Monday miscellany and Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine makes slow if steady progress...

The technique of writing down a few tasks for the next day in my bujo seems to be helping more than it has in the past, or else I am improving in my ability to break tasks into ever smaller pieces until some seem doable.

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time in the tinyworld:

Further progress is happening happened, and the embroidered armchair project is complete! Once the embroidery was done, I couldn't resist my desire to see how it would look, so between yesterday's tasks I kept returning to my work table, to finish upholstering each component piece.

Here the back panel is partially completed... Still needs leaves and fruit on the strawberry, decorating the butterfly wings, and a few stars and dots. The tutorial is a wonderful springboard to creativity, and I decided to add sequins and tiny buttons to the embroidery and felt applique. I'm enjoying this so much (it makes perfect handwork for during zoom meetings, or while hiding indoors from triple digit temperatures) that embroidering a second armchair is in my plans, in a different mix of fabrics and motifs. Maybe mushrooms?

I have been working on this in fragments of time for the last week or two... I partially followed a PDF tutorial I bought online. I was for some reason feeling a bit of disquiet about the project, but realised that buying a tutorial doesn't diminish my own creativity, but rather is more like taking a class, as a way of learning new techniques, and being inspired by the work of, and supporting the efforts of another artist, in this case a miniaturist who lives in Toronto. Making these sorts of miniature things are helping me stay at least somewhat functional given the stress of the pandammit and everything else that has happened in the last few months.

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I've been slowly cutting up large "craft sticks" (bigger than popsicle sticks and smaller than tongue depressors) and laminating them together to form shims for the trim in the bathroom that goes between the shower surround and the wall next to the sink. Craft sticks are inexpensive, and therefore warped and distorted in subtle ways that make using them as micro lumber a challenge, but they are the right thickness to serve this function. The last few days they have been glued in place to the back of the three molding pieces, which means that soon I can actually adhere them in place.

This project began when the sink and the surrounding wall were replaced back in 2014, but at the time there was nothing done to replace the edge trim. The level of the plywood replacement pieces did not match the level of the former wallboard, and there are no wall studs in the right places to mechanically attach the trim. I've picked up an assortment of handy skills over the long years, but often it take me forever to come up with a way to solve these sorts of challenges. Finding out about Gorilla Glue Construction Adhesive has been very helpful in this case, and realising I could laminate shims to the correct depth was the other bit that was needed. Now I just need to pick a day when it is not beastly hot, so I can leave the windows open and run the fans to pull the stinky glue VOCs out of the house, and I will be able to finally start trimming out around the sink and tub. Eight years. Better late than never.

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~ creativity challenge ~

Meeting every other Saturday morning with my Sewing Nomads pals is always an inspiration for me to actually get off my duff and sew. My new summer dress is gradually taking shape, and my hope is to have it wearable by our next zoom later this month. I've shown the upside down tiger gores to several folks, and no one seems to think they are obtrusive. There will be a very few tiny scraps of fabric left once the dress is finished, as most of the bits will be needed to create bias edge binding strips.

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I fell out of bed on July 30th. I seem to have thereby tweaked my SI joint, and my back has been cranky ever since. Some days better, and some days much worse. I wish I wasn't such a hypochondriac that every twinge sends my worry dial through the roof. Being a cancer survivor doesn't help with that.

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	Kestrel denim apron	ironing cart	yard waste bin
2	tiny armchair	shims for molding	recycle bin
3	-	-	ancient printer
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - spending time having to lie down because my brain is seeing rainbow psychedelic zig zag lightning. I get ocular migraines, but I don't also get the headache. Once the visual disturbance passes from my field of vision, I can get up and resume my everyday life.

Time of Isolation - Day 900