My Sewing Career: Over Before It's Begun

I finally finished my fiber book that I've been working on for that last three centuries months. I'm terribly dissatisfied with how it turned out--mostly because I was making up my pattern as I went along, and I have no idea how to sew. The cover thingy for my binder was what stumped me the most--I mean, besides the actual sewing part, of course. I had this idea in my head, you know? So I worked it out on paper, made up my pattern, cut the fabric, and then realized that everything had to be sewn together in a certain order for this to work. And I had no idea what the order was. And every time I thought I had the order sorted out, I realized that I didn't. So by the time I was done, I'd sewn some things on crooked, and stitched across some things that shouldn't have been stitched across, and I'm pretty sure I jabbed the baby with some pins because he kept meddling while I was trying to concentrate, but I got it done. More or less.

This is the outside. The green thing is a crooked pocket that I have no idea what I'll do with, but it's there, nonetheless. I also didn't measure when I sewed my handles down, because one is sewn down higher than the other. 

I made the side panels zip down, so it could open like a book. Since it's, you know, a book. The zippers weren't terribly complicated to do, contrary to what I was expecting, but sewing the little side panels on was every bit as complicated as I'd expected. I know I didn't do it right, but I have no idea how it should have been done, so it is staying as it is. Plus, I hate ripping out, almost as much as I hate mayonnaise.

The top has a little flap with a magnetic snap to theoretically keep all of my loose little expensive needles and stuff contained within the bag. Someone sewed the flap on backward, and it wasn't discovered until much too far into the process to merit ripping out, so I just folded it down and stitched it so it would go the right direction. Which is fortunate, because apparently, my flap thingy would have been too long, had I left it as it was. 

This is what it looks like with the sides zipped down. I think I will have enough space in the top to throw my currently-being-worked-on projects and yarn. When I open it, all my yarn and projects will fall out, and I will be able to access all of my yarning accessories.

Page one, for double-pointed needles. You can read more about the guts of my book here, but I'll post the pictures here, too, because I want to enjoy finally being done.

Page two, for my interchangeable circular needles set and my cable needles, with spaces for my needles, cables, and couplers.

Page three is for my crochet hooks (front) and for all my little finishing accessories (back) like tapestry needles, scissors, t-pins, buttons, and stitch markers.

Page four is my ribbon and thread dispenser. I'm quite proud of this page--it's ingenious. And I'll stop gloating about it now. 

So I've learned a thing or two about myself through this project--mostly that I don't like to sew. Which is good, because I suck at it.

Waiting Around

Baby number 4 is kind of up in the air right now for us. My hcg levels are rising slower than normal (but still rising), and I've been having a lot of bleeding--the kind of bright red bleeding that freaks you out even though it never gets in your underwear (well, I said vagina on the internet, so it only follows that at some point I would talk about underwear, right?). It could be one of several things: a slow miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, something related to my low progesterone issue, or just random pregnancy bleeding that is happening for the sole purpose of making me turn prematurely gray. Obviously, we're hoping for option 4, or at worst, option 3, but we shall see. I am finding it difficult to think of myself as pregnant, or get excited about having a baby, when I don't know if it will stick. And waiting around to find out? Yeah. That's a big wretch.

Version 4.0 Coming March, 2013

Well, I can't say that with absolute certainty, since I haven't taken a test yet; but I am fairly sure. For all of you lovely people who chart, you can see my little implantation dip at 7 dpo (days past ovulation, for those of you who don't chart).

I had a teeny little bit of pink this morning when I went to the bathroom (yes, I'm putting that on the internet. At least I didn't say vagina. Oh. Wait.), but nothing came of it (I've been half-expecting my period, because I'm suffering from a progesterone deficiency, so my luteal phase has been between 6 and 7 days long). So the only other thing I can think of is--that we'll be needing a minivan before March of next year. Yay!

(Edit to Add:)
This new version has now been confirmed!

Wandering Thoughts for a Bleak Day

It's 1:39 am, and even though my eyes are crossing and my head is pounding, I can. not. sleep. Today, my dear friend Linda took her sweet little 8-week-old baby girl to the emergency room because she was doing poorly (the baby was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome), and she is at home now, with empty arms and full breasts, and mountains and oceans of grief that she will have to climb up and be buried beneath and swim through and drown in, and I cannot bear to think about it, but I cannot stop thinking about it.

