Duvet Cover finished!

Son's duvet cover is truly finished.  Buttonholes, sewn-on buttons, and all.

And really, it was not such a big deal to stitch the buttonholes.  No, they don't look perfect.  Wouldn't pass muster at the County Fair.  But I'm not trying to win a blue ribbon here, just cover my Son's bedding.

Gotta get over the need to make things *perfect*.  It really gets in the way of getting things done.

A New Habit

"Habits are first cobwebs, then cables." - Swedish proverb

I have retrained myself into some good habits lately (well, in the past three years or so), and am working on one of my New Year's resolutions: floss your teeth.  Yes, I know I should already be a flosser.  Many people I know floss their teeth.  My dentist has repeatedly exhorted me to floss.  And I know that I'm not getting any younger: wouldn't flossing help my teeth and gums stay healthy longer, and thus keep me out of the denture brigade?

So, what have I learned about starting new habits that will help me here?

1 - Tie the new habit to something you already do well (and do regularly).  I'm good at lots of things; I bet you are, too.  I'm even good at some of the repetitive, maintenance-y things in life: laundry, for example.  I am the Laundry Fairy in my household.  If I wanted to start a new habit (or just get better at something I don't do as frequently as I should, like watering my houseplants), I could somehow tie it in with doing the laundry.  Leave a reminder note in the laundry room, or leave the watering can on the washing machine.  Then, right after I started a new load of laundry, I would go water those plants.

I still use this method to keep my car free of trash: whenever I fill the tank with gas, I drop off a handful of garbage in the gas station bins.

 And, of course, since I already brush my teeth daily, the floss habit needs to be tied to that.  Duh.


2 - Have the right equipment at hand.  I cannot overemphasize this idea, as "the right equipment" turned out to be the key to finally becoming a sometime-flosser.  I tried waxed floss, unwaxed floss, mint-y fresh floss, ribbon floss, ugh, ugh, ugh...
 
The key equipment for my flossing thing is a Reach Access flosser.  My Daughter uses individual floss picks, which I initially dismissed as being environmentally unfriendly.  But it got me thinking...

The right equipment makes any job easier.  And easier jobs tend to get done.  If you are trying to jump-start a habit, do whatever it takes to make the "easier" part happen:


 * the proper shoes for walking
 * the proper bra (or other clothing) for working out
 * sharp knives for chopping those fresh veggies
 * a vitamin pill that you will want to take daily (try the Gummy ones!)
 * file folders and labels for getting that paperwork under control
 * a trash can in every room
 * a well-lit crafting area, so you can see what you are doing

3 - Do less, but do it more frequently.  I learned this one from FlyLady (Baby steps!)  When I first started plucking my eyebrows (not so very long ago), I plucked a few hairs every day until I had finally achieved the desired shape.  Then, to maintain, I plucked 8 hairs daily.  Now mind you, some days it didn't look like there were even 8 hairs there to pluck (how many eyebrow hairs grow in overnight anyway?)  But I was busy establishing a habit: I found 8 little feathery blond hairs and plucked them.  Every day.

This concept applies in more areas of your life than you would initially think.  Take cleaning the house.  I am currently decluttering, in one-hour bursts.  When I don't have a whole hour (like today), I set a timer for 15 minutes.  Maybe I will have another 15-minute chunk of time later today, and maybe not, but I didn't let the fact that today was very busy deter me from my decluttering habit.  I can also dust, or vacuum, or tidy up, in smaller chunks.  Every little bit that I do is more than would have gotten done otherwise.

Back to the dental hygiene: I started out by flossing only 1/4 of my mouth at a time.  Worked my way up to the whole mouth eventually, but it awhile to establish the idea of "flossing".

 

4 - Reward yourself.  You deserve it.  It's hard to begin a new habit, and maybe it will take a few tries before something clicks.  Look at those things you do well, and use them as motivation.

Prairie Point pondering

So, I had this misunderstanding of prairie points recently.  Which is all fine, since I like my interpretation better.  And it led me to come up with a clever idea for what to do with them: buttonholes!

Prairie points are triangles of fabric that are used as adornment--often in quilts.  I guess they mostly are used along the edge, as shown in this tutorial.  And they frequently overlap, which is facilitated by the fold/opening being on the side.  (In fact, if you want them to overlap consistently, and are willing to use the same fabric throughout--although I am often stubbornly scrappy--there are tutorials available on making continuous prairie points.)

