It takes a village right?

It's still not even remotely fall-ish here which is really starting to bug me! It was 100 degrees all weekend. Ew! I refuse to drink a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte when it's over 75 degrees. But I have been making some homemade ones because Ashleigh has this theory that if we dress like it's autumn, eat seasonal treats and get cozy, the weather will HAVE to agree and turn autumn-y.

I appreciated all your emails and kind thoughts about my hand/arm stuff. I've been trying acupuncture which is so fascinating to me. I've gone five times so far and here are my thoughts:

I lack the ability to sit still. Truly. I am *always* doing things. Knitting. Playing video games. Cross stitching. Reading. Social Media. Just constantly DOING. And that hour where I have to sit still is HARD. Like the first time I went, I was nervously watching the clock and stressing out about my to do list. Then my friend Kelly had the brilliant idea to listen to an audiobook. That definitely helped, I asked my acupuncturist if that was ok and she said absolutely and now I have an hour of The Silkworm time. I'm not 100% able to relax fully but now I'm not feeling terrible about it, I look forward to listening to bits of the story. Last time I made it a full 37 minutes before I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. If you haven't checked it out yet, I LOVE the narrator of this series, I listened to The Cuckoo's Calling last fall and adored it. (Those are Amazon Affiliate links- meaning if you click them and buy those, I get a tiny percentage that I use to buy more books! But I obviously only suggest things I genuinely love!) I know they are JKR but go into the books just expecting a FANTASTIC mystery/crime and NOT Harry Potter and you'll love them. I am finding mixed relief from acupuncture. I knit yesterday for the first time in two weeks and was only able to finish one row of my Great Divide Shawl. I have a dr's appointment in October that some days I look forward to and other days I dread if I'm being honest.

It's really bothering me that I can't knit. And if I'm still being honest, this summer was hard. I had to cut back on all the things I love and I just felt sort of lost. I didn't realize how much of my happiness, self identity and confidence comes from the act of creating. I was really starting to feel sad about it and then I decided to find an alternative solution:

What if I asked for help? 

I had bought two skeins of Socks That Rock with the intent of having a Halloween Great Divide, I emailed Michele and asked if she could knit me one and she agreed! She's doing a gorgeous job on it!

And then! I've *always* wanted a crocheted afghan and my friend Bonnie made a beautiful one for one of her friends. I sent her almost my entire Plucky stash and suddenly...AFGHAN!

I had a pile of quilts I couldn't hand sew the binding on and I'm awful at machine binding...some cupcakes and rosemary potatoes later, Saremy machine bound my quilts for me. I *love* knowing that even if I'm not making things, I'm at least going to be surrounded by hand made stuff.

Someone on instagram sent me a private message asking how I could claim a quilt that someone else designed, someone else quilted and another person bound as my own. This message kind of threw me for a loop. It's definitely something to think about but I'm not dwelling on it. I feel like I have two choices: let my stash of collected yarn and fabric just sit & torment me or send it to friends and trade/buy/whatever in exchange for help finishing projects or creating projects I know I can't physically do. So thanks to CrinkleLove for quilting my Thanksgiving Donut Quilt and Eileen Quilts for quilting my Halloween Donuts, Halloween Squares and Hashtag Quilt and Saremy binding them for me I ACTUALLY HAVE THINGS TO SHARE WITH YOU! I'm looking forward to blogging about each one individually because they are all super fun. AND I HAVE COZY QUILTS TO BE COZY WITH! Because COZY.

I started actually taking Sunday's completely off. I have breakfast with my family at our favorite soda shop in Yuba City and then I come home and soak my arm. Last Sunday I cut out the first block in Moda's Modern Building Blocks. This project comes in two formats: a kit with moda bella solids (check google or your local quilt shop!) and a project fan card. I bought the fan card option off etsy (the shop is now sold out and asked me not to link directly to them) and I *love* it but it appears to be backordered online everywhere at the time I'm writing this.

It's this great sampler and the pattern cards are just the measurements for the blocks. I love it because it's so sweet and inspiring. Every sampler I make will always remind me of doing The Farmer's Wife Quilt with Angela and I wish that TFWQ book was set up this way! For me, it's so much easier to see a block diagram labeled with letters and then below those letters with the corresponding measurements. I sort of "hacked" my pattern, I put washi tape on it and hole punched the outer cover (this shows the entire quilt) so I could keep it all together on a ribbon. I kept being afraid I'd lose the outer wrapper with the quilt diagram on it! I had a perfect matching washi tape in my stash from one of my Project Life kits which made me ridiculously happy.

So today I listened to some music and cut out another Donut Quilt. This one is sort of fantasy book inspired?! And then I made my first Modern Building Block! It's a mix of quilting cotton, linen and silk. So much texture. I have no doubt this quilt will take me the better part of a year to work on and I'm sewing mostly from stash. I have a Big Life Event happening at the moment that I want to shout about from the rooftops but I'm afraid to jinx it so I'm not saying anything which is SO HARD but hopefully in 30ish days I'll be able to share something great with you. If it doesn't work out, forget I mentioned anything. Seriously. ;) If it does work out, this quilt is going to be extra special. I *love* long term projects because when you finish them and look back you see memories in them. Like "oh I was listening to this album and sewing this block when X happened." or "I got this fabric from (insert friend) during November and made a block instantly".

I took some photos last week of my current WIP cross stitch. It's pretty much the most autumn-y sweet thing ever. I just need to make sure it's ok to post them, I'm shooting for Wednesday :):):)

Have a good Monday!