wienerdog tricks.

Making Pep Talk from Grandma Ginger

It was so helpful, that I thought I'd pass it along.

And no, I am not referring to myself as a grandmother already. *ahem* I am quite without double-offspring. I mean my grandma. And I'm named after her--a big honor. 

Anyways, I saw her at Tgiving and did this:

It was, in fact, as magical as it looks. I also schlepped with me a big bag of my mysterious christmas project and showed her what I've gotten myself into. She was kind. She didn't make a single *tsk* *tsk* noise with her sweet little lips. 

She did, however, give me GOLDEN ADVICE: " [insert sweet, embarassing family name that I would never in a half a thousand years want her to stop calling me, but that I'd never tell you], I think you should set these aside and do the other ones first."

"Grandma!" I said. "You. Are. Right."

I was so frustrated and stuck--having over- and re-complicated the otherwise perfectly straightforward sewing project I've tackled. (Why make something easy for yourself, [insert aforementioned family name here], I said to myself.)

So I'm setting aside the part of the project that was making me twitchy and discouraged and am tackling the parts that I can do quickly. 

"Once you get going, then come back to these," she said.

I thought you might need or want to hear this same GOLDEN ADVICE if you're up to your neck in making like I am right now. If you've got a tricky piece you're working on, set it aside and take on something you can stack up.

Keep making, friend. And try to remember that you actually like doing it.

Tis the season to swear at your sewing machine. Maybe that will be my christmas card this year. Sure.

Sometimes I Don't Make Anything.

(Nice nails. Guy--I was digging the garden. Guy.)

It's not because I don't have the time. I've already told you that. It has nothing to do with not having the time. 

It's because I'm storing up ideas--like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. But mine are mental. Mental Nuts.

Mental nuts stored until I hit my pace for making all those christmaspresents I'm going to make.

Lately (thanks to my little sister), Pinterest is a piece of this [though ask me later about me super intense fear of finding something that I might have had an idea for on my own later if I hadn't come across it. it's like ohnoiwishiwouldathottathat-a-phobia]. And I'm sometimes making mental lists of the reasons I can't do the projects I'm in the middle of [Need to have old Singer serviced. Need to have scissors sharpened. Need to go buy 34 old game boards at the thrift store. Need to find more old polyester--not in pink. Need my friend to show me that envelope pillow way.] And other times, I think my next idea is just sort of on simmer.

I am braising ideas, you could say.

This morning, I tromped upstairs before everybody had even eaten their pancakes and stood and sort of just looked around my Upper Room studio and stared and then sat down and my desk and stared and then took out my idea book and started writing and listing and thinking with a pencil. And before I knew it, all that Mental Nut Hoarding paid off. 

And I spent the next hour and a half ripping cotten into [insert mysterious, secret, christmaspresent size here] pieces. I'm totally gonna make everybody alive [insert mysterious, secret christmaspresent idea] this Christmas. And once it came to me, I knew it was Just The Thing.

I just had to wait for it to come to me. And then it did.

(I want you to go get yourself an idea book if you haven't already. I can't live without mine. You know those ideas that you have and you think--THat's IT. Well, instead of waking up four days later and going, Whatwas Thatthing Withthe Thing I was gonna make . . . You know. Because you wrote it down in your idea book.)

I Think I Collect Ottomans.

This happened to me when I wasn't looking.

I have been known to collect t-shirts, chickens (non-live: go here for a live-chicken collector), bottles, lint. Now apparently I collect ottomans (not the empires, the foot stools).

I can't stop buying them. And I think it's because they CALL to me from thrift stores and estate sales everywhere, "Helloooooo! I am uuugggllyy. Coooommmmeeee bbbuuuuyyyyy mmmeeeeeeee!!"

I only buy ugly ones. Maybe because there are only ugly ones for sale. But there is no such thing as a truly unattractive ottoman: just an ottoman that hasn't yet been made beautiful.

Here is my latest Ottoman Transformation Activity:  

And you'll never believe it, but I got it for about 4 bucks and it looked like this:

I totally dig the way that I accidentally didn't make it long enough so the brown wood legs show and high five with the brown and white polka dot strip of vintage polyester on the bottom.

[To be clear: this is now officially my Second Favorite Ottoman. My first is here.]

I encourage this particular sort of collecting behavior. It is terribly fulfilling. And if you can sew a straight line, you can cover an ottoman.  I have mentioned this to you before.

And yes, later, I promise to show you how. 

And yes, later, that might even happen on video since it was so much fun to make that last one.

P.S. Thanks for the sweet cheering-on from you all. Your acceptance of my weird hobbies makes the world seem more full of butterflies. Do let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like for me to explain via video piece. I'm beginning to scheme for more of these and am Taking Requests.