An author's collection of thoughts and stories
After I finished knitting this blanket, I promptly put it away and forgot to get any pictures. After all that work dying, spinning, and knitting, I can’t help but feel paranoid of the destructive capabilities of toddlers. I don’t want anything to happen to this blanket before the new baby is born.
I did get a progress photo though, because I really liked the way the colors were coming together. They feel so magically alive.
Last year I decided to crochet amigurumi toys for the kids to help knock down my yarn stash, and they all excitedly picked out which ones they wanted from my pattern book. I got about three-quarters of the way through the third one when I hit burn out on the single crochet stitch, and decided to take a break.
I finished knitting my new baby blanket a couple of days ago, and decided that my next project should be catching up on the promises I’ve made to the older children. I finished amigurumi #3, and have started the prep for #4.
The fun thing about #4 is that I don’t have any of the requested colors on hand, but I do have plenty of cotton yarn and dye. So, I measured out some skeins and currently have them curing in dye.
Anyway, you can basically extrapolate from there what my daily life is like — a swarm of kids, and an adoration of creativity that goes quite deep.
Which is why I think it’s funny that I’ve started writing sci fi.
I don’t have any interest in owning “smart” soap dispensers or smoke detectors; I don’t see any use for them — aside from secretly hosting rogue AI hiding from human knowledge on the internet, anyway. But, you know, existing as a flesh entity, there’s no point in me owning a soap dispenser that runs on electricity when I can have more fun spending money on crafting supplies.
Heck, I’ve spent the last few months loving my antique spinning wheel. In terms of technology, I’m practically moving backwards with my personal habits.
Yet, I’ve been discovering that sci fi lets me explore more philosophical topics inside a world that is still very relatable to what we live in, and I’ve been discovering potential ideas that exceed what I felt capable of when I was writing fantasy.
As for the technology, I don’t have to expand that much outside of what we currently have — we all know it’s only a matter of time until Amazon starts using drones to make deliveries. The rest can easily be waved away with “technology magic, lol, :smiley emoji:.”
I’m getting really sick of the word, “Easy.”
It dawned on me shortly after New Years, when I was snacking on some left over cheese ball while reading the cracker box, and I realized that the “easy” recipe on the back began and ended with slicing some cheddar cheese.
Oh gosh, I don’t know if I could do that. I might accidentally cut the pieces crooked or something. Maybe I’ll just get some canned EZ cheeze instead.
The world has developed an obsession with “Easy this,” and “Easy that.” We’re constantly inundated with tips, tricks, and hacks, for instant results. You know that wonderful feeling of accomplishment that you get when you succeed at doing something difficult or complicated?
Probably not.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the whole world who doesn’t want to take the easy way out. Popping a food tray into the microwave might be easier, but it doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as cooking from scratch.
I’ve even been criticized for not doing the easy thing with my own personal life. No, giving birth naturally at home isn’t as “easy” as getting an epidural in the hospital, but at the end I get an intense rush of love and euphoria that those hospital moms miss out on entirely — they don’t even know it exists. Not to mention, I can live my life with the confidence of knowing that I ain’t no weakling. I am up to the challenge, my will is strong and unbreakable, and I know how to endure until the end.
I don’t really care about ‘easy’. I have no interest in it.
After all, death is easier than life, but that doesn’t justify nihilism.
The best rewards are found in the tasks that are hard.
I’ve been posting more of my crafting recently, even though this is my author blog.
Why?
Because it’s part of my process.
You see, we are multi-sensory creatures, and it’s been thoroughly proven that activities like fidgeting and pacing are soothing and help the mind work more effectively. Instead of sitting with silicone push-pop toys, I’ve opted to work on handicrafts to keep me busy. What can I say? They make me feel good about myself.
When you feel mentally blocked, work with your hands to get the creative ideas flowing again. Honor and respect the mind-body connection, and don’t underestimate the power of physical movement.
