"Should" is a Lie

I've got finite hours in a day, but it's so easy to lie to myself about what I can reasonably accomplish. 

Take sewing, for example:
I'm a novice sewist, but I have this notion that I should be able to start a project on a Saturday morning and have it finished before bed Saturday night. I have craft group on Saturday morning, which I've been attending regularly for several years now. I do not have a Saturday morning to work on sewing. At best, I have Saturday from around 1 p.m. until bedtime. 

If it doesn't get finished on Saturday, it's not getting finished on Sunday because my Sundays consist of sleeping in, laundry, cooking, spouse time, and whatever crafting I can do from the couch. This is the way of things. This is my ideal Sunday. I sometimes deviate from my Sunday plans for an hour or two, but then I return to my regularly scheduled programming.

What I'm getting at here is that I really do myself a disservice by insisting that I "should" be able to start and finish a project in a single day. The result is sadness and disappointment that I wasn't able to accomplish what I set out to do, which isn't helpful to my goal of enjoying sewing, is it?

Anyway, I was going to share a lovely flannel robe this week, but in order to do so I need to actually sew the pieces together. For once, though, I'm not upset that I didn't finish it on Saturday. I cut out all of the pieces without incident. I made efficient use of my fabric yardage. I didn't fuss, cuss, or throw anything. And all of those things are markers of success along the way toward my goal.

I feel hopeful about sewing, and that's the main thing.

In the meantime, I've been spinning and knitting! I've been experimenting with using support spindles for worsted spinning by using a half hitch to spin suspended while maintaining the spinning tip's contact with the bowl. It's a really great solution to wanting to spin in my lap but not wanting to spin woolen or use a temporary cop. I'll expand on this in a future post. 

I also took some time to work on spinning a thicker single, both on a heavy spindle and on a wheel. It's not as thick as I wanted (I was trying to mimic a worsted weight Noro yarn, but my combed prep wouldn't have made that happen anyway), but I like the result. Spinning thick is difficult for those of us who spend hours upon hours spinning laceweight singles for fingering weight plied yarns!  

 

 

Since then, all of my spindle spins have been moved over to the wheels to clear out projects while I wait for my EEW Fold and my Ashford Elizabeth 30" to arrive. I'll still continue plying my in-progress chain ply on a spindle because I really prefer a spindle for that. My loop joins are so much less noticeable, and I can make nice long chain links. Otherwise, the spindle army is put to rest for a little while.  

On the knitting front, my Threshold sweater is past the armholes now and joined in the round. The yarn I'm using is lovely with this pattern, and it's enjoyable to knit (even if I haven't been able to memorize the cable pattern). I just transferred it to a shorter cable, and it's unfortunately not easy to photograph at the moment.

I also cast on for TUNE, a laceweight tunic that I may or may not shorten into a tee. I'm using handspun for this: a light fingering weight, two-ply Merino in a purple-to-black gradient. It's going to take eighty-four years to knit, and I'm fine with that because it's very soothing to work on.

That's about it for this update. Works are in progress, and I have some tacos with homemade tortillas to get to eating. That's a new low (or high, if you think about it) for me in terms of avoiding going to the grocery store. 😉