My current progress doesn’t look like a lot, but it is a small amount on a bunch of different projects. Since I was sick, and my mental health needed adjusting, I wound up letting a couple of things around the house go a little bit longer than I would like. I spent some time clearing those up and getting back on track where I wanted to be. Fortunately, I’ve still had time for crafting in between all of those other things, so while there isn’t any progress on the projects I showed you last week there is progress on a couple of other projects that I had been working on earlier.
I had glued down all of the pieces for a Tula Pink Nova English Paper Piece quilt. Over this past week I’ve almost managed to complete one of the sections.
I had also picked up two kits for cheap and decided to work on those. One is painted rocks, I want them to be glow in the dark so I tried a base coat of glow in the dark.
I do not like how they have turned out so far, however I’m going to try a few more coats over the next week. I also picked up a super cheap birdhouse kit that I’m going to turn it into a fairy house instead. I like how the paint is going so far, but I’m going to try a few more coats.
That has been most of my progress this week. I’m still working on hiding threads for the whole cloth quilts I made for a colleague pregnant with twins. Until next time I hope that everyone lives their life A Little More Abstract!
Between fighting for medication’s and various appointments, I was not able to post last week. In the past two weeks I’ve come to understand that my antidepressants are really more of an anti-anxiety medication for me, and that it has greatly decreased the level of anxiety that I didn’t realize I was feeling. My psychiatrist and therapist have also come to the conclusion that I have a mild form of ADHD focused around organization. Due to this, I have spent this weekend testing an extremely low dose of an ADHD medication to see if it’s something I would like to take. I am going to take it tomorrow for work to see if it assists with my ability to focus on mundane tasks at work. Right now I believe that it has helped me to focus, as I pointed out at a weavers guild meeting yesterday: Usually I would think of some thing and five minutes later I would know that I thought of some thing, but then I would have to spend 20 minutes or more, sometimes hours, trying to remember what I thought of. With this medication, I can keep the thought in my mind even while thinking of other things.
I did finally pick up two diabetes medication’s. However, my doctor decided to put me on extremely low doses to see if she can adjust the medication from there. This does mean that my blood sugar is still quite high and as you can probably guess, I’m not happy. I do have an appointment with her in the near future, hopefully she can just put me back two doses near where I was previously right now it looks as though she went from my 300 mg of two different medication‘s to 15 mg of each of my medication‘s.
I did receive a diagnosis from the MRI on my wrist. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was that two of the bones in my wrist have been ground to dust. That was the actual phrase that the doctor used ‘ground to dust’. While I am a candidate for a surgery that would remove the bones in my wrist and have essentially my hand sit in my wrist joint, I am not going for that at this time. 90% of the time this does not pain me, so I do not see any point in having surgery until the pain gets to a point that I can’t stand it.
As you can see, the past two weeks have been pretty much focused on my physical and mental health. They are both getting better however, it hasn’t given me a lot of time for other pursuits. This weekend was the turning point for that, and while part of it was that I did have an extra day off I do believe a good deal of it can be credited to the new medication for ADHD. Onto the crafting content.
I have finished my first plaid plain weave bookmark, and I am currently working on a twill bookmark. I discovered that my folding plastic table will not only fit my loom, but it’s very good height for me to work from my usual chair. This has made weaving on that four shaft loom, much more accessible. Right now while on the loom I don’t see much of the plaid showing up in my twill. This is a 2-2 twill, next I am going to switch to a 3-1 twill and hope that the plaid shows up better in that version. This is not the only project that I’ve been working on, though the next one falls more under organization than crafting, the crafting will show up soon.
I have started getting ready for the planting season, though in my portion of western New York, I will not be planting anything outside until late May. That doesn’t mean that I would need to start my indoor plants that need about eight weeks to germinate the first week in April, which is coming faster than I like to think about. To that end, I am starting to get a germination station set up, as well as ensuring that the grow lights that I have will be able to reach the plants. I have managed to get some sorting and organizing done to make room by where the grow lights are, and I am very happy with how things look so far.
I’ve also started doing a little bit of spinning again, though not enough to show a photo of my progress . Of course, this is not all the crafting that I’ve been doing, I have also taken some scraps that I had, and used my Accucut to turn them into 2 1/2 inch squares. I use the green and white and hope to make shamrocks sometime in the near future.
I know, for two weeks work this isn’t a ton but I have had a lot of other stuff going on. I did manage to get the test in for the company, I hope to work with them some more in the future and hopefully let you know what I have accomplished sometime soon. That’s about the end of this update, so until next time, remember to live life A Little More Abstract.
If you are just here for the crafting content then skip down to ******************.
