Why I hand sew so much more these days

 Given how bad my arthritis is getting, I would think I would give up sewing by hand, but I find I do it more and more. My sewing machine is actually tucked away for a while but I'm still working on a few projects like a sleep shirt and new skirt.

I've been thinking about why I hand sew so much these days.

It's not because it's fast. It's not because it's easy. It's certainly not because it's painless. I'm not very good at it and my stitches are still uneven.

These are also the factors that keep me coming back.

Arthritis - the doctors say keep moving those hands as therapy.

Easy/not good at it - I love learning and perfecting new skills.

Slow - that's a bonus. I took a mindfulness class about the same time I started sewing by hand and I found out a lot of the things we learned in that class are easily applied to hand sewing (And making tea, and lots of other things). But I find I like the slower pace as it increases the value of the finished item in my mind. It encourages me to maintain and repair it for a longer life.

Sometimes I think maybe it isn't as slow. I spend a few moments here and a few moments before bed and before I know it the top is finished. Whereas with the sewing machine, I need dedicated time and I can't always find that in my day.

Sustainability/preparation - something I can do if I ever lose my sewing machine or other adverse events happen.

And portability. It's nice to have something to do in those empty moments while out and about somewhere.

If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my creative journey.

- go to youtube and give me a thumbs up!  Or even a subscribe!  That would be awesome
- or pop over to my Etsy shop and support me that way.

Fun and foolishness

 

Nothing serious today, just a fun video of Beau, the rescue alpaca eating apples.

Because... why not?  

Current events - everyone's fine - Nov 2021

We had some rotten weather this weekend.  Thankfully the worst missed us.  We're fine but tired.  

Most of all, enjoying the return of the sunshine. 

Keeping warm during the power outage was fun.  But it's also an excuse to get away from the computer and play with some yarn.

Got over some procrastinations on a big project I'm working on.  

Although I would have liked to do some more sewing, the lack of light (and lack of a non-electric iron) kept me playing with wool.

Stay safe all.  I hear it's bad out there.  

What time is it? Time blindness and watching out for a watch.

 I've always been a bit time blind, but lately, it's gotten a lot worse.  I've been musing on what to do about that.

 Many years ago, I had a job where we had to be on time within 10 seconds of the schedule.  We had all the responsibility for making certain everything was on time and absolutely no control over the factors that caused things to be late.  That kind of disconnect is demoralizing.

Not long after leaving that job, I stopped wearing a watch.

Now that I live on the farm, wearing a watch on my wrist is a fast way to destroy a watch.  

Besides, the chickens don't care what fiction the watch tells us.  The day begins as it gets light, and ends as it darkens.  That means in the summer, my day ends at about 11pm and on Christmas Day it very seldom lasts beyond half-past two in the afternoon.  

It happened there was a doctors appointment the day after Daylight Savings ended.  And of course, the confusion;

"I thought you changed that clock."

"No, I thought you... any idea what the actual time is?"

Yep.  The same old conversation.

I've been thinking of wearing a watch again.  But a wristwatch is out.  I'm resisting getting one of those smartphones.  That leaves a fob watch (pocket watch).  

I dug out my old fobwatch which is a cheap mechanical watch in a lovely umeboshi case that never kept the time.  Now I remember I took it apart at the start of the year to find out why it was broken and if I could move noon to the 9 Oclock position.  I figured out how it was broken, but I didn't have the skills to make it unbroken... and I ended up making it much worse.

My first choice would be to fix this watch.  I really like this case, but I haven't been able to find replacement watch guts for it.  I wish the only horologist wasn't all the way downtown as I only go there once every five years to get my drivers' licence renewed.  

The second choice is to find a new mechanical (one I wind up every day as batteries only last a couple of weeks on me) watch I can love.  I haven't found one in my price range yet.  I will just have to wait until the time is right.

But there's also the issue of pockets.  

Perhaps if I add watch pockets to all of my skirts, by the time I finish, the perfect watch will appear?

To that end, I found this awesome video on historical methods of putting watch pockets on skirts!

It's given me some good ideas I want to try.

I really like the information in her videos.  The sound is a bit difficult, but the captions help. 

If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my creative journey.

- go to youtube and give me a thumbs up!  Or even a subscribe!  That would be awesome
- or pop over to my Etsy shop and support me that way.

Willowing in the garden - Overcoming two self-imposed speed bumps

 Why am I hitting fluff with sticks?  Read on my friends, it's fun.

You know how you read or watch a nifty thing and you think you have the skills to do it.  You just never take that final step to trying the new thing.  Maybe you aren't confident you will do it right?  Maybe you let yourself get stuck on the tiniest detail (how long should my whippy willow rods be - I need specific numbers people!  How many inches?  No one will tell me, never mind, I now have a good excuse to return to my comfort zone.)

My friend Brenda took away my excuse not to try this nifty thing.  During the Virtual Sheep to Shawl, she set up a willowing station.  It was so much fun, why wait so long to try this?  

So I did what I do, and I took my new skill home and pushed it to the limits to find out what it can and cannot accomplish.  While exploring this skill, I discovered that there aren't many resources for it on the internet, so I made a video.  

The problem is, it's not the kind of video easily done within my comfort zone.  

My preference is to have as little as me as possible in the film, be it visual or voice.  I'm not that interesting, why would anyone want to waste their time listening to me... or so the voices in my head tell me.  

But this is more limiting than liberating.  I have a list (currently 5 pages long) of videos I want to make for you, but I don't want to make half-ass videos.  Each video I make, I want it to build my skills and to provide something useful to the world.  I have a lot to say on many topics and doing it silently wouldn't do it justice.  

I'm not sure if I'm saying this clearly.  

But learning the skills I need to make better videos is like flogging myself with whippy willow rods.

This video passes a huge milestone in my journey.  I cannot say how much courage it took, because I suspect for most people, this act would take no courage at all.  

Put simply, I do a lot of talking.  A voiceover for the whole video describing with a touch of storytelling in hopes of making a technical tutorial interesting. 

Emotionally and physically this is exhausting.  But I did it.  I published it.  No one yet has noticed (or at least mentioned) the mistakes I made with my speech impediment (mid-Atlantic accent mishmash that let a few regional flaws slip through)

These videos take longer to make, so I'll probably be alternating between longer with talking and shorter something silly videos for a while.   At least until I get into my grove.  

But it's a lot like willowing - a lot of fun and I don't know what took me so long to try it.  

If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my creative journey.

- go to youtube and give me a thumbs up!  Or even a subscribe!  That would be awesome
- or pop over to my Etsy shop and support me that way.