My major secret of productivity is that every time I sit down and take a break, I reach for my current crafting project. That’s all. Sometimes I think about my writing as I work, and sometimes I just want to meditate. Usually, by the time I put the kids in bed, I have an idea to write down.
And remember, it’s not about speed, it’s about persistence.
Bonus, I have a lot of neat stuff that I’ve made.
Phew, still alive.
The kids recently watched The Emperor’s New Groove, so my husband and I decided that it would be fun to make spinach puffs for our New Years Eve party. I thought they were scrumptious, but the kids ate off the pastry and left the spinach mixture in the middle. *eyeroll* They really liked the cheese ball, at least.
Then ’round about 9pm, I started wondering if the kids really needed to stay up until midnight, or if I could get away with sending them to bed, lol. In the end, the one-year-old was the only one who fell asleep early.
And, of course, we kicked off 2022 with our traditional special breakfast.
For the moment, I’m in recovery mode. I’ve spent most of today lounging with yarn and knitting needles while the kids play video games and watch movies, and boy-oh-boy do I need the break.
Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that you enjoyed the holidays, and that the next twelve month bring plenty of amazing new adventures. 🙂
I need more wool socks. My feet are freezing.
Today I came across someone talking about their “pre post-apocalypse” hobbies.
It made me laugh, because I’ve talked about how useful my skills with sewing and knitting will be after the collapse of civilization.
How blase we’ve all become about the end of the world.
I’ve dun-gone killed my stats by not updating enough. XD
I suppose you can blame eccentricities, since I lost all interest in the world outside of my home, and busied myself with my own business. But creative sorts are supposed to be inexplicably weird and moody.
At this moment, Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I never really feel 100% ready for it; there’s always something on my to-do list that I never get around to. The kids are getting more ecstatic with every passing day, and managing the chaos gets more and more impossible.
I’m relieved that I don’t have to see any relatives this year either. It still bothers me that one of them declared my Christmas tree “ugly” after I laughingly described some of the homemade ornaments the kids have done — not because I think that there’s anything wrong with my decorations, but because she didn’t even have the decency to feign politeness. Or enough of a soul to realize that the point is for the memories, not narcissism.
Nope. Don’t miss it.
In other news, I have officially decided to put The Scion Suit on the back burner. I’m not emotionally on the same page anymore, so I’m giving it some time to simmer before I come back to it, rather than mechanically type out everything I had planned.
But don’t worry.
I’m not going to abandon it.
After all, if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s to finish what I start.
The year I left Christianity was the year I began to love Christmas.
Let’s face it, sitting around my grandma’s living room listening to someone read out of the Bible was the low point of Christmas Eve, especially when I was a child and wanted to run around playing with cousins that I hadn’t seen in awhile. When I was freed from the admonition to “keep Christ in Christmas,” the burden of guilt went with it. I no longer had to chastise myself for feeling empty every time I heard the nativity story.
You see, I never experienced Christianity the way everyone around me always said they did. There was no sense of love or comfort, no still small voices, and no answered prayers. Oh how hard I tried, and all I ever felt was a growing sense of hollowness.
That year, I began to enjoy Christmas for what it was, instead of feeling guilty for what I wasn’t.
Santa Claus and presents, homemade desserts galore, decorating a tree … It’s all wonderful fun, and makes for a fantastic celebration with loved ones during the darkest days of the year. It’s one of the best holidays we have, and I adore dedicating an entire month to it.
It reminds us how beautiful life can be.
Unfortunately, I never feel like I’m allowed to explain why I celebrate Christmas despite not being a Christian. I’m far too accustomed to receiving catty criticism every time I try to explain how I see the world, so I’ve learned keep the magic to myself.
But maybe if I share just a little bit, someone else will learn to see this holiday in the same way I do.
I learned most of what I know about crafting through books that I picked up from thrift stores, usually published in the 70s and 80s. That probably makes me a major weirdo for my age group, but since I was living in a vehicle at the time I started, I didn’t have constant access to a computer or money … so yeah, major weirdo.