I, however, have used the center-fold method of making prairie points, and have used them to define a line between two fabrics, or to create a border where none existed.

Prairie points on my first-ever quilt.

You can see that the above points were placed with the edge where the folds meet showing (facing outward).

Prairie points used about 4" above the hem of a square dance skirt, to create a border.  These were anchored with a black ribbon over the raw edge.  The points were not identically sized, and definitely didn't overlap.  These are also the center-fold method seen above, but placed so the folds meet on the reverse side, showing only a sleek triangle of material (satin, in this case).

 Okay, so here's where the inspiration struck: I have been dragging my feet on Son's duvet cover, dreading the required buttonholes to finish it.  My buttonholes always look so shoddy!  If only there were a way to camouflage them.  (I have been known to make a welt buttonhole--no easy task--in order to avoid the hated zigzag buttonhole.)  Aha!  What if, instead of the buttonhole being out in the open where everyone can see its awkward ugliness, the stitching is hidden behind the place where the folds meet in the prairie point?  Genius!  (If it works, that is.)

Now that I have the idea, I've got to get going and try it out.  Stay tuned, dear readers...

Declutter: baby steps

I must quote my favorite organizing guru, FlyLady:
"Your house didn't get messy in a day, and it won't get clean in a day either."

(My Sweetie says Weight Watchers has a similar saying about how long it took the weight to get there in the first place.)

I am continuing my hour a day of decluttering the house-I-don't-currently-live-in.  The garage sale pile continues to grow.  This week's decluttering zone is the Master Bedroom.  You would think, for a house I haven't lived in for more than a year, there wouldn't be any of my stuff in the master bedroom.  You would be wrong.  I ventured into the closet today.  Items that are now gone: dark green shoe polish; a black velvet blazer I have never worn; 2 Halloween costumes; a flannel sheet that doesn't fit any bed in the house; and on it goes...

I invoked the above quote at the end of my hour: I am often so excited about the progress I am making that I am tempted to move into other rooms, to open more drawers and cabinets, to go out to the *gasp* garage.  But that is mission creep.  I am learning to identify when my clear thinking and feelings of success lead me to try and take on too much.  I start out with a good idea, but it grows and grows until it is just too much of a good thing.

I found one intriguing box in the garage but decided, "I can work on it another day."  Yay!  No mission creep.  Just slow, steady progress.  Baby steps, so I don't burn out on this.

County Fair Update: let your Goals be your Guide

I read a different kind of organizational book recently.  It was Getting Organized in the Google Era, by Douglas C. Merrill and James A. Martin.  One of the themes that came through loud and clear was to let your goals be your guide. 

I kept this in mind as I was working this weekend on restyling my wedding dress.  I am trying to make two items from the dress and leftover fabric scraps (I made said wedding dress, way back in the 80's).  This is a significant constraint, as there isn't an endless supply of fabric, and my two intended items (a skirt and a throw pillow) both require large swaths of it.  I realized that plans for the throw pillow had it turning into a mish-mash of scraps that wouldn't really be pleasing, and I was getting frustrated with trying to balance fabric needs for competing interests.  Then the little mantra repeated itself in my head: let your goals be your guide.  What *are* my goals here?  Do I really need to make two things from this wedding dress?  Assuming I still want to make a throw pillow, what goal do I have for how it looks?

So, the goal for the pillow: show off and preserve some of the construction details from the original garment.  There was a nice lace finish at the neckline; the same piece of lace will be prominent on the front of the pillow.  Ditto for lovely embroidered button-loops; that will become the pillow's closure in the back.  Having a clear goal made this process go much more smoothly.

Now I just have to decide whether to try and update the pillow's dated color (eighties apricot!) with my favorite edge finish: giant piping!  Any piping recommendations for a color that will go with pastel orange and help bring it into this century?

Time on my mind

After the morning I had, it's a wonder I ever get anything done at all...
I spent two hours making a picnic lunch.  (Two hours?!)  This lunch consisted of:
egg salad
cucumber slices vinaigrette
oven-baked potatoes

Mmm, yummy potatoes.