My mental health and work are both fine for now. I took the bull by the horns and spoke to my big boss and she assured me that she has seen a difference in my behavior, she appreciates that I have taken steps, and at present I do not feel like my job is immediate risk. I still need to do work to get the trust back, however, this medication is helping me a great deal so I feel that it is in achievable task. My physical health is much better, I am still taking it easy this week and I have taken time off in a couple of weeks, I already had it planned, so that I can have some fun. My primary doctor is moving, however I am not very happy with her anyway so I am not considering that a loss. She ignored my requests instead of simply explaining to me that the Diabetes medicine I wanted will not count against my deductible. So now I am almost out of medication and have not heard from the pharmacy yet, so I have to call them on Monday so they can bug my doctor. Yay.
Yesterday I had my MRI, I do not recommend having a wrist MRI if you can avoid it. The technician was amazing, and I did treat myself to Barnes and Noble afterwards and a lovely Chinese Buffet.
I am doing everything that I can to take plenty of time for myself, reminding myself that I am not an extrovert so judging my activity level against extroverts is not fair to me. I need to protect at least one day a week for me to completely decompress. I enjoy Asian foods that I can just throw into the steamer, if I have to go to Buffalo or Erie for that once a month then that might be what I have to do.
As I am typing this, though I will not post this until Sunday, I am listening to a wonderful presentation through Lesson Face, provided by MAFA, about weaving chenille for chenille rugs. I am loving this presentation and hope to use up some of the scraps I was gifted with and haven’t known what to do with them.
I am making progress on the Christmas Presents (Yes I know it’s almost March but with a messed up wrist and understanding that I was experiencing depression I think I’m doing alright). I am also working on another secret project, I was sent a kit that I am testing out for a company. If I can post about this in the future I will. I was given a bare two weeks deadline so I hope to make progress on that this weekend.
Oh, I do have a Block of the Month project that I have received all of the kits for and I haven’t even cut one apart yet. I finally pulled them all out of their mailers and I am going to start to cut the pieces that I need for the first set pretty soon.
I still do not have the heddles threaded on my 16 shaft loom, it has been a rotten month so far. March will look up.
The Winter project for Jamestown Weaver’s Guild was to weave a plaid. I did a chart on the website given and warped up for some bookmarks. My first plain weave plaid bookmark is almost finished, then I plan on making some fringe spacing before I start working on a straight twill bookmark. After I have the two samples made I might mess around with an undulating twill.
Okay, health is improving, work is not a panic, I’m regaining interest in projects, I am letting myself find joy in projects again. I have three things going on, only one that I can share pictures of, oops. In March I will be teaching a class on how to make Scissor Fob’s at the Quilt Guild, which should be a fun learning experience for everyone. Then during the summer I will be teaching the Scissor Fobs as well as Needle Tatting to the Jamestown Weaver’s Guild. My other Weaving guild knows what I am capable of, so I do not know what they would like me to teach this year. I am, honestly, hoping for some pay so that I can put it back for future learning opportunities.
Until next time remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!
I created a label for my Halloween quilt to hide a mistake I made in the binding. I love how it turned out. The fold over binding did not work for me on the fidget quilt since I accidentally snipped into it when cutting off the extra batting. I spent about an hour this morning hiding and snipping threads, then threw them in the wash since I photographed them on the floor.
I am also considering how to finish off the stitching project, the dark grey background would cause the cream to pop. If I decide to add that in then I’ll use stitching to go across both pieces.
That’s it for current projects. I’m going to see the hand surgeon tomorrow to see what’s up with my broken wrist. I’m hoping that I can do more crafting after that, but only time will tell. Until next time, remember to live life a little more abstract.
I have made some progress in warping up my loom. The threads are all through the front reed, I know that the weave is unbalanced because I did not measure it to begin with. At present I am working on getting all of the threads through the heddles in a twill pattern, straight 1-16 then 1-16 again. At the time of writing this I think I have the first 50 threads through heddles, wish me luck getting the rest set up.
This is not the only craft I have going on, is it ever just one craft? I have also been taking part of the Stitch Camp through TextileArtist.org. This is quite a bit of fun, and since it only takes about 30 minutes a day, lasting just 5 days, I find it to be a reasonable goal to maintain. The first step is to use a limited palette of 3 colors and make marks on your lightest fabric, then cut them apart, reassemble in a way that you like, and now on the third day I added in some stitching. I am not certain if I am finished stitching or if I will give it a little more jazz.
