On that note, I've been trying to be a little more impulsive in my crafting. I have been an over-thinker and a perfectionist, and crafting is a great way to practice doing things with less plan and more "let's just see what happens". On the other side of that, I've been enjoying letting things simmer in my mind passively and letting creative thoughts come. It's definitely a low pressure way of doing things, and that's good because with the amount of sleep I've been getting and the pace of chasing after two kids, I can't always string two thoughts together!
I always feel like hobbies should be low stress, otherwise, why do them? Perhaps that's part of the reason why I put projects aside sometimes. I come to some sort of fork in the road, a design dilemma, and instead of dealing with it, I leave it alone for a while (*ahem* years). Funny thing is, once I pick it back up, whatever was bothering me doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. For this blanket, I remember the "issue" was the binding, and how working with such thick fabric (flannel) was starting to annoy me. I guess I just felt done! Well, I have to say, I really enjoyed finishing this project. I machine stitched the one side of the binding, and then hand stitched the other edge so that the stitching was invisible.
It's a good thing I'm feeling favorable towards flannel, because my next project involves lots of it. In my last post, I shared a picture of these cute panels I bought on clearance at Fabricland. Well, I went to another fabric store and bought 2m each of bright blue and hot green flannel fabric to act as backing and binding. I'm planning on alternating the colours for each blanket and possibly doing an applique of the first letter of my sons' names on the back of each. Flannel top, flannel backing, and flannel binding. We'll see how far I get with this before I put it aside! Since there's no piecing to putting this together, my next dilemma is how to execute the quilting. Part of me, let's call her a sucker for punishment, is considering hand quilting to outline the features of the top panel. I would maybe consider that if there were only one, but there are TWO blankets to construct, and I would not put in that amount of work twice! I'll probably cut out the backing and sandwich it together and then let my mind mull on it a bit.
Last, but not least, I impulsively bought a ziplock bag of scrap fabric off of a lady who chops handwoven wraps (of the baby wearing variety) and (I'm guessing) turns them into things for the owners... possibly more structured carriers? I don't know, I didn't ask. Anyways, they really are a rag tag bunch of scraps, all shapes and sizes. I brought the bag with me to knitting the other night and my friend Michelle (of mprsdrose) helped me go through it and rip out any hems to maximize the amount of fabric. It feels soooooo nice on the fingers, handwoven. The baggie had some larger pieces of black and some gray. I'm thinking I could make some stuffed animals or something. The gals at knitting gave me some good ideas to mull over.
Btw, since picking up this blog again, I've decided not to stress over how my pictures look. I simply do not have the time to get beautiful pictures, so I'm letting go and just snapping for the sake of documenting and moving on. Life is too short!
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