Sewing Joy

No secrets here.  I am struggling with depression.  Sometimes it's hard to know if it's hormonal, biochemical, circumstancial, or just plain me-being-sinful.  I suppose it is most often a combination of those things.  So, my "Daily Deliberate Dedication" to looking for joy has been hard this week! 

Certainly there have been moments where I have had fun and taken delight in what was going on around me.  Michaela had a friend over for the night on Friday and they had such a good time.  We made silly faces at the dinner table and I scored big time by making their favorite dessert EVER. 

Christian continues to grow in his self-control.  (Apparently someone else I know needs to work on this, still.) I think karate is helping so much with this.  I am very proud of him; he comes home from school and usually (after the daily clothes-changed-hands-washed ritual) sits down right away and does his homework.  He has even been practicing the piano right away, as well.  He seems pretty happy these days. 

Eliana is full of the funniest things...what she says, the clothes she puts on, her faces. 

She can make me laugh out loud and she can make me want to pull all of my hair out.

At least we have a wig now!

Looking back it seems like there have been many joyful moments.  I am going to have to be better (ha!  Isn't that just the pickle for those who are in this battle?  And pickle?  What's up with pickles around here lately?) at looking for the joy, noticing it, and remembering it.  It makes me think of when Samuel set up the stone and called it Ebenezer, recognizing God's help and making a way to remember always that he had given aid.  Aren't we, too, to lift up those times to God, thanking him and praising him for the help that he has given us?  I do think it's true that doing that becomes a habit that, in turn, can help to break up some of the self-focusedness of depression. 

This was a bit of a rabbit trail; the reason I wanted to write was to say that I have found a lot of joy in a particular project these last few days.  Many years ago I began a quilt for Michaela.  I think she was four.  I cut out squares and sewed them together in rows.  Then I started sewing the rows together...I got through about six and as