So, at the end of this two-hour kitchen-based black hole, I stopped to assess what it is that made a simple lunch take so darn long.  Was it the ADD-brain going into hyperfocus?  I don't recall being so "in the zone" while I was cooking that I lost track of time.

Was it mission-creep?  This is my perennial problem with sewing: I start one project, get excited about a related sewing project, and end up splitting my time and attention among two or more projects as a result (thus, the four 3 sleeve-related alterations I have going on simultaneously).  Okay, so there was a little mission-creep here: the only dish I was going to make was the egg salad; while looking for some veggies to put in it, I discovered the cucumber looking sad and figured this was its last day.  Also, the potatoes were a late addition.  *But* I stopped myself from adding a pepper-based dish to the mix.  By the time I was thinking about chopping up the peppers, I realized how late it was getting, and consciously decided not to go there.

And...
there was quite a bit of plain, old-fashioned multi-tasking at work in making this a 2-hour ordeal.  Our brains are not suited to multi-tasking.  My brain especially is not served by being split among activities, and yet I get so scattered in my thinking that I end up flitting ineffectively between household activities on a regular basis.  So, along with the cooking, I did a load of laundry (and threw half of it in the dryer and hung up the other half to dry).  I unloaded the dishwasher.  I checked email.  I made myself breakfast and ate it.

Oh well.  The picnic lunch was very tasty.

Close, but not quite finished

Here is the quilt for my bed.  I'm excited about my progress, and really want to be able to claim that I'm "almost done".

But really, although I have done much work, and I have 5 beautiful pieced 18-by-77-inch panels sewn together, there is hard work left.  One of my least favorite things is to sew long seams with lots of points to match.  And thus, I am worried that I will find reasons to avoid sewing those 77-inch seams.  What will become of my almost-quilt?  Will it languish?

I attended a Webinar for adults with ADD recently.  The topic was Follow Through.  The facilitator talked about the stages of projects, and how we can enjoy various parts of a process (the dreaming-about-it  and planning-it phases really catch and hold my attention) but stumble somewhere along the way and end up not finishing what we start.  Yep, I know that's me.

I even have to confess that Dear Son's duvet cover is not-quite-finished.  I blogged too soon: I have buttonholes to make and buttons to sew on.  (Guess what I don't like to do?  Buttonholes.  And pretty much anything involving had sewing.)

So, I must be cautious, lest either of these projects cross over from WIP into UFO territory.  One strategy I have used in the past is to sew difficult portions with other people: take my stuff over to a friend's house, or save those tasks for my monthly Stitch-n-Bitch group at Something to Crow About.  Having people around makes me focus less on the distaste I have for a particular step.  I can talk and laugh (and eat!) and distract myself from tedious portions. 

All things go better with friends.

Good Enough (sleeve redesign)

So, I'm practicing the art of saying "no".  My sleeve redesign project from a Value Village blouse has turned into an un-design instead.

Before (left) and after.  All I did was remove the decorative band that gathered the sleeve.  It was cute, but made me unable to raise my arms.  I had some grandiose idea of a sleeve redesign.  It was going to be fabulous...

But I had a friend help me gain perspective.  "You know the cutest sleeve you could have on that blouse?" she asked.  Tell me.  "Any sleeve you could wear tomorrow."

And so an item in the sewing basket gets an early parole.  I'll wear it tomorrow.  And it will be cute.

DIY Flowchart

My daughter posted a DIY Reality Check flowchart on her blog.  I wish I could re-post it easily here, but I'm not taking the time right now to figure out how to do that. (My easy idea didn't work. Sorry. You can click the link.)

Here's the point that stuck in my mind - the instructions:
1. Make a list of all the projects you're considering
2. Run each one through the flowchart
3. Cross off projects that fail

I worry that my project-acquisition is a bit out of control right now.  Too many ideas.  Too much compulsion to try and do everything.  At once.

I put a box of sewing projects/ideas into the garage, thus taking them *out*  of the sewing area.  I know I do much better with a clean work area, but usually fall into materials encroachment as multiple projects present themselves and then take up residence on the desk or table.

It's clean right now.  That's a start.

