It be like that sometimes

I've had a rough morning that started with sleeping through my alarm and missing Phoebe's bus.

Fortunately, we have a functioning car and her hair was fine enough from being braided the night before that I didn't bother with fixing it today and she got to school in time for breakfast.

Then I had a fight with Iris about whether or not she had to go to school. This is a complex problem involving forms and school officials and stuff and sometimes results in lots of emotional words between us.

This was all before coffee.

Fortunately, both the nurse and the attendance office at THIS school are super awesome, understanding, patient, and helpful. They were not at the other school. Iris is home and sleeping, which is honestly the best thing for her right now.

It's fine. It's all fine.

And I don't mean that in an "everything around me is literally on fire" sort of way, it really is fine. It was rough, but everything got handled and ended up okay.

Ultimately, this is my mental health goal right here: To be able to handle it when things go awry and to not ugly cry in the car at what a terrible parent/wife/person/friend I am. I'm not. I'm fine at these things, I just am a fallible human person and heck things up sometimes. For someone with OCD, that's a big statement.

This week, I replaced the side mirrors on our old car because literally all the mirrors fell off the car. I found a tutorial video, found the parts, bought the parts, installed the mirrors, and was able to run the errand I'd meant to run earlier in the week and get some fleece on mega sale.

I did not angrily sell the car for scrap and cry at our savings account. I handled it.

If this ain't a metaphor...

Being able to handle stuff when it goes awry doesn't come to me naturally. I take an antidepressant and I've practice mindfulness for yyyyeeeeaaarrrrrsssss. It's work. It's constant work. I'm working at it right now in this very second because there's a very big rut in my neural pathways that wants to react in an unhelpful way. There's no one fix and even when you find the best possible combination of things that help, you still have to work at your mental health, but that work has a huge payoff. I'm not as productive today as I'd be if my morning had gone more smoothly, but I'm also a thousand percent more productive than I would be if I were gross crying in a blanket fort, so there you have it.

Today hasn't been great, but it be like that sometimes.

Take care of yourself today. Get good sleep, eat a vegetable, take your meds and vitamins, do a meditate, pet something soft, look at pictures of kittens, do whatever you have to do to prioritize your mental and physical health.

Here are some pictures of Toast and Rufus to get you started:

FO: Jumper for Joy

Hello, blog.
I miss you.

Right now, I'm avoiding homework to show you this jumper I made for little Bu, which I made while I was avoiding homework.

Man, I get so much done when I'm avoiding homework.

This is McCall's M6983, but instead of doing a facing for the top, I went for a lining.

And there it is. The lining is a copy of the outer dress, making it almost reversible, but not quite. I had to really think about the construction, but I'm really pleased with the lining and think it'll wear better than just facing.

She picked out the polyester gingham to for the lining and I happened to have a pink zipper in exactly the right size. The pockets are faced in gingham, too. 

I'm very proud of this zipper. It zips all the way to the top and looks very tidy. 

It's machine sewn to the seam allowance, but hand finished. 

Remember the time I matched plaids? I managed to match this one up pretty tidily all around. The back seam matches up nicely and the yoke matches up nicely to the skirt. 

Heck yeah, skills!

(I didn't bother matching the lining, which is fine. No one will see it.)

Jump!

She's pretty happy with it, too. I have another one planned in a heavier fabric which I hope is not too heavy and I want to do some cute little shirts for her, too, but haven't got a pattern for one yet. She's grown out of the shirt patterns I have. Next time I'm not doing homework, I'll probably be looking for kids' shirt patterns.

Piecing April: Half Square Triangles

Aaaah, the good ol' HST. It's easy to put together into a variety of patterns either by itself or with other shapes. It's a quilting standby and rightly so, being that the right triangle is fine upstanding citizen of the Pythagorean realm. 

I'm doing a quilt for Miss Bu, since her elder sister's is closer to completion and if I don't get started, I won't finish hers before she goes off to college. 

Sure, it seems like I have a lot of time now, but I thought that about Iris' quilt, too. Best get busy on it. 

She's a shining star.

For Iris, I decided on a rainbow quilt. Iris means rainbow, hence rainbow quilt. For Phoebe, which means "bright and shining," I'm doing stars. There's a lot of potential for using different techniques using star-themed blocks and one of the simplest is the HST.

The simplest HST block is the pinwheel, which to me looks like the rays of a sun. It can also be used as a component in other blocks, so I thought I'd get a little practice in on this.

Before I show you the other ones, I feel it's necessary to pause for a public service announcement:

Bias distortion is real. If you or a friend has experienced bias distortion, don't despair. There is a solution. 

When you are cutting HSTs, the sides that form the right angle are often on the grain and the cross-grain. That is to say that those cuts run more or less parallel to the vertical and horizontal threads that compose the fabric. Therefore, the long side will be on the bias. The bias is stretchy and goes all wonky (that's a technical term) when you stitch it, meaning that your squares will go off-square.

What I want to have to solve this problem is a walking foot. I do not have a walking foot. I do, however, have junk mail. A bit of paper under the seam keeps the feed dogs from stretching the fabric out and tears away easily. It's not an ideal solution, but it's better than nothing. Tear-away stabilizer would work fine too, I imagine, but I didn't have any of that, either.