In 2017, I bought a book that had been freshly published, mostly out of morbid curiosity, and I found it to be a major disappointment. For starters, the title was grossly misleading. Secondly, the author left out a huge amount of relevant information, but went into an excessive description about how a-may-zing the purple disappearing pens are for marking fabric, followed up with demonizing the blue water-soluble pens as the most useless invention ever.
Everything the author said was accurate enough for where she lived in the deep South, where it’s humid. But where I live in the arid West, it was thoroughly horrible advice. On dry days, I have used the purple pens then watched the marks disappear in a matter of minutes. I only use them when I need to mark something immediately before cutting or sewing it, because the marks aren’t guaranteed to be there ten minutes later. Blue pens are by far the better option for the climate I live in. So far, I haven’t seen any modern creators mention that local weather patterns can have an effect on tools and fabric.
Books from the 70s are a priceless resource for learning how to accurately mark fabrics when neither pen is an option, especially because they don’t assume that you’re too lazy to spend five minutes on doing a good job.
The sewing and embroidery community has since decided that “heat erase” pens are the greatest thing ever, but I strongly recommend against them — on the grounds that they don’t actually erase. It’s color changing technology, and heat makes the ink turn from dark to white. The ink is permanent, you run the risk of bleaching the marks into fabric that isn’t white, and if there’s any chance of the project being exposed to cold (mailing a Christmas gift?), those marks are going to come right back in all their hideous glory and make a bad first impression. So please, save the heat erase pens for design sketches and notes, and don’t use them on your fabric.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because of the growing popularity of debunking videos. I know that crafting is a little too niche and nowhere near as dramatic as, “THIS WILL EXPLODE ALL OVER YOUR FACE AND KILL YOU!”, so the chances of it getting the same analysis are fairly null. But frankly, it was the misinformation spreading through blogs that killed my interest in using the internet and contemporary books as a learning resource years ago. I still preferentially turn to decades-old books to figure out what the heck I’m doing (and don’t get me started on youtube; slogging through a 20-minute video to get five seconds of clarification is a painful waste of time, and I don’t like your personality enough to want to simply watch you exist).
So, here are my two cents on marking fabric:
Purple air erase pens – good for humid climates
Blue water soluble pens – good for dry climates; rinse thoroughly with cold water before washing with soap to prevent residue
Chalk pencils – good for dark fabrics, may stain pale shades
Heat-erase pens – pls don’t go there
I recommend Sewline products, and heavily use the pens, mechanical pencils, and glue sticks myself.
I can’t help but wonder, are people are ever going to get sick of exploitative clickbait, and cry out to know reality instead? The debunking videos still don’t get anywhere near as much attention as the “hacks” do.
You ever have those moments where you type up an introductory paragraph, then decide that it sounds too formulated and generic?
Probably just me.
I’ve been wanting to make personalized Christmas stockings for my babies for *awhile*, but never got around to it. I realized that this is the last Christmas that all of my children are going to have single-digit ages, so I decided that this year is THE year.
And yes, I am aware that I’m not using Christmas-themed fabric.
Highlights include: using batting for the first time ever.
For some weird reason, most people are oblivious to the fact that not all sewing is equal. I specialize in making everyday dresses for women and girls, which has completely different criteria from, say, evening wear or lingerie. I have never done quilting before … and I’m not feeling remotely converted, lol.
Piecing the fabric together is simple enough (with squares, anyway), but OMG THAT BATTING. I purchased the “low loft” stuff, but it still seemed excessively thick, and it wanted to stick instead of letting me position it neatly.
At least I knew enough to use the walking foot that came with my sewing machine, which probably saved me a lot of grief with getting the layers sewn into place. I get the feeling that otherwise the batting would have instantly stretched out of shape, and turned the whole thing into a mess.
Next, the cuff, which is the personalized bit, so no sharing online.
By Autumn Rain 