OK, On With It

It was a disoriented day for me without any good reason. I think that this was my first attempt at bending time and I was suffering a psychological time warp. Its a very interesting place to be in, and instead of making me smile and enjoy the energy, I really got stressed.

Sometime in the past few weeks, I made a plan to spend each 22nd day of the month working on small holiday gifts and even put a list of them on the side bar with the quilts I want to finish. With all this unusual stress, I wondered if I took on too much, what the resistance is, and if this was going to happen each month. Its like a challenge of sorts that my inner being presents. I wondered if I wasn't clear enough with myself and if I needed to make these projects more structured or designated. I pondered all this for hours.

My first project was to be the Double Oven Mitts.

Well, I spent most of the morning doing other odd things that are not worth photographing. Then, I started a fabric box for my gift exchange on the 25th, and ran out of thread on the bobbin and had to do a little backstitching to make it work. It is to the point of stitching the corners up inside and adding four buttons. 

Next, I wrote three letters to a few of the elders in my family.

Finally I started on a Double Oven Mitt and discovered that I didn't like the tutorial I had bookmarked, went looking online, and discovered this link. double-oven-mitt This one seemed to be more functional and safe enough for anyone to reach into an oven. The photo appealed to me when I saw how it hung over the oven bar. 

To work with this project, I found enough of the insulated batting and some scraps of other batting. The pattern calls for 34"x11" of both a feature fabric and a backing, plus four cuts of 9"x8" pieces for the pockets.

That part stopped me. I have a lot of scraps but this really breaks out to a quarter yard of WOF (width of fabric) for those two pieces. My regular bins didn't turn up anything that made my heart sing for this project. I put everything away and started over. 

The holiday bin proved much more successful with endless options. In fact, I was over-stimulated. Whatever was going on with me felt unusual.  These fabrics popped out, with an autumn theme, which would go nicely in my Daughter-In-Law's kitchen and with her favorite holiday of Thanksgiving. This was key. I understood that I need to have an objective when I work on projects and just doing something without an explanation doesn't work for me.

Gathering was as far as I could progress for some time. The energy of the day, whatever it was, overcame my will to continue, and I simply surrendered to getting this far on the project. I do hope something comes of this and that next month, on January 22, I can breeze through this project to its completion.