I actually wrote most of this post waaaay back in October. Then I got sidelined by a few things. Dave had knee surgery. And I had kind of a Facebook-induced emotional breakdown. I've decided that Facebook is not a healthy place for me, personally or professionally, so I won't be maintaining my Fibers of Being page any more. I'm going to continue to blog as I'm able, though I know that without Facebook, I will be reaching far fewer of you. At this point, I believe maintaining the website is still worthwhile for me as a creative endeavor and outlet, but I will see where this next year takes me.

I know I promised to share all the wonderful handmade projects I was working on for Christmas gifts, and I also promised to share how my encounter with the sewing machine went. I can deliver on the latter. The other, well, that's where I dropped the ball. I learned a valuable lesson, which is that now that my time is not really my own (well, it never really was, but now I know it), I have to become one of those people who starts working on Christmas gifts in January. At least, I do if I want to make them myself. I did manage - by just a few hours - to have Nettle's stocking ready for Christmas Eve. And I knitted her some "muck-lucks" and a scarf, which she hates wearing. I started making a scarf and some gloves for some friends, but have yet to finish them. And I did just a tiny bit of baking, which was time-consuming but not particularly successful. In other words, the holidays happened. Hmmph.

Aren't those little bunny grahams cute? Too bad they tasted like sawdust! Someday I'll learn not to be so heavy-handed with flax and brans.

Here's a brief, mostly pictorial account of my sewing endeavor, which was not as disastrous as I feared. In fact, it made me want to try another sewing project I've pinned, or make another one of these nice little pentagon balls. The hardest part turned out to be trying to figure out how to draw a perfect, equal-sided pentagon. I couldn't print the template the tutorial provided since my printer has stopped cooperating for the time being, and where's a protractor when you need one? But once I managed to get my pentagon drawn, the rest was pretty simple.

First, this is the tutorial I used: http://gotosew.com/2015/05/pentagon-fabric-balls/

And here's a few pictures of the process...

stuffing the ball (I used some wool roving)

sewing on a handle and sewing the opening shut

And that's it. You can see I finished this up in the evening. I worked on it off and on throughout a Saturday afternoon and sewed it up before bed. My guess is it would take an hour or two for someone who is efficient and didn't have interruptions. This ball is about 5-6 inches across and takes 12 blocks. The tutorial says you can make a larger ball by using 24 blocks, so I'll probably be making one of those for Nettie when I get a chance and maybe a few for gifts in the future.

I can't say I enjoyed the machine-sewing part of the project... it was sweaty and nervous.... but my confidence is buoyed a little and I do plan on keeping some sewing projects on my list so that I stay in practice.

And Nettie's been having fun with her new ball.

It’s getting cold here and since Nettie is topping the charts for everything, not least of all for head size, I realized that she is in need of some bigger hats for winter. You might remember Nettie’s early aversion to hats, so you have good reason to balk at my decision to invest more time and labor in a new batch of headwear for her. Well, Nettie may have inherited her big head from her dad. But she inherits her hard head from me. If it’s below 60 degrees outside, I worry that her ears will get too cold. I don’t know what happens when your ears get too cold, outside of an earache, but I have a general anxiety about it. So that little skeeziks is going to wear a hat when we go on walks. It might kill one or both of us, but we’ll die with warm heads.

I made another pointy-gnome-style bonnet for her, which was my favorite hat from the first go-round. The pattern is super easy and the style is cute and practical. This time I used blue yarn. Because everything is better with blue bonnet it it! Even a screaming baby! And I lined it with a piece of an old red sweater, so it’s extra soft and warm inside. I made the ties long and colorful so that maybe she’ll think they’re pretty and fun to play with. Here’s a link to the tutorial: http://www.danyelpinkdesigns.com/2014/07/crochet-pattern-little-maiden-bonnet.html?m=1. It’s by Danyel Pink Designs and she calls it “The Little Maiden Bonnet.”

I'm making Nettie do something that terrifies her - learn to wear hats, so it's only fair that I work on facing one of my fears, too. No, she doesn't know that I'm trying to be egalitarian and probably wouldn't be at all motivated by that if she did, but it's the principle. And when you're home with a six-month-old all day by yourself, you have to keep it real, folks. So yeah, I'm kicking things up a notch. Otherwise the biggest exercise my brain gets most days is trying to remember the words to "The Rakes of Mallow." (don't ask....)

So I'm facing a big fear. One that I avoid all the time, because I DO go on Pinterest a decent amount. And my feed is always full of simple sewing tutorials for toddler clothes. Which of course I pin. The problem is that I don't sew. I don't sew because I'm afraid of sewing machines. Very afraid. I avoid them if I can, and when I do encounter one I try not to look directly at it. Just being near one raises my blood pressure. When people tell me about their sewing projects my self-esteem plummets. Seamstresses actually intimidate me more than people who run marathons or don't like chocolate. Or make their own fresh coconut-probiotic yogurt. Or claim to have enjoyed pregnancy. Sorry. Where was I?

Oh, yes, sewing machines. First of all, you have to thread your blasted bobbin. Which entails multiple thread breaks and always ends in a knotted-up, swollen blob of thread that has completely consumed the spool. Then if you manage to get a working bobbin, you have to thread the machine, which for me, means reading the manual and trying to follow the two-dimensional diagram. I thread the machine about a dozen different ways before I actually get it running, and by the time I have seams running smoothly on the top and bottom, the bobbin thread has run out and I don't have the mind to run another. Not to mention the nerves left to manage the foot feed, which is the most terrifying part of all. The dreaded jerky "hum---um---um---um." The slow pressure and the suspense as you wait for the needle to lower and the fabric to start feeding through, then the dreaded "hum----hum---hum-hum-bum!bum!bum!bum!" of having pressed too hard and let the machine run away from you, taking your fabric with it. I have two sewing speeds: no speed and full speed. It makes my feet sweaty just thinking about it.

So I decided to start with something that didn't require a big monetary investment in fabric or time, a little fabric ball for Nettie. She doesn't have any balls yet and this pattern promised to be quick and easy. But really, don't they all promise that on Pinterest? Come on.

Was it quick? Was it easy? Well, I gave it a go and I'll show you how things turned out soon in another post. Here's Nettie passed out in her blue bonnet after our walk.

Dropping the ball

Because I said sew...

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