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

Went to the Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon yesterday.  My first time; went with buddies from Something to Crow About (my home-away-from-home quilt shop).  At this 35th annual showing, there were over 1,500 quilts on display.  I know we didn't see all of them, but we spent most of the day seeing many, many quilts.  I took 168 pictures (and I am not a picture-taker!)

My favorite quilt?  Too many to narrow it down like that, but here are the top few, with the reasons why...

Tumbling blocks.  A pattern I have always had a fondness for.  When seen from afar, I thought the blocks might have featured photographs, which to me would have made it perfect.  But, the bordered portions of the blocks were fussy-cut from wildlife-themed fabric.  Although the wildlife isn't my cup of tea, I could picture it with another theme: the sea, or "fun with Dick and Jane" type nostalgia prints.

 It may seem like I'm on a wildlife kick here, but really the stag head doesn't inspire me.  Rather, the setting and the way the background geometry and color provide interest.  Maybe a mermaid or Grecian statue in the lower corner?

 OK, maybe this is my favorite from the whole show.  It's got the Mariner's Compass in the center, and extends to a fabulous Lone Star surrounding it.  Plus some Flying Geese, just to keep my geometry-lovin' self really happy.  The colors are not quite my favorite, but definitely very pleasing in this quilt.

 I haven't worked with Asian prints, but am fascinated by them and attracted to them all the same.  (Son's quilt, as it is currently envisioned-but-not-started, is to be black/white/red with Asian prints.)  I really like the slanted borders here.  And the fact that no actual curves are needed to create them means that I can use this idea in one of my quilts.  Bonus!

Another quilt of Asian prints, this time in a design I had not seen before, Shadow Box.  Saw several Shadow Box quilts, but the large rectangles (all the others were squares) as well as the Asian prints made this one stand out for me.

Duvet Cover

Does it count as a UFO if you forgot about it?  Today's project was unearthed in last month's Master Bedroom declutter: two sheets and a coordinating taffeta that were meant to make a summer-weight duvet cover for my son's bed (his regular duvet cover is flannel, a definite eww for summer slumber).  In declutter mode, I was all set to send the sheets to Goodwill and the taffeta back to the fabric stash, when I discovered I had already sliced things up into appropriately-sized pieces.  Sure, I've got a free day or two on my hands--why not finish it?

 And there you have it: a UFO that I had totally forgotten about.  It's only just July (the beginning of our true summer weather here in Oregon), so Dear Son will soon have something light and airy to sleep under.

I am in love with giant piping.  I have put it on the edge of every duvet cover I've ever sewn (hmm, how many is that, I wonder? 5-ish?)  You can buy the innards at any well-appointed fabric store.  For durability and feel, I love to use taffeta or other tightly-woven shiny fabric.  I generally cut it on the bias, but I guess you don't have to, since there are not really curves to navigate, only corners.  For this project, 2-1/2" strips were my width.  I basted the bias strip around the piping filling using a long stitch and 3/8" seam.  Then I just pinned the piping between the right-sides-together sandwich of front and back of the duvet cover, and sewed using a 1/2" seam.  It's like a pillow-case: flip right-side out and voila!  Lovely piped edges.  Especially nice to set off the edge when the two sides of the duvet are different fabrics. 

Declutter: how organized people do it?

"Seventy percent of life is maintenance."  - Robert Downey, Jr.

I have spent my hour a day in the Kitchen Zone this week, decluttering bit-by-bit.  This has had its ups and downs, and has yielded very little for the garage sale pile.  Sad face.  But I felt success in the plasticware drawer!  The drawer had become unmanageable, to the point of not being able to close for the past week.  (And, as you can imagine, not being able to find an appropriate container *and* lid when needed.)

Took out every plastic container and matched them all up with lids.  Any container without a lid went into a grocery bag.  Ditto any lid (and there were legion of these) without a container.  Remaining containers were nested when possible, or at least put near similarly-sized containers.  Behold!  A drawer that is only half as full as it was.  Dare I say spacious?

My organized friend applauded my progress, and added a challenge for the next time I do this.  (Next time?  Is that how organized people do it--they come back a month later and go thru it all again?)  In order to keep the plasticware truly organized, as much as possible simplify to just ONE type of product: the Rubbermaid, or the Ziploc, or the Tupperware, or the Snapware, or WalMart whatever.

