Project Overload

So I am not very good at making the time to formulate a post. See, it takes away from the crocheting, and that’s primarily what I want to do right now. I never get to make pretty things during the school year because I’m so focused on school and everything and being exhausted and cranky and I can’t work on an involved project during that time. But this summer… this is the summer of the projects. (I’m going to need to write another post later about stuff in my life instead of just crafts and weather.)

So many projects. I’m making Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon for my friend Heather, I've already made a Pinhead pincushion for Sondra (she’s actually paying me for that one because she’s giving it to someone I don’t know), I decided I’m making all those Christmas decorations I've been wishing I could make, I currently have 5 blankets in progress at the moment, I made mittens for myself to match a scarf I made, I made mittens for Matt’s mother, I’m making Matt’s mother a potholder (possibly 2), I’m making bookmarks for Heather (and maybe even myself), placemats, coasters, and I made myself a pincushion today and started Matt's Christmas stocking.  Here's a picture of all the smaller projects (some are completed and inaccessible and I didn't feel like digging all the blankets out).

These are all the small projects I'm in the process of or have completed recently - Matt's Christmas stocking, a potholder, a pincushion, a Pinhead pincushion, coasters, a placemat, and Toothless.

This is what all the parts of Matt's Christmas stocking look like right now.  I'm starting to worry if it's going to be way tinier than I expected.

Aside from all the crocheting, I’m also learning to sew this summer with the goal of making curtains for the sliding glass door in our apartment. Because I hate blinds with every fiber of my being and I’m sick of living in places with blinds. So my solution has become to make or buy curtains and move the blinds to where they can’t really be seen. I still need to buy or make curtains for the living room and office for the new place, but I need to be there so I can measure those. To the end of learning how to sew, Matt’s mother suggested I take some of my smaller pieces of fabric and make a pillow with them. I think she was expecting me to make something really simple because I’m pretty new at this, but I made this instead, and I think it’s pretty fabulous.

Hark!  A pillow!

Only problem is I didn't sew it in the right direction and the corners are all open and I don’t know how to hand sew at all yet so I can’t close it up. Here’s a view of the predicament this thing has ended up being in.

It also ended up crooked when it started out straight and with all pieces being equally sized.  I don't know what happened.

At least it's pretty, right?

Hopefully Matt’s mother will either have the time soon to help me or my book will arrive and I’ll be able to work independently. She’s not giving me as much instruction as I was hoping she would, so I think I might forego learning how to do it on the sewing machine and either just sew all three curtains by hand or have Heather help me at her house. I don’t know. I was hoping this project would be a chance to kind of get to know Matt’s mother a little better or maybe help us communicate more effectively, because I often feel a little shut out or brushed off by her, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s keeping me at arm’s length because I’m just her son’s girlfriend or if I’m just being crazy. Her method of teaching pretty much involves a quick rundown of where the parts go on the sewing machine and a quick “good luck!” before she runs off to do her own thing. And I’m left alone with this terrifying, daunting project. By no means was I expecting her to do any of the work, but I was expecting her to be a little more involved when she agreed to help me. But it’s okay. I’ll do it on my own and it’ll be fine. I’m probably being oversensitive, anyway. It’s not like I know how to deal with mother-type people in the first place. Anyway, here’s the fabric I’m trying to turn into curtains.

  

And I even artfully draped one of the sections! 

This is what it looks like when the sun shines through it.

On the meteorology front, I've gotten some pretty nice cloud pictures lately, taken a few videos. I feel like I’m forgetting everything I learned over the last several months, which scares me because I don’t want to end up with an empty head all over again. Especially not now that I’ve transferred schools and I’m going to the big, scary one instead of the small, laid-back one. Maybe I push myself too hard during the school year and that’s why I don’t want to look at or open any of my books during the summer. Or maybe it’s because I have horrible study habits from high school and I suck and don’t want to do things I need to do to get the things I want long-term. Ugh. I’m also thinking of double majoring, so I’d be majoring in both atmospheric science and mathematics. Because I’m totally insane.

We've been having some decent stormy weather of late, I don’t remember it storming this often at all last summer. I’m hoping we’re finally leaving the drought we've been in, because I really don’t want to experience Dust Bowl conditions first hand. Reading about it and watching videos of it was plenty. My weather radio even went off today right before we got the severe thunderstorms, though I think the chunk of the squall line that went through our area wasn't actually severe, it wasn't very exciting. Lots of lightning, though, so I’m glad I chose to stay in the house this time. I need to buckle down and make time to read my meteorology textbook from last fall and make sure it’s all fresh before school starts, since I’m only taking the lab and not the lecture of the introductory meteorology course. I hope I’m actually good at this instead of crappy at it like I feel right now. I haven’t been paying attention to the weather and I forgot everything I learned about the forecast models so I haven’t even tried looking at them and I have been pretty much entirely focused on crocheting lately. I’m allowed to have other interests, right? So if that’s true, then I shouldn't suck for not paying attention to the weather every single day. I hope. I don’t know.

I’m done with my crisis. Here’s some cloud pictures and stuff.