It doesn't make sense to me, that God would allow little babies to die. I know He is, well, God. I know He has His own plans and that He exists in a completely different realm from us, so even though His action seem horrifically unkind to me, that to Him they are completely rational, and probably just. But I have to admit, I am just a little bit mad at Him right now. How dare He give them a baby, let them have her for a few weeks, and then take her away again, leaving them saddled with mounds of hospital bills, an empty nursery, and broken hearts? 

The worst part, or one of the worst parts (because how can you choose which part is "worst," when you're talking about a baby dying) is that it was completely unexpected. There was no preparation time, no getting ready for it. She had been doing well. Very well. She was feisty and fighting. They were making plans for the future--not college plans, or career plans, or even starting-kindergarten plans. But plans--she was to have some surgeries later this year to correct several things that were bothering her. She was having casts fitted to correct her club foot. Lowell, Linda's husband, left for work this morning planning to come home and snuggle his infant daughter to sleep. Linda planned to awaken many times in the night to tend to her sweet little girl. And all of a sudden, she was ripped from them, leaving a gaping wound and--why? She was a baby. 

She was a beautiful baby, actually; and I say that in complete honesty, not in the coochy-coo way that we say it to wrinkled and blotchy old newborns. She was beautiful. She had chubby little cheeks, and squinty little eyes, and the pinkest, sweetest skin, and a little smudgy nose that would just break your heart to look at, it was that adorable. She had a little scar on her chest from her first heart surgery, and a giant cast engulfing her little misshapen foot (and yet, it wasn't misshapen at all!), and a tube coming from her nose and taped to her face for feedings, so that she wouldn't exert herself too much at the breast or with her bottle. She was perfect and amazing, and wonderful, and I just knew that she was going to grow up, and...grow up. 

And yet, here they are, picking out caskets, and folding empty little shirts, and jumping up to check on a baby that they no longer have. And I really wish I had some conclusive piece of pithy wisdom to wrap these wandering, venting thoughts up with, but the truth is, I don't. I keep coming up empty. And a little bit angry. And a lot sad. And guilty, because while I ache inside for her, there is a little part of me that is so very thankful that it is her and not me. I kind of hate myself for that. 

Still Feelin' Crafty

My last post? The one that I posted back on April 17th, about my Fiber Book that I'm sewing up? Well, I've done three more pages on it, now, and all that's left is to sew up the cover of the binder that I'm using, and then I'll be done! I have to say, sewing is not my strong suite. At all. As in, if I had to sew to save my life, I'd better have a funeral plot all paid for because...

This is page 1, for my double-pointed knitting needles. If I had it to do over again, I would have made it front/back pages instead of facing pages, because the binder rings make it not lay flat. I also would have added snaps to those flaps so my needles wouldn't fall out every time I flopped the page open (and that's the only way I open the page, apparently). Experience:1, Me: 0. 

This is page 2, for my circular and cable needles. The circular needles are interchangeable, so there's a bunch of pockets that I neglected to get a picture of on the other side of the page for my cables, couplers, stitch holders, etc. I learned that I hate sewing Velcro, and that practice does not always make perfect, because while my technique sucked on page 1, it sucked a whole lot more on page 2. Oh, and I did the whole facing pages thing, again. Experience: 2, Me: 0.

This is page 3, which is finally a front/back page. What? I'm a slow learner, okay? The front holds my crochet hooks, and the back holds all my little finishing accessories: scissors, tapestry needles, T-pins, stitch markers, and buttons. You know how I hate Velcro? Well, sewing ribbon trim and Velcro on the same fabric piece is really rotten. I know that now. Experience: 3, Me: 0.

This is page 4, for dispensing my ribbon and thread that I use for trimming. I am actually a little proud of page 4, considering that I didn't know how to sew when I started page 1. If only I'd cut my little fabric pieces so those darned stripes were straight. Whatever. 

