{*~Neurotic~*}

Hi! My name is Amanda & I'm neurotic.

I feel like days like today I need either a swift kick in the ass or a long nap under the hugest pile of blankets.

I don't like to admit it but I'm SCATTERED right now. I have a bunch of different projects I'm working on, some stuff for the shop, some custom quilts, some camera straps, some Blythe dresses & some personal stuff and everything is just MEH to me right now. The few things I've completed I'm not happy with & I'll be spending some of my day with my trust seam ripper.

It's so weird how one day projects look *great* and the next day...meh. Not feeling them. I know I get like this often, I get scared of the direction things are going and second guess myself. Just ask poor Mr. McPorkchop...when we first started dating we'd have an amazing weekend & I'd suddenly become terrified & want to call things off. Scared of commitment? Scared of failure? Scared of taking chances? Check! Check! CHECK! That's me in a nutshell! My poor bestie has had to have many talks with me about this. Thanks Buddy ;)

One of my 2010 goals was to stop letting fear take control over my days, to buck up & accept the good AND the bad, to realize that I'm not a sewing machine & not everything I sew will look perfect 100% of the time, that handmade literally means HAND MADE & to be more accepting. Having a goal is one thing...putting it into practice is a different story. I'm spending the rest of this super sunny day by going for a walk around the block, maybe shooting some film & accepting that sometimes things just don't go as planned!

Tonight we are moving my sewing machine so I can have more space & sit in front of our very nice windows. Right now my sewing machine has a wall behind it and it makes chain piecing & quilting kinda a PITA, so now I'll have a window to gaze out & a taller table that has more depth. Greta (that's her name!) will take up the width of the new table, but not the length...hmmm. My old sewing space will be for cutting & for Mr. McPorkchop to do homework on.

Maybe I'll make some bunting for the window in front of my new space?!  That's a good way for some positive sewing mojo & inspiration! Plus some pandora rock music!

My question to you friends is this...what do you do when you are feeling less than stellar about the things you create? Any favorite songs that pull you out of your funk?

{*~Scenes~*}

I think I slept a grand total of 2 hours last night.

5 Things I'm thankful for this Tuesday afternoon:

• Roku.
• Smartwool leggings.
• My fantastic husband who will get up out of bed to sit with me on the couch when I can't sleep.
• My new teal & white dishtowels from Target. Spring-y, cute & cheap.
• Hot coffee from the french press: current fav is illy dark roast.

xo

{~*Stormy*~}

It's been pouring and windy outside all morning, I'm wearing layers & surrounding myself with cheer-y colors and things.

Right now I'm a sucker for berry tones. I woke up this morning and decided I'd work with these hues all day, more hand sewing. Bits of blues, bright fuchsias, tiny pops of yellow and small hints of off white. Something like raspberries, blueberries, lemons, marionberries & whipped cream.

Last night I got little to no sleep, more coughing. Poor Mr.McPorkchop *never* complained, even though I was thrashing around, cuddling close because I was frozen then kicking him because I was hot, stealing all the blankets...you know, generally being an awesome person to sleep next too! He gets home early today so I'm making him lunch, baked eggs in creamy tomato basil sauce with roasted kale & whole wheat toast. Something filling and very warm. I might add some red quinoa as well for more protein.

Speaking of food & berries! I did some quick math & realized since my New Years Resolutions I've lost 14.8 lbs! That's great! And deserves a present in a berry color ;) So I treated myself to this Sleepy King Woodland Owl Wing. Savannah is *super* nice & friends with my bestest BFF buddy Jenny & lives in Chico! Sweet! I'm not sure how it will look on me, mostly because I wear glasses and I don't want my head to look busy. Yup. I just typed that. Haha.

I hope your having a great Tuesday! Stay cozy!

xo

P.S; I use wordpress & I'm using threaded comments, which is next, except I can't figure out how to give myself an icon! If anyone knows how, let me know! wordpress is kinda scary. I'm always afraid of tinkering around with it in fear of breaking something.

{*Learning*}

I seriously can't believe its Thursday. How did this happen? Like, 4 minutes ago it was only Tuesday!!!

