Under Your Monet (Squee Edit)

Saturday I took care of my storage unit and am so happy to have that done, it’s awesome. I can’t wait to have my own place again to store all my kitchen things so that they don’t have to be in storage anymore. I have no idea when I will have my own place again (or at least a more fully shared place) but it’s something I look forward to. I spent the afternoon with my mom and made yummy pasta salad and fruit salad for dinner there. I didn’t get to see my sister as they were out shopping for a truck, but I left the diaper bag there. My mom thought it was really cute and said nary a negative word about it’s ginormousness. When my sister got home and saw it, she texted and said she loved it, but then proceeded to ask if we could make it smaller and line it with a fabric and yada yada. Totally reasonable requests, of course, but it still irritated me and I felt like it had been a thankless project despite the fact that I spent close to 8 hours working on it on Friday. But I guess that’s what I get for it being a year and a half late.

I told her it’d probably be easier just to make a totally new bag that would be smaller and we could line it then. We’ll have to get new fabric, but I guess that’s how it goes. I suppose I could reconstruct the bag I made and just rip out all the seams… I don’t know if I really want to do that though. Derek doesn’t like it at all because he thinks it’s too busy. But whatever.

After I got home on Saturday I had the urge to do more sewing, but I didn’t feel like getting everything out and packing it all up again before I went to bed so I just searched online for sewing patterns and inspiration. I also reconfirmed my decision to make my wedding dress. I found a few really cute designs that wouldn’t be too difficult to make (with more practice on my own and help from my mom). At one point I had considered knitting or lace crocheting the dress, and might still incorporate those somehow, but I think I’d rather sew it. My mom has expressed concern for my mental well-being if I make my wedding dress as she evidently thinks it would turn me into a completely stressed and bitchy bridezilla. I think my well of patience is a lot deeper than most think it is, so I’m pretty sure I could pull it off with minimal stress. Women get stressed buying dresses as it is, with all the fittings and dealing with crappy salespeople and seamstresses and all anyway, so if I make the dress, I figure I’ll take out all of those variables and probably decrease my stress. I’d rather do most of everything myself, actually, which might not go over well since my mom and sister will want to help out, but I don’t know if I really want to go that route. I will certainly appreciate their help, but I worry that one or both of them might get too involved with it or something. I don’t know.

I just realized it sounds like I’m getting married soon or have a definite date or something set out, which is the farthest thing from the truth. Just stuff I’ve been contemplating lately. It’s never to early to start planning, right? 😉

In any case, I wanted to sew Sunday, too, but I limited myself to just cutting out my pattern pieces for a blouse I’ve had the pattern for for ages. I used some fabric I had in my stash that I like but am not too terribly attached to. It will be mostly for practice so it might not be wearable, which will be fine, but if it is wearable all the better. I was kind of bummed because according to my measurements I should have made the largest size the pattern had. I decided to make the second largest size because I’m stubborn and based on the finish garment sizes, the second largest size should fit me just fine. Of course, I’m beginning to doubt my ability to judge my size which is depressing.

I was knitting that vest and it looked HUGE and I was all worried about having to take it in somehow or shrink it when it was completed because there was no way I was going to fit into it nicely with it being so HUGE and I figured I must have cast on the wrong number of stitches initially and blah blah blah. I finished the main part last night (just have the neck and armhole ribbing left) and tried it on. It fit just fine. Actually, it was a little too form-fitting in the tummy area. I have unceremoniously folded it into a drawer to forget about until I lose 30 pounds or whatever will make it so I don’t look like a flipping whale while wearing it. Bleh.

I tried being more active last week, and I was successful, though still not as active as I’d like to be. I’m contemplating getting a bike to ride around (with a special friend, if that works out) and that would be helpful, but expensive. I should just go for walks when I get home, or do some jump rope inside. (There’s a big enough area to do it, which is good. That would require my roommate to not be at home, of course.)

Anyway, I plan on doing some actual sewing tonight when I get home, but not too much. I want to look at sewing projects the way I do knitting projects – I can work on them bit by bit – it doesn’t have to be done in one sitting. Which reminds me, I need to get some interfacing at lunch. And I really ought to see if there’s a Sewing for Dummies book I can borrow from the library or get my hands on some other way. I didn’t read through the pattern well enough last night and might have screwed up some of the pieces, so I’m hoping a book will help with my intuitive understanding of the process so that mistakes like that can be avoided, remedied or understood as not-actual-mistakes. I’ve got to take lunch early today, so I’ll head over to Hobby Lobby, I think. We’ll see how that goes.

Squee Edit

I had almost written earlier about how I hadn’t heard from Michael’s and was totally ready to write it off as a lost cause and chalk it up to experience and search for something else. I didn’t, because I’m an eternal optimist.

I got a call from Paula today and she said she spoke to her manager and he wants her to hire me! Squee!!!!! I am so freaking excited I can’t even say. When I hadn’t heard from her last week (she was on vacation which she apologized for in the voicemail) I was thinking about how good it was that I didn’t get the job because then I’ll have all my weekends to myself, etc, etc. Looking at the silver lining which is what I do. But deep down I was pretty upset and forcing myself to squash the financial panic that was beginning to bubble again with having to pay my car payment and insurance and rent (and broken chair fees) from one paycheck.

So now I have to deal with having limited time on the weekends, but it’s so worth it. So freaking worth it. I might be singing a different tune in a few months, when I start to burn out (which I suspect I will), but for now I’m jazzed. Woot!