[Institches] February Project - Done.

Dear Donk,

I couldn't have been more relieved to see that I wasn't the only one behind schedule on our February project. What is the deal with this month anyway?

For me, the project started out enthusiastically enough. I mean, I marched off to the fabric store way early on in the month and made an enormous PITA of myself at the cutting counter with my four big rolls of fabric and spools of ribbon. I'm pretty sure the guy (Yes, a guy - Holding a ragged scrap of paper and a green zipper. Random.) behind me was muttering not nice words in a foreign language while I instructed the hammerhead with the scissors how to cut my fabric properly.

What a long, long day it was.

But I did feel ahead of the game, all flush with fabric and notions for the sleeping mask and bedside organizer.

Then I realized that despite my enthusiasm (and insistence) for the bedside organizer, it was not to be. No, not with a mile-high temperpedic mattress atop a platform bed. As it turns out, that particular bed configuration leaves no space between which to sandwich an Amy Butler bedside organizer.

Oh.

So, with a pile of lovely green fabric that I'm sure will appear elsewhere in future projects, I gave up the dream of peaceful evenings free of abrupt hardwood floor remote smashing and redirected my focus to the sleeping mask.

I thought this would be a quick and easy task. One requiring little skill or finesse that would end in fast perfection.

Not exactly.

For one, I didn't realize that quilting involved quite so much skill in the line drawing department. WTF? How do people quilt entire, well, quilts? What a GDF nightmare. I mean, diagonal lines every 1/2 inch? Please, Amy, what do I look like? Some kind of ruler magician?

That part of the project drained my enthusiasm nearly to the core. I had to stop after drawing one million little blue lines on the muslin to the point where everywhere I looked everything looked cross-hatched. The lines were just burned right into my retina.

Luckily (or so I'm choosing to see it), my stumps formerly known as feet were unable to do more than sit at the sewing machine last night due to some overly annoying blisters, so I finally unearthed the cross-hatch nightmare from the craft shelf and managed to run it through the machine and produce this texture known as quilting.

Honestly though, after all my bitching, it actually turned out real nice. Despite the fact that the entire time I was sewing the thing I was thinking, "This is going to look ugly and fucked up and I'm going to have to shamefully show it to all the Instiches -along'ers like the loser that I am."

So as not to make a liar of myself, I put off the embellishment until last when my creativity was at an all-time low resulting in the unoriginal embellishing technique known as "buttons for eyes." No need to say it, I realize that this was a very kindergartner-with-macaroni kind of approach. But, it was the best I could come up with to satisfy the theme while not totally destroying my now-perfect rendition of the sleeping mask. And it gave me an excuse to use some cute buttons that I had hanging around from an old project.

*Sigh*

Anyway, I'm ready to start thinking about next month's project now, so bring it on. This month the project(s) are your choice and I promise to come up with a more interesting theme despite my recent uncreative performance. Plus, I'll be sending out a surprise to this month's winner! Perhaps that will redeem me in the eyes of all you sassy crafters.


xo
Finny