Wow.  Who'd a thunk it?

Good Enough (rainbow edition)

When I was a first year teacher, one of my many mentors that year kept my spirits up by saying to me, "Aim for mediocrity!" every time he saw me in the halls.  What he meant was not truly to set my standards lower, but to accept "good enough" as a strategy that would allow me to stick around in the teaching profession, rather than burn out quickly by continually looking to perfect things.

Perfection is impossible.  Good enough has saved my butt, time and time again.

I wore this shirt today, as part of team "Rainbow Connection" for a 4th of July 10K run/walk.  The shirt embodies the idea of Good Enough.  It was handmade by me over the past two days, out of a rainbow of t-shirts.  It is far from finished--in the sense that I think it should be.

But it was Good Enough for today.




Changes I'd like to make to this shirt: the neckline is completely unfinished.  It also rides a little high on my neck, so I'll be cutting a deeper V before I finish it somehow.  The sleeves fit a little funny, so I'd like to adjust them in the front (although I was very happy with the amount of puffy gathers at the sleeve cap).  The bottom hem, which I left staggered on purpose, just annoys me; so I'll be finishing it all one length.  It needs a little elastic under the bust for some shaping near the white ruffle.  And, if I get in a bedazzling mood, I'd like to add some colored beads or buttons to the ruffle.

I had some other ideas of things to do to the shirt, involving taking the whole bottom apart and redoing it, but I'm not going there.  The shirt has a purpose: give me team cohesiveness when I do fun runs.  It is a fun shirt.  Just needs to fit a bit better so that I enjoy the run/walk experience more and don't tug at my clothes.  It was Good Enough to actually wear today, so that makes it a success.

Making more work for myself

Yesterday was 50% off sale at Value Village.  Would have said no to going, since I have been buying too much clothing lately.  But my roommate was really excited, so I only went in looking for a pair of black pants I could wear at work.  And maybe Dansko clogs (you never know).

Damn, I hate that store.  Or maybe it's just my willpower.  I tried on black pants.  Oh, wait.  Shoes first.  Found a pair of Dansko sandals!!  Also a comfy pair of Clark's sandals, and a low-heeled pump that would be perfect for trying on black pants with.  Back to trying on black pants.  In addition to the great-for-work basic black pants, I tried on a pair of OMG-I-look-hot-in-these black pants from Charlotte Russe.  What was I thinking?!  Well, they were just in the pile of black pants, who knew how fabulously un-work-wardrobe they truly were.

Well, fabulous black pants stayed on my body while I went back to the clothing racks to find a shirt to wear with them.  And here's the part I hate:  I'm a person who sews.  I can mend things.  I can restyle things.  Therefore, thrift store clothing with little "problems" can become my newest project.  I'm so bad: at least 50% of the clothes I buy at thrift stores need some form of alteration before I can wear them.

Among my $30 (after the half off) worth of purchases were two blouses with unwearable sleeve issues.  Here are the "before" pictures:

 Cute green tunic.  Sleeve looks kinda OK, but is completely non-functional: can't raise your arms in the least.

 Shiny goin'-out-to-dinner blouse with ruffle detail down the front and on the sleeve band.  Can you tell how much these ruffles stand straight out from the sleeve?  Downright silly.

And again, can't raise arms because of the tight gathering on the sleeve band.

So, as it stands, I have two more projects in my sewing basket.  Both shirts have had the offending sleeves dismantled and are awaiting inspiration.  Stay tuned for the "after" - at some future date.

T-shirt Peek-a-Boo

Finished embellishing a t-shirt, although not in the way I first envisioned.  I have been jonesing to alter t-shirts for at least two months, regardless of the facts: I already own too many t-shirts, I don't tend to wear t-shirts, I have too many WIP's that I should finish first, I'm supposed to be finishing my master's thesis (oh yeah, that), and most altered t-shirt projects are best for the twenty-something crowd (too slash-and-dash).

Well, I think mine is sleek and sophisticated.  Other projects be damned.