This is the friendship star, which is just a 9-patch using HSTs and plain ol' squares. It has a satisfying star shape and is easy to assemble. The whole square is mean to be 9", finished, so 9 1/2" unfinished. Each of the smaller squares, then, is 3" finished and 3 1/2" unfinished. For the HSTs, make a square that's the desired finished width plus 7/8, and cut it corner to corner to make a triangle the correct size.

You can fancy it up with fabric choice and by changing up what you're doing with the smaller squares. 

I'm fond of the wee little mini-9-patches. This brown one was a practice piece and will become something that is yet to be determined. They might be large potholders or a table runner or something else. The fabrics were a recent gift from a friend (Thanks, Robbie!) and I'm super tickled to start using them with some of my old stash. 

The last one (below) is my favorite of the whole batch and I'm infinitely pleased with how it turned out. 

There are more HST blocks to be had, but for next week, I'm going to do some more difficult geometry. There might even be trapezoids; you don't know what could happen!

February is for Finishing: Tidying Up Loose Ends

To be continued...

Out of 31 projects listed in my notebook at the beginning of the month, two were frogged, ten are still in progress, and seven finished, including the five posted here, a bit of mending I didn't bother to post about, and one project that I'll put up soonish. I have 3 1/2 stars out of the twelve I intend to make and almost 30/81 blocks quilted on Iris' quilt. That leaves twelve in the planning or idea stage, thus making a nice healthy queue for me to work on the rest of the year.

I also acquired another large WIP. Our dear neighbors right next to us are moving and were about to get rid of a half-finished shed that had been somewhat damaged by wind and weather. Industrious and frugal person that I am asked if we could have it. They kindly trucked it over to our house and in a couple of afternoons, I got so far as putting the roof on. It won't win any prizes for beauty, but mostly I'm just hoping for a dry place to put the lawnmower. I gave them a couple jars of jam from my personal stock as a thank you and farewell gift.

I liked them, their dog, and their cat very much and I shall miss them.

Of course, nineteen soft arts projects and a shed aren't enough from those who suffer from Da Vinci Disorder. All our lives we look away to the future, to the horizon. Never our minds on where we are. Hmm? What we are doing? Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not... these... um, things.

Oh, right. ::blush:: Ummm... I may have gotten carried away there for a minute.

I'm planning a star sampler quilt for wee Bu in blues and yellows, though I may throw in a bit of rainbow fabric from big sister's quilt, just for because.

If I don't get too distracted by quilt block patterns, I'll be working this week on Iris' quilt some more and on some of the projects that are nearer to finished. March is the Month of Embroidery, which is one of my absolute favorite arts to do, so it'll be a real treat for me to share some of that with you all.

February is for Finishing: Love the one you're with

Bentocat is much displeased

My week has been decidedly off-kilter.

The eldest child hasn't been feeling well and had to see the doc today. It's nothing serious, but it was helpful and good to visit the doctor.

But that's neither here nor there, except to say that it was important to put love and attention toward helping her feel better because that's what moms do.

This doesn't look much different, but as of now, I'm at 25/81 blocks quilted, so 30.86% and I feel like I'm picking up speed now that I'm closer to the edge.

I've finished another one of these and started yet another one in the silver yarn. I'm at 3/12 stars, which is 25%.

This week has been about loving the one I'm with. When I'm with the quilt, I try to think about how cozy and warm it is and how Iris is going to feel snuggling under it. I love it because I love her and it's all bright, happy colors.

I'm loving the stars just for the love of knitting and yarn itself. They're fiddly and difficult in places, but they're just so darn cheerful and it's really satisfying to see one finished and stuffed, ready to hang on a tree come December.

I have loved the needled arts since I was small and I wouldn't continue if I didn't still love it. February is for Finishing is an excellent opportunity to help me remember why I love what I've already started, which further feeds a desire to work on those over the shiny new ideas and projects. It's a good opportunity to narrow my focus and love the one I'm with.

Wishing you lots of love this week.

March isn't far off, and we'll be looking at different forms of embroidery. I might even do some cross-stitch, you guys. Brace yerself.

Gratuitous flower picture. These just bloomed today.

Month of Mending: Sashiko patches

Blackwork is really great for reinforcing fabric, but not so great for repairing holes. One of my favorite ways of doing that is with sashiko, a Japanese mending technique that's alternately referred to as embroidery and quilting. Unlike blackwork, sashiko was an art of impoverished people, developed from necessity. A poor farmer or fisherman's wife would recycle old clothes that had been worn to rags by cutting patches from the least worn parts and stitching them to worn parts of newer clothes. This was slow fashion before slow fashion was cool. In the Edo Period, sashiko was used to make protective coats for firemen and on Sado Island during WWII, some pretty hardcore ladies made sashiko coats to protect them as they carried logs down mountains on their backs¹.

Sashiko means "little stabs" and is usually done with light thread on dark fabric, generally indigo dyed cotton-- you know, like your jeans.

