Trying To Stay Sane in a Crazy World

I like to keep this blog mostly happy, but these are hard times. As an introvert, I'm someone who tends to pull inward during times of adversity. Regular posting, replying to comments, not to mention interesting new QAL's just seem to take entirely too much energy depending on what we've been dealing with on any specific day. Mentally and emotionally, I just don't seem to have any extra beyond helping to keep our family on an even keel.

Another layer for Ormes Inspired

Hand work has seemed to be the most satisfying lately even though I find myself very easily distracted. All the rest of the applique parts and pieces have been drawn up, cut out and placed {with pins} on the Orme's Inspired piece just in the last several days. Honestly? It's only because all the color decisions were made weeks ago. Otherwise I don't think this quilt would have been touched. And I made myself do it. Thought this quilt would be cheery and lighthearted, a good balance for a world that has gone completely off the rails of late.

There is still quite a lot of work to do in stitching down all those pretty, bright flowers and trees, but there is no deadline. It's only time! What does bother me just a little, is all those pins which will continually be trying to loosen and fall down onto the carpet or deep into the couch. I really, really should have limited myself to ONLY pinning down the trees. Or only the flowers. And then moving forward. But I just couldn't resist and now don't want to take anything off in the event that I forget where to place them. Oh! Don't I have a phone to take pictures and document? Bah. That seemed like more trouble than it was worth at the moment. And that is generally the way that {too} much of my decision making goes these days.

Latest quilt in the hoop

I did get another quilt sandwiched and pinned, all ready for the hoop. Clear up until the moment that I started putting the pins in it, the plan was for machine quilting. Then I pinned it for hand quilting because I got to thinking that the friend for whom it's intended, would greatly prefer the hand work. And I was being lazy. Yep. Every idea for how to machine quilt this top just made my head spin and hand quilting seemed like the easy way out. Bad choice. 

There are oodles of seams in this quilt, which means that it hasn't been quite as relaxing to stitch as others generally are. And I sooo.... need the peace and meditative rhythm right now. It's the first quilt in years that I've been very, very tempted to take out of the hoop and quickly replace with another. The worry is, would I ever actually bring this one back to the hoop and finish? Yeah, that's a real concern. Probably best not to go there.

And even after stitching, it's terribly hard to see the stitches. Which is incredibly annoying. {Not that its difficult to be easily irritated or impatient these days.} The only saving grace is that it feels marvelous after the hand stitching. Hopefully this friend is very tactile and will appreciate the effort involved? I kinda think she might need this quilt more than I need to have a tantrum, though I wouldn't stake anything important on that premise.... So the plan right now is that I'm gonna keep slogging away at it and dangle a super low-key, no pressure quilt top right in front of me as a carrot. It fact, it's already pinned and ready to go. It needs to feel like a tangible goal.

Hand stitching almost impossible to see

In my mind I really want to sew, spend time in the quilting room, cross things off the list, make the most of increased down-time and it all just sort of drifts away so easily. Digging into the stash totes has been a fun diversion, but there's only so much room for new stacks of fabric to sit and marinate. Inspiration has not been keeping up with the fabric potential lately, and that's another thing that has been greatly annoying me. Late last week I had enough! and have started going through every small tote and stacked up pile of fabric. Hm.. What do we have here?

Soaking fabric...

First off, I lay the fabrics out to see if they do the magic thing. My brain might not be working at maximum capacity for creativity right now, but I still know if a color palette is worth hanging onto for future quilt-making endeavors! Most are a YES because its not been very long since I went through them all. But there are new ones and a few that I wasn't 100% sure about but kept just in case. 

If its a NO, then it's time to get them off the counters and back into the stash totes. Surprisingly, I really haven't dithered much about this at all.  If yes? Then I look for anything that might be a potential bleeder, pulling it out and doing a preventative soak. The trick is to remember which fabric stack each piece belongs to and making sure it's returned to the rightful place directly after. Mostly I'm keeping the soaks to 2 groups at a time, and since that takes most of a day, starting on the next couple the very next day. It's been one of my rare, 'spot-on' decisions as I'm not cutting into fabrics and potentially making grave errors with math, wasting valuable fabric and going crazy with even more frustration. Which would be oh-so easy to do while my mind is over in la la land doing its moody, broody thing.

Another benefit to my latest endeavor is that several times a day my hands get an extra good washing while I'm splashing around in the newly warmed water {while simultaneously 'agitating' the fabrics}. It's all very win, win and then I'm returning the fabrics to the totes with a note to remind myself later that yes, I did in fact pre-soak these particular fabrics. 

My husband might be starting to get slightly annoyed with the totes always taking up space in our bathtub, but he'll get over it. He always does, good guy that he is! So wonderful that he totally understands me. And I'm almost done anyway. How many stacks of fabric can you have before you start to realize that some of those stacks look mysteriously similar to another one? hehe  We do get stuck in our ruts familiar, comforting patterns. Hey, we're all just trying to get by the best we can until things return to something resembling 'normal'! As for me, I'm just longing for the good 'ol days when grocery stores actually had a good stock of toilet paper. To all the hoarders out there, some of us get a little grumpy when the important stuff starts getting scarce.... Hopefully back to commenting on other peoples posts sometime this week if I can somehow avoid falling down the rabbit hole of chasing updates and the possibility of good news.