You didn’t think I was done did you? Two projects, pfft. I am also working on a pair of quilts. One was discovered when a friend of mine wanted me to make them rice packs was looking for the skull fabric I had mentioned. The other quilt I am working on turning into a tactile quilt or fidget quilt for the father of a friend of mine, he is having trouble with ‘Sundowner’s’ in the facility he is currently living. For the Halloween Quilt I need to add a label, since I was unable to catch one border in the binding of my quilt. For the Fidget Quilt I need to redo a couple of small sections of quilting, I had caught the side of the backing in the quilting, so I had to pick out the quilting. Once I have the quilting done I need to carefully trim the batting, and turn the backing over to bind the quilt. If I can get away with not having to trim the edges of the quilt and make a traditional binding I am going to take that and run with it.
For the fidget quilt I have added on a rough ribbon, soft fleece, and a changeable sequin patch. The sequin patch, much to my shock, was easy enough to sew on and did not break a needle.
Okay, that is it for today. I hope to have an actual update ready for you on Sunday, but until then Live Life a Little More Abstract
Okay, so I am one week into 2023 and my resolution has (mostly) held. This year I am going to be teaching 3-4 classes outside of my normal work. One of those is going to be a needle tatting class. I decided to purchase supplies for 10 people to be able to take the class, I wanted to make the purchase before prices to up. It will be about $10 per person to take the class and this just covers the supplies. Given that I hope to be given a speaker’s fee which I can then put toward some future classes I would like to take. Other than those supplies and a case to put them it I have bought the supplies I need to finish my holiday plans and some fabric I was missing for a couple of cousin quilts, as well as the batting for a donation quilt.
Every day I have managed to do something to make progress on my various crafting plans. The 16 shaft loom has the warp through the front beater bar, it is just waiting for me to thread it through the heddles next. I have spun a couple more puffs from my Unicorns in the Library fiber ( split it into hand length puffs to give me smaller achievable goals). I have half of the fabric I purchased torn into the right size for my embroidery project (for the family), and I stitched up 4 pieces this morning with another 2 designed and ready for me to hit the button when I get home. I have also signed up for three different ‘summits’ that will happen this week. One is Stitch Camp scheduled to begin next week, then the Knitting Summit the week of the 23rd, and finally selling your crafts for a profit the 26th- 28th of January. I am not sure how much I am going to get out of these classes, however since they are free I am going to give them a good shot.
The last thing I have been doing recently is going through my Amazon e-magazines, and taking screenshots of the projects and instructions that I want to keep for now. That way if I decide I want to get rid of Kindle Unlimited I will not lose access to those projects. Okay, that is all for this week (I will try to add photos later if I remember).
Until next time remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!
Over the past four days I have taken the time to sew together 2 charm packs, one white one colored. The next day I ironed them flat. Yesterday I sewed them into 4 patches and began the square them into 8.5″ blocks. Today I planned the layout and sewed them into a completed top taking care to match the points as best as I could. I love the result. Nothing too complex, only about a throw size, but completed in less than a week. This is the motivation that I hope to take into the new year.
This is not the only project that I have been working on, as I find it very difficult to stick to just one project. I am still working on threading my 16 shaft table loom for the towels I warped up earlier this autumn. I have brought out my sock that I am working on loom knitting, I have finished three rounds in two days. There are always work projects, however I find myself very interested quilt tops right now, the actual quilting might take a backseat for a while.
I await the fabric to finish my holiday crafting, hopefully it will be here this week and I can make some progress this weekend. My wrist, I don’t know what to think about my wrist so I am making a conscious effort not to think about it. I wrap it when it gets a bit sore, I use heat when the wrapping is downstairs and I am upstairs. Other than that I will wait until my appointment with the hand surgeon and get their professional opinion.
New Year’s Resolutions. I am not making any. There are things that I will work on, creating and sticking with a budget, eating somewhat healthier within that budget, and the like. For crafting, I hope to finish more projects than I purchase supplies for this upcoming year. Other than that, I hope to live life to its fullest in a way that is A Little More Abstract!
Active Crafting Content will start after the ***********.
I still need to get my new flooring installed, however I did manage to create a mini-Library in my home. I adore how this has turned out. The plastic and wood bookshelves were a quarter of the price of a standard shelf from Amazon, so I bought four. They are not ‘amazing’ quality, one of the plastic pieces did shear off, however they are working for what I need them. This is a great way for me to get out of my living room, it gives me an excuse/routine for me to begin using the rest of my home. A couple of weird things have come up that are setting me back, however I will persevere.
Upon installing daylight lights in my half-bath on the first floor I then tried to run my dryer…and the lights dimmed…and haven’t come back properly since. The, amazing, person that does things for me around the house is going to try to look at this next week to see if it is something to panic about. Yay, something else to worry about. The second thing is that I was a guide for the haunted house in my library last night…and I discovered that stretching shoes is not a substitute for breaking the shoes in. I now have a blister on the balls of both of my feet as well as 3 scraped up toes. To fix this I’ve put neosporin and bandaids on the scrapes and I have ordered some blister pads from door dash, along with soft socks I am hoping that these feel better tomorrow.