It really looks complicated, but it's only running stitch. There are a few rules about turning corners², but the mechanics of sashiko are really not at all difficult.

For these patches, I've used a fabric with a square pattern woven in so that I could "cheat" and make my lines and stitches even and on patterns that I've seen, each stitch is charted out for you. Honestly, I don't have time for all that and, I'd wager, neither did the mothers and wives in Japan. Neater stitches are, of course, more desirable, but that comes with practice.

Here's a pair of little Bu jeans that was torn after a fall on concrete. She had a scraped knee and some tears, but was otherwise fine. Her jeans were not so fine. The hole is about two inches wide and about an inch tall. The fabric on the other knee was week, so I decided to do matching knee patches.

She picked Spider-Man fabric for the patches, so I fussy-cut a couple of patches and found patterns that I thought would work well: Amime (net) and Higaki (cypress fence)³.

Designs were transferred to the patches, then pinned over the holes.

The knee with the hole got a smaller design and the knee with only weak fabric got the larger design, the rule of thumb being that more stitches means more reinforcement. I did my best to follow the rules for tidy corners and since the wrong side wouldn't be seen, I didn't worry about carrying the thread across the back. I worked from the middle to the edge as best as I could.

Instead of turning the edges under as I did with the jeans above, I decided to blanket stitch around the raw edge to keep it from raveling. I don't know how it's usually done, so this is experimental.


I used some bright blue DMC stranded cotton out of my stash and a regular embroidery needle. Sashiko needles are a thing, as is sashiko thread, but in the interest of economy (with a nod to those thrifty Japanese ladies), I used what I had.

The result seems sturdy so far, but we'll see how it holds up after some small person action and a wash or two. If my jeans are any indication, I think they'll be fine.

The best part of this repair was when Bu gasped and said, "You fixed them! Thanks, mom!" The whole operation was the work of two days (not constantly) and a happy girl made every minute worthwhile.

Next week will be darning and I've discovered some super fancy techniques that I haven't tried yet.

1. A little history on sashiko here
2. How to turn neat corners
3. A short tutorial and some patterns

Year in Review

 This year has been wild ride and I'm really rather pleased with the amount of making that's happened in a mere 365 days.

I got some big projects done from start to finish. The Sheep of Unknown Provenance was one of my biggest spinning projects to date and I learned a lot about how to process fleece, dye wool, and spin with color.

 Some projects were abandoned entirely and I'm not a hundred percent sure why. It could be that they were too fiddly or that I was distracted by something shiny or that it just wasn't what I wanted to be doing.

 Simple, but well-made seems to make me happy. I loved the challenge of learning new things like matching plaids and incorporating that knowledge into something I could share.

I knit or crocheted over 7,600 yards this year, which is the most I've done since I started keeping track. I couldn't tell you how much I've spun, but I'd wager it's more than I've spun in the past. I feel productive... and warm.

My baby has gone from a toddler...

...to a little girl. (Cue sentimental Mama sobbing).

And my big one...

A beautiful young woman. (Cue more sentimental Mama sobbing).

I've learned a lot, made a lot, been lots of places, worked hard, hung out with friends, and generally have had a lovely time of it. Parts of this year were difficult, but I'm surrounded by a lot of love. 

I've changed my mind and moved toward more compassion and more love. Just when you think there couldn't possibly be more room for that, more room is just there. 

Thank you for making me better.  

In 2016, I look forward to more challenges, more beauty, more making, more love, more focus. I look forward to the new shape of Project Make and to learning more about what I can do and what I can be: Faster, higher, more betterer. 

It's gonna be great. See you in 2016.

P.S. The Etsy shop is open now, if you want to take a look. 

P.P.S. Just a reminder that January will be the Month of Mending for the new and improved Project Make: a year long -along of -alongs.

FO: Winter Jammies

A couple FO's that were actually finished last week before we left for Chicago.

Both are Simplicity 8488, D, in size 3 with no alterations to size or fit.

I did do a couple things to make them special, though. The Snow Jammies have a bit of ribbon at the front and hand-tatted snowflakes made by my very own sister specifically for these jammies. She did the hard work, I just sewed them on. You can kind of see them in the picture below and I love that they're subtle, but add dimension and puffy heart love from Aunt Erin.

Fairy Jammies have an added sparkly tulle netting over top of the top part of the bodice and a line of beads hand-sewn across the chest.

Both are comfy, easy to put on and take off, and should be sturdy enough to pass on to other certain little girls that may grow into them after Miss Bu has grown out of them. Both were made completely from stash, excepting the bias tape around the neckline.

Slow fashion is harder for little ones who are growing like weeds, but I can at least make something that can be passed on and used and loved by more than one kid. I'm most likely not going to be making all of her clothes and I have bought her a stack of much-needed new things, but a couple pair of Mama-made winter jammies is a nice addition to a little bitty's wardrobe.

This week in pictures

It's been a busy week 

As you can see

But I did start some socks

And I got some mending done

I even got to see the show after helping out backstage.

They were pretty great

We lit some candles (and had some chocolate)

We spent a little time together at the holiday party

And we got to see Santa 

It's been a good week.