I actually had a totally different idea which I won't detail here, but which involved suspender clips, spools of ribbon, pleats (ha! Because I totally could have done pleats!), and a visit with the Dahli Llama. Or something impossible like that. Anyway, it was a really complicated idea that ended up costing me $44 for suspender clips that I never received and for which I am now disputing to my credit card company because, apparently, customer service is as dead as chivalry and that deer I hit tonight, but that's a totally different story that I will vent about later. Suffice it to say, my idea that I came up with after the Case of the Disappearing Suspender Clips was a totally rockin' idea, and I love it. So, ha! Experience: 3, Me: 1 (because I'm taking this one, whether I deserve it or not).

I'm Feelin' Crafty...

I have recently taken up knitting, on top of my crocheting habit that I've had for several years. It's getting expensive, what with my yarn snobbery requiring me to buy only the nicest, most expensive yarns for these  yarning projects. However, with my knitting stuff crowding into my yarn basket, and my baby always running off with my hooks and needles, I decided to make myself a yarning book. I bought a giant 3" three-ring binder, and I will make four "pages" for it: one page for my double-pointed needles, one page for my interchangeable circular needle set, one page for my crochet hooks and sundry items, and one page for ribbons and buttons. So I spent nine hours today sewing up page one. It was my very first real sewing project, so please excuse my amateur stitching, but here it is, Page One:

A Day of Gratefulness

I came to this morning, drenched in my own cold sweat, my husband leaning over me, coaxing me to drink chocolate milk through a straw. Low blood sugar. Again. I'm pretty sure this has been my wake-up every morning so far this week. I'm trying to keep my sugar under tight control, and--well, sometimes my mornings are a casualty. These incidents take a lot out of me; I'm usually exhausted and weak (not to mention freezing, after drowning in cold sweat in a house that only gets heated to 60º during the night), and so I end up showering and going straight back to bed for a while.

These mornings are hard on Aaron, too. He gets a late start at work, which pushes his clock-out time later; he has to get the kids their breakfast, and deal with a crying baby because mommy isn't aware enough to take care of the baby herself (I can't tell you how many times these crying babies have saved me from hypoglycemic shock, though!). The kids have it pretty easy; they get to strew toys all over the house, dance naked on the dining room table while eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, and cause general mayhem in the absence of coherent adult supervision.

And of course, once this chain reaction gets started, it's harder'n'heck to stop. I don't drag myself out of bed until lunch time, or so; the house is completely decimated by then, and the kids are squabbling over who gets to drive the CozyCoupe Police Vehicle, and the baby is eating garbage that has spilled out of the bathroom trash can. By the time lunch is microwaved (because, really, do you think I'm going to cook on a day like this?) and shoved onto passably clean plates, the day is shot, and all I want to do is sit down and wait for my Fairy Godmother to show up and tidy things up for me. Except, of course, it doesn't work that way.

So here it is, midnight. I have stepped on stray Legos about fourteen times since I tucked the kids into bed four hours ago, toy cars and a Melissa & Doug rhythm band set are littering the living room floor, dirty supper dishes are still on the dining room table, non-perishable groceries and empty grocery bags cover my kitchen counter, one of the dining room chairs sits all askew in the kitchen by the counters where my son pulled it up this morning to retrieve cookies from atop the microwave, the beds haven't been made, the animals are staging a revolt, the baby is wearing clothes that were stained about four days ago, and I'm sitting here, drowning in chaos, so very, very thankful for my life.

I have three beautiful, healthy, and moderately obedient children (I'm giving them a pass, here, but I'm being grateful, so that's allowed, right?). I have a husband who cares enough about me to straw-feed me chocolate milk when my sugar turns me into a raving lunatic (have I told you about the conversations we've had when my sugar has been low? No? Good.). We have a great big giant house that we are not renting, which has enough rooms and closets for all, and is not located in a trailer park, nor is it located in town (yes, I'm counting that as a blessing). We have a paid-for car, and Aaron has a job that pays all of our bills. Have I mentioned my three beautiful, healthy, moderately obedient children and my husband, who drive me all kinds of crazy? Because seven years ago, I had none of that. My life was orderly and organized and perfect. And lonely. So tomorrow I will wake up early and whip my house back into shape, and yell at my kids for playing instead of picking up their cars, and nurse the baby a million times, and cook lasagna for supper, and slouch into my chair at the end of the day exhausted and frustrated, glad the kids are finally in bed. But today--today, I will just be grateful. Chaos be damned.