Spring Blues!

      Well I have to admit while the sap may be running, the creative juices are not! It is a terrible admission for a person always used to being a fountain-- I'm afraid I'm a bit of a drain at the moment. A little family drama, continued cool weather, and TAXES are my top three excuses. I'm hoping that tapping out a few words about sewing will shake my mood.

     The hand stitching I usually do first thing in the morning and last thing at night has been replaced by fretting about the news on my iPad, watching Fat Quarter Shop on YouTube, and also the dreaded Jigsaw Puzzle app! I found one with less ads and you can also make a puzzle out of any photo on your computer-- imagine my delight to be able to piece together a 400 piece rendition of my Cloud Club quilt! I am somewhat determined to get back to my needle this week-- maybe the iPad mistakenly does not get charged-- this frequently happens with my phone-- heehee.

    In spite of the iPad, I did move a couple of things forward-- the Love Note free cross stitch pattern is finished. Hoping to make a little pillow out of it. (All of my projects are a rumpled mess right now as you'll see in the photos, just like me.)

     Then, because I was still looking for something to stitch for even five minutes a day, I pulled out my Halloween Town cross stitch-- it's three cute houses in a row-- I'd love to finish just one. The fabric is my first hand-dyed purchase. It's super floppy and I probably need a hoop to do it. I quickly remembered why this got retired last fall.

     What I should be working on is my House of Hardanger Christmas piece-- this is the last of my big 1990's starts and it would be amazing to have it done. It's very close to a finish. The lacework, which I have to relearn how to do every time I pick it up, is what's slowing me down.

     You get some really good nuggets on Kimberley Jolly's You Tube channels if you're willing to just let it play for an hour and a half. On Floss Tube this week, she was discussing how to stay motivated and mentioned that she alternates between longer pieces and quicker ones, to feel like she's crossing a few things off her list. Then this slipped out: a long stitch for her is one that takes 8 hours.

👀😂😂

    For someone who spent over 300 hours on Sandy Orton's Autumn Sampler, I am still trying to wrap my head around that! Maybe, I'm just SLOW?

    I also got the next Prairie Meadow block prepped to stitch, after a three week hiatus. These blocks take as much time to prep as they do to hand stitch. First, you have to sew sixteen scrappy background pieces together, then prep the appliques. I have pretty much abandoned Lori's stitch-to-stabilizer-and-turn-right-side-out method for Appliquik's iron-on-stablizer,-turn-and-glue method.

     I'm also cutting out the portions of applique where they overlap, and just gluing a few pieces on at a time, instead of the whole thing, to try to solve some of the puffiness issue on the blocks I have finished already. I will let you know what happens.

    To offset my tax accounting job last week, I promised myself I would SEW for an entire day! I made a list of things I would finish-- my Woven in Love jelly roll quilt, the Lori Holt chicken quilt I gave as a birthday present two years ago, and the new Brick House quilt just for starts. So the first two I didn't touch-- a shame, because there is so very little left to do, but I did get six more Brick houses done. It is with much pride that I tell you, my math on using the 1/2 jelly roll from the March Sew Sampler box to make this was beyond perfect-- even though I forgot to count the cornerstone squares. I have literally have four or five 2-1/2" squares left and didn't have to add anything except the white background.

     For San Francisco Stitch Co., I started digitizing a Zen style sewing machine-- something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It's pretty dense, and I'm somewhat stumped by what patterns go in the ribbon part on the bottom. Hoping to pull myself up by my bootstraps and finish it this week. Isn't the clock in the dial clever? I may add a title, "Stitchin' Time!"

     Then I got myself outside for a day-- this is listed as a cure for "Spring Blues" on the Psychology Today website. I'm a fan of Googling on the iPad as well. That's if you consider painting the inside of a chicken coop "outside." The girls are growing fast-- from chicks, to pigeon size, and now they are looking like small hens. They are supposed to be inside for another two weeks-- we're never going to make it, and have to get their coop ready. This is a rowdy crew. They discovered there is a world outside their little pen and fly out every time I take the top off for water and food. This, in itself, has brought me the most smiles this week, as I chase chickens around my still to be renovated "Sewtopia" space. 

     My little girls come running over to me every time they see me-- I have treats, of course! Little "Buttercup" loves to sit in my hand. I tell her she's a beautiful eagle, gonna soar over the cliffs, or a graceful swan, skimming the lake. Look at that face. She makes me feel like a million.

     So that's where we are at Sugar Meadow-- it hit the high 70s here for a couple of days, but now we're back in the 50s for a couple of weeks. The pond is a pond again-- all the snow has melted. A butterfly flew by my window yesterday, and two Mallards have taken up residence in our little pond. 

Here's hoping wherever you may be, the warmth and growth of the season brings a measure of happiness to you.

xoxo

Carol