Descent into Misery: Complete

While Jack is out of town for the next couple of weeks, I took the opportunity to spread out (even more so) and make a mess while finishing up my knitting needle roll. I wish I had a picture to share, but the mess I made was far beyond any level of human decency (some would call it "living in squalor"), and I'm just not ready to make that aspect of my life public yet.

Now that I have finished the needle roll, I feel as if I was being a little over dramatic as I chronicled my descent into misery. But in the heat of the moment, I truly do feel like I am sucked into a vortex of misery, sometimes finishing a project just feels like a chore. It's the little mistakes that make the experience so terrible, mistakes like this:

Hahahahaha, fail.

When it came time to sew the inner and outer panels together, I inadvertently sewed the ribbon, which would tie the roll together, on the wrong side of the fabric. The fabric was put together (wrong-side up) so that I could flip it inside out when I was done...and if I sewed the ribbon onto the wrong side then when I invert it, it would be on the inside and absolutely useless to me.  I realized this far too late, so I had to rip out the seam and restart again, which led to.....

The bane of my existence

Having to reload the bobbin! It's not a difficult task, but I can never seem to get it right. It's like when I try to plug into a USB port, it always takes three tries even though there's only two ways to plug it in. I can't ever remember whether it loads thread clockwise or counter-clockwise and sometimes I don't wind the thread around enough times so when I start the machine, not only does it wind in the opposite direction I had expected it to, it loosens whatever I wound onto the bobbin. I just sighed out loud having to relive the experience while typing this last paragraph.

But, finally, after all that drama, I managed sew the ribbon back onto the right side and put the whole thing together. On top of that, like the silver lining around a dark cloud, I successfully matched up the top of the inner pocket with the outer panel!

Success!

Once the roll was complete, I was so giddy and so happy that I successfully made something that does what it's supposed to do--that post-project high, forgetting all the misery that accompanies the actually fabrication process....until I get it in my head that I should try for another project and the cycle restarts itself. But for now, I'm going to savor in another victory over fabric and poorly honed sewing skillz.

Action shot!

Boy, do I have egg on my face!

I sometimes fail at life. Take these eggs for instance, I had grand plans for them to win the egg decorating contest at the Giordano Boys' Easter Feaster lunch. I spent time looking up decorating tips on Martha Stewart, debating whether to purchase those PAAS dye kits or if I should make my own colors, and figuring out how awesome I wanted to make my eggs.

I spent a relaxing Friday afternoon decorating the eggs--well, relaxing until I decided to use glitter, which everyone knows is the herpes of craft supplies. There are still remnants of the fine luster glitter on our table cloth.

Anyways, I headed down to Seattle that Friday afternoon to kick off a whirlwind Easter weekend that included hot dogs and beer from Shultzy's, drinks and Jake's Birthday at the Clever Bottle, a trip to Mt. Vernon for the tulips (which were not in bloom yet, so we ended up staring at fields of daffodils instead), root beer floats on a warm sunny day, starting up the BBQ grill again, a visit by the Easter bunny that brought me a chocolate bunny from Fran's, brunch at Adrift, and FINALLY the Easter Feaster lunch where I could get to show off my awesome egg dying skillz.

Well, given my propensity to fail at life, I complete forgot to bring the eggs with me to the party. Yes, I remembered to bring Megan's ice block that she left at our place a few weeks ago. And I did remember to bring back all the unfinished liquor to return to their owners. But eggs for the decorating contest? Left them in the refrigerator at home.

So now I'm going to share them on this blog, because decorated eggs kind of lose their appeal after Easter--as with the prospect of having to eat 5 hard boiled eggs somehow (one of which may be flecked with glitter).

Better luck next year, boys.

Continuing My Journey into the Depths of Misery.

Took me way too long to figure out which pattern to use and where it should go.

The crafting process to give my knitting needles a home goes on this week and if I felt mildly frustrated last week, this time around I felt like ripping the fabric to shreds, and I would have except doing that would destroy hours of my work and upset me even more.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my misery, let me introduce you to Zelda:

Pretty girl.

Technically, Zelda is not mine, it belongs to an old co-worker of mine. Two years ago, I asked her if I could borrow her sewing machine to make a Halloween costume, she obliged and I happily took it home and made my costume.

Slutty sushi!

Then I conveniently forgot to return Zelda to her and then I moved and then I forgot again and now Zelda lives with me. IMPORTANT NOTE: I do intend to return Zelda to her rightful owner--and definitely before we move even further from Seattle. So there. It's not like I'm holding Zelda hostage or something. Zelda totally loves staying with me.

Ahem.

So, this week I worked on putting together the inner pocket, where the needles will go, and the other panel. Up until this point, I've read over the directions multiple times just to make sure that I didn't miss anything. WELL. It's definitely one thing to read it and know what you are doing and then to execute it successfully. The instructions noted a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Simple enough, I thought, except I completely overestimated my ability to measure things. Did I learn nothing from last week? This is what it looks like when you think you sewed with a 1/2 seam allowance only to go back and remeasure and realize you were juuuuussssst a bit off.

So close.

It would be one thing if I realized this on the first piece I sewed together, and to a certain extent I noticed that it didn't seem QUITE like a half-inch, but instead of measuring it exactly I said, "Fuck this" and sewed all the pieces together. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized maybe I should have listened to that little voice inside me saying to measure it exactly. So yes, I had to go back and add a tiny 1/8th of an inch-or so to all the panels. But the biggest insult of the day was to come later.

The semi-completed inner pockets

The biggest, hair-ripping-out-est insult occurred when I put together the outside panel. Remember that last week I had to fudge the numbers a bit and re-work the proportions because I wasn't paying attention to what I was cutting out. This week, my terrible math skills came to a head:

The finished panel is supposed to be the same size as the inner panel (obviously), which, when finished, measures 19x22 inches. I CAME UP AN INCH SHORT. DAMMMMMIT. Adding insult to injury, I actually cut out a 1.5x22 strip in case I came up short, but given the seam allowances, it would have been too short as well. I suppose I could use a smaller seam allowance, but I JUST GOT USED TO THAT 1/2 INCH SEAM ALLOWANCE.

It was at this point that I decided that it was enough for one day. I will work on cutting out another panel next week and I will probably finish it up then (hopefully). Until then, here is what the (mostly) finished outer panel looks like:

Perhaps my knitting needles are better off living in a plastic bag, like hobos.