 The original idea came from the book "Tease: Inspired T-shirt Transformations" (checked out from my local library).  The shirt featured seven peek-a-boo holes embroidered down the front of a very cute t-shirt.  I had the very-cute-shirt, but didn't think seven holes would work for me.  At the most, four holes was the amount of skin that seemed proper for a woman of my advanced years.  I made a test swatch on a t-shirt rag, and discovered that I didn't like the recommended eyelet stitch shown in the book.  It was just looping the thread around and around to outline the interfacing-reinforced hole.  I made another test swatch and tried buttonhole stitch instead - a much nicer-looking result.  So, thus confidence-boosted, I made the top peek-a-boo hole on the actual shirt.  Hope you'll forgive the size of the image - I was trying to get a close-up of the stitching.

And, after only one hole, I feel like the shirt is complete.  No need for four holes in this one.  It's cute, it's finished, and I'm happy with it.
If I try this method again, I might think about holes on sleeves, or down the back of a t-shirt, or several around a neckline.  Yeah, very cute.

Declutter: Bathroom Reading Center

Since there was only one day this week in the Dining Room zone (I am following FlyLady's zone plan for my declutter fiesta this summer), I decided not to declutter there.  Instead, I stood in the dining room and thought about a spot I hadn't touched in over a year.  What overlooked drawer or shelf or cupboard could I tackle that would give me almost-instant satisfaction?

Aha! The Bathroom Reading Center.  There is a small three-drawer stand in the bathroom that holds various items.  One drawer had been reserved for reading materials.  How likely was it that this drawer had been emptied out when I moved out of that house?  Did I empty it?  Did anyone else think to look in it?  (See previous declutter post about how a drawer, once assigned a purpose, almost never gets the chance to see a new storage life.)  Nope.  Drawer was full-to-bursting with magazines, newspaper articles, and clippings.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.  Took the whole pile out of the drawer.  Yay, clean drawer!  Went through the pile in "ruthless purge" mode.  Most magazines were outdated recycle-bin fodder.  A couple magazines went to the garage sale pile.  And a couple articles I saved to read this summer.

An Unscheduled Afternoon

I had a very ADD afternoon yesterday.  At least, I think what I experienced was due to my ADD-ness.  I was very efficient with my morning chores and my hour of de-junking the house; even walked the dogs before lunch.  And then...

And then: an unscheduled afternoon.  I didn't have any appointments.  No errands I had to run.  Nothing pressing that *had* to get done that day.  Yikes!  I panicked.  Yes, truly, panic.  Where other people would have stretched their arms to the almost-sunny sky and rejoiced, I was at a complete loss for what to do.  Not because I didn't have things to do.  Au contraire, mes amis, my To Do list is always full.  It is a thing to behold.  Why, Superman himself couldn't accomplish in one day what I usually put on my To Do list for an average afternoon.  No, the problem is prioritizing: how do I decide what to tackle next on my task scroll?  I spent an entire half hour imagining myself spending the afternoon, or at least big chunks of time, on various things on the list.  I was paralyzed with indecision.  I auditioned and then rejected various options.  Too much choice is a bad, bad thing for little ADD-stricken me.

So here's how I understand the brain battle in Attention Deficit: either I can't focus enough to pay attention to one thing, my brain keeps derailing its train of thought, and I get little accomplished or feel overwhelmed/stressed/instantly tired.  OR (and this initially surprised me) I go into hyper-focus, where the one thing I am doing becomes the only thing that matters, and the world could crumble all around me and I wouldn't notice.  (Attention Deficit = hyper-focus?  Who knew?)

I think a little of both of those things happened to me in my unscheduled afternoon.  I got 3 things done in 3 hours. 
1. Went to WalMart to look for one item (too much stimulus, makes me very uncomfortable to have to look around; much better if I know the exact location and item ahead of time).  Didn't find the item (Easy-Bake Oven replacement pans), but found three other things to buy.  In an hour.
2. Went to Buffalo Exchange to look for a new pair of Dansko clogs.  (Have decided the old pair is just too big--tired of wearing them with two pairs of socks!)  Spent almost an hour.  Did not spend money.
3. Went to Goodwill to look for a t-shirt.  Found three t-shirts, two pairs of shoes (sadly, no replacement clogs, Dansko or otherwise), and lost way more than an hour.  Talk about hyper-focus: those t-shirts, man.  Don't know why a rack of t-shirts should make me go into a trance, but there you have it.

An unscheduled afternoon in the life of my ADD brain.