals are DIFFICULT and confusing to sew. As I have said before, it was probably the best project for me to choose for my foray back into the world of sewing. Accomplishing it is a big boost to my confidence and little Breonna loves it! :)



Here are some pics that kind of give the walk-through of the most harrowing part of my experience. The pinning and cutting out seemed simple enough and then I got the whole top of him put together which includes the entire trunk as well as the top sides of his legs and tusks. Then I got the bottom of him put together which is just the underbelly plus the undersides of the legs and tusks.

The harrowing part started here. Looking at these small pieces, my rational mind kept thinking How in the hell do I attach these two parts and sew around them without messing it up??. So... as is my usual, it sat for MONTHS. I think I started this last year, didn't I?? Good grief... I'm such an emotional cripple.

Anyway... had some revelations in therapy recently and it got me going again. Here are some pics that show what this thing looked like:


- This is the result of me pinning the pieces together and choking at the tusks part. Wow... this thing looks like a scene from Alien or Predator doesn't it?? How in the world is it supposed to end up cute???

Got my wind back and pinned it all. At one point, there had to be over 100 pins in the thing and I pinned it through the callus next to my middle fingernail. I lifted my hand and it was actually ATTACHED TO IT! Good lord!

So... okay... this has gotta work. I sewed it slowly around all the pinned areas and this is the result:


- Notice how tame and organized it now appears and also notice there are no FEET on this thing.

I look over to see what pieces are left to be used and it is just the circular back and front feet:


- Note how these are PERFECT circles and the legs in the pic above are like flat lines, just two pieces of FLAT fabric sewn together. Once again... I'm like Huh???.

But... once again I have to get a grip on myself. This can happen... it DOES happen or these animals couldn't be made. So...


- Wonder of wonders!

So I get them sewn on and start turning it...


- Looks like a pod, doesn't it??

But Voila!!! - It worked!!



And then I wanted to sew the date on its butt so that little Breonna would always know when I gave it to her.



And here it is ready for giving to the little one!! She loves it, by the way! :)