The lace knitting class went…about as well as I expected. Some patrons were interested however they had either not knit before or didn’t like the look of the lace, though one has continued looking into making the regular pattern without any of the lace flares. The Bengala Mud Dye class I taught went much better. Everyone enjoyed quite a bit, a few had even mentioned continuing to do this in the future and possibly use this in their business. I tried to use up the dyes on the scraps I had left over, then I took those scraps to turn them into a bit of a mini-quilt/mug rug type thing.
Despite spending time trying to square my blocks, this did not turn out correctly, however I am very pleased with how it looks. I will bring that along with my dyed squares to the quilt meeting tomorrow. I have also made significant progress on my halloween quilt/wall hanging thing, however with the blisters on both of my feet getting around is not easy. Since I cannot get around easily I find myself unwilling to mess around with pulling out the devices that I would need to properly finish the quilt. I am also re-thinking why I am quilting. Right now I like getting the finished project, however I also find myself rushing through the process to get an end project, which I not what I am hoping for from this craft. I also think that is why a couple of seams have broken on my first finished quilt, I do not want that to happen with my sister’s quilt, I am already a little embarrassed about how my first efforts turned out.
I think that is everything for right now, I will give more progress as things occur. I am teaching a crewel embroidery class this week, possibly getting my floors completed, and perhaps getting my leaves raked.
The Crafting content of this post will start after the ****. It turns out when something is not easy I do not do it. Adding to my WordPress blog is not easy when the computer is upstairs and when I am upstairs getting on the computer is not on my list of things to do. Usually I am trying to quilt or go to bed, so blogging doesn’t enter into it. Due to this I have purchased a laptop that I can have downstairs with me so that I can blog when I think about it, or when I am working on a project. That is not the only new technology to me since we last spoke, I have also purchased a Nintendo Switch to try and play an exercise game, however I found that the only game I liked on my PC is available on the switch so I have been playing Stardew Valley a little bit.
Health update; Watching some TikTok videos had me thinking that I was neuro-divergent. I went to a therapist for the first time in my life, she prescribed an antidepressant. I have been on a quarter dose for a week, tonight I am taking the first pill for half of the manufacturers recommended dose. My Doctor will have me stay on that dose until I see her next. My mind feels clearer, I still have motivation difficulties, however I am working on that. I am presently working on my mental health and adjusting my diet without worrying about, effectively, going on a starvation diet. I have been about this size for 30+ years and while I am physically capable of losing the weight I cannot keep it off as a starvation diet is not a realistic solution. I am still working on what this means for me, it may mean a treadmill in the next year, however I will keep you up to date as I learn more.
I made two quilts for my Cousin’s Daughter’s and a baby blanket for her sister (also my cousin) who is pregnant with her first child. I do have other family quilts on the go but none are at a point where I feel I can photograph them.
I did sew my first ever piece of clothing, the Anna Dress that I took a class for through Stitches At Home. The dress turned out amazingly well, I do have plans to make the upper part of the sleeves a little wider and add some length to the bottom of the skirt. While the pattern is simple I have not gotten around to cutting out the second, since the cutting takes a lot of room and my floor is the only space big enough for that.
Tour de Fleece did not happen with any regularity, though did get some spinning done that I enjoyed. At present I am interested in stones and crystals for decorative purposes. Stone skulls, towers, spheres, trees, etc. I am having a blast adding my own touches to my home, decorating with what I enjoy.
That is about it for my catch up, some time this upcoming month I should have my new windows installed in plenty of time for the winter, to help keep the heat in and allow me to get some fresh air into the house.
Starting off, I hope that everyone had a Happy Easter, Happy Passover, or a lovely weekend. I took a 3 day weekend and went through all the stages. I signed my taxes and went out to eat one day. Bleached my kitchen cupboards the second day. Went shopping for spring clothes and got caught in a snowstorm yesterday. This morning at 2am my brain decided that I had forgotten a notice about jury duty, that I could not find so I emailed the county I moved from to check I don’t have a warrant out for skipping jury duty. (The house closed though it took an entire week for the money to get to me).
What do you do when you wake up at 2am and your brain will it let you sleep? Well you hide threads on your sewing projects so that you’re ready for the next stages. I started making a lunch box and needed to hide the threads before I can put the zipper in, so I hid threads until my hand cramped.
I hope to get more done this week, until then remember to live life a little more abstract!
A Little More Abstract 