Turns out I'm bad at November.

The idea, I think, was to plan to get something done, then do it.  But things keep coming up.  Also, I am easily distracted.  Instead of working on my sweater design, I have finished my pair of mittens, sewn a dress for myself (it doesn't fit right), made up a crap ton of invoices, begun figuring out about selling hard copies of my patterns, (gasp, pant), and, FINALLY, started a swatch for my sweater.  Sort of.  I mean, it's only two rows long, and I haven't started any of the stitch patterns I need to test.  Also, my husband's family will be staying with us for Thanksgiving, so I have to get ready for that.

So, short version: November seems to be kicking my butt, rather than the other way around.  Boo.

Why I Quilt

I've noticed something about quilting in the last couple of days.  It is, more than anything else, a craft of precision.  When the pattern says cut a two and seven eighths by seventeen and a quarter strip, three by seventeen and a quarter just won't work.  That eighth of an inch will throw you off.  In a way, it scratches the same itch that knit and crochet do.  Yarn is of course dramatically more forgiving than fabric... but it's still the same concept.  You take tiny, precise pieces and put them together into something new.

On the other hand, the nature of the difficulty levels are very different.  In yarn work, difficult things are generally complicated.  You k3togtbl and have to keep track of intricate lace or cable patterns, or do fancy shaping.  In quilting, on the other hand, the hard parts are so basic.  For example, sewing a scant quarter inch seam.  I still have not figured out what this is supposed to look like, because I am still working on just plain ol' sewing in a straight line for more than about three inches.  Or cutting a square to be exactly three inches on a side.  Simpler patterns are of course more forgiving of error than more complicated ones, and there are still advanced (and HARD!) techniques, like piecing curves, but for the most part the things that get screwed up on quilts are very simple.  But oh, so tricky to do just right.

But you know what?  Then I remembered how hard it was to maintain even tension when I first started to crochet.  And I realized that I just enjoy learning something new.

Ok, so it's not so bad once all the cutting's done

Look at that.  A quilt top.  I feel bad about my last post now, as once I had it laid out and pinned together, it really wasn't so bad (the cutting was done months ago).  Here's my other now finished sewing UFO:

See?  Can sew.  But would still rather play with yarn than fabric.  It's much more forgiving.

I hate sewing!

I admit it.  I HATE sewing.  Seaming knit or crochet projects is ok... but cutting out fabric?  Making stuff out of it?  Despise.  This annoys me intensely, as I went through a phase where I thought sewing was so cool, because you could make neat custom stuff and OMG LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY FABRIC.  I never had much time for it, so I ended up with a fairly extensive fabric stash.  Now it haunts me, because I still want the things that I intended to make... I just don't want to make them any more.  I'm also very frugal (read: I hate spending money), and so I can't seem to justify to myself buying things when I have the stuff right in front of me to just MAKE them, making the item free as far as this month's budget is concerned.  On the other hand of course I would knit and crochet all day if I could.  Why do I do this to myself?  I have no idea.  But for whatever reason the half finished sewing projects are weighing on my conscious lately, so I guess I'll fire up the ol' sewing machine, if just to make them leave me alone.  And hey, who knows... maybe I just need to do MORE sewing, and I'll learn to like it, right?

Yeah, I doubt it too.  But hey, I'll have cool stuff.

Speaking of buttons...

Look what I've been up to today.  Carefully, carefully stitching these cute little ducky buttons onto a top secret project.  It is nice to have hands that work again!

204 MOP buttons

It should be no secret, I suppose, that I really, really like buttons.  Generally speaking, I go for simple, classic buttons, the sort that integrate with the piece without distracting the eye.  But at the same time, I want to be able to say, "hey, that's a pretty button" when I look close.  So when I saw these beautiful mother of pearl buttons on eBay?  Sold.  I am now the proud owner of 102 half inch MOP buttons and 102 one inch MOP buttons.  I've avoided having a button stash this long, but I guess it couldn't last forever.