Today was quilting! It was a blast as usual. I quilted my clutch. I'm not 100% in love with it, my Pfaffs tension is real wonky and I couldn't adjust it right >:( I really *really* need quilting Thursdays, they just are such a great release! Everyone is so nice, so positive, it's GREAT. I wish I could get to purl n' hurl Humboldt on Thursday nights...sheesh. I start to get all anxious and nervous in public situations, clearly, I need to get out of the house more.

Liz taught me how to english paper piece! omg. ADDICTING!!!! I've made about 6 little pieces so far. Liz was talking about being unable to jut *sit* and thats TOTALLY me. I need to be working on something at all times. Watching tv? Knitting or embroidering. Reading a book? Sketching and writing down things that inspire me. Journal writing? Daily. Literally every second of my day is spent doing *something* creative and work related. I was going to make more and sit on the couch building and handsewing but we had unexpected guests of Aric & Ashleigh! WOOT! I <3 them so much.

We ended up going to Michaels where they had yudu supplies! YES!!! We got a ton of stuff and I bought a porcelian marker. Why do you ask?

Because I bought a neti pot!!!!

I ended up going to the co-op and they had a coupon so I got a cute ceramic neti pot for around $15. Score! I'm planning on drawing all over my little white pot. I want to put silly sayings on it, like "blow me", because you know, blowing my nose! Haha. I won't go into the details about it, but if anyone has any suggestions, please share! I could literally sit there for an hour and stuff would still be draining. Ick.

I'm about thisclose to a full blown sinus infection but I've been rinsing my nose every few hours to release the pressure and it's been helping. I don't want to get sick right now. I have too much fun stuff going on!!!

I'm almost done with my current batch of custom orders and they should be shipping tomorrow and Saturday! Yay!!!! I'm most likely going to extend the 72 hours to a week, just because I don't want to rush, a custom order means I take special time, ya know?! I also ordered new colors of cotton for the backings of pads, I found an amazing site with low shipping costs and it was within my budget, that always makes me so so so happy!! I've been getting SO many requests for cotton backed pads and I'm hoping people really really like them.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early to finish orders and list some liners. I'm not sure what time I'll update, as I have to go to the bank and run several business related errands in the morning (need more envelopes!!)

Yesterday I took an hour to work on a painting. I haven't painted in months. I reallllllly needed to pick up the brush again. Mr. McPorkchop & I have been collecting lots of beach trinkets lately and I want to paint them. They just make me so happy. Especially the broken shells. The little edges just make me so very happy!

I did try a watercolor block that I've never used before and I have to be honest in saying that I most likely won't finish this painting because the paper was driving me BATTY!!!! It kept buckling and wrinkling, which is odd to me because I'm a very dry watercolor painter. Go figure. But I did buy new watercolors from Daniel Smith last year for a painting class I was taking and wow. Just wow. Amazing pigmentation. Amazing colors. They just glide so evenly. They completely blow my sennelier paints out of the water. Which I *never* thought I'd ever say, considering that palette is 3 years old now and still going strong. Either way, it was really really nice to sit, listen to music and paint.

I attempted to sit down and knit last night. I was rummaging through some stuff and found an almost finished project. So I wanted to finish it and sheesh, it was rough knitting. I found a lot of mistakes I'd made and I just wasn't feeling it. Also, I'm pretty much obsessed with all of Yahaira's current triangle scarves. I super love the look of them, I've already attempted to copy her Ishbel and failed, springtime bandit is beyond my skill level, but frostberries might be perfect! Woot!!!! I might give it a gander!

This weekend we are having a very hilarious, very rowdy house guest. He canceled last weekend, so I'm not sure if he will again for this weekend, but yay for houseguests!

I have a small list of things I'd like to get done this weekend:

1. Finish custom orders
2. Update the shop
3. Make myself a pouch for my id and debit card. I'm torn on fabrics on this. VW buses? Japanese cactus fabric?
4. Finish my moms bag and apron
5. Work on Kelly's apron

A pretty modest list for me, but if we have a house guest, it'll be more like 1, 2 and 4. And maybe toss some knitting into it. I feel like everything hinges on if I can kill this sinus infection before it gets worse. One more meeting with neti before bed, plus some mushroom pills and vitamin C, I'm crossing my fingers that I wake up feeling better!!!!

What are you doing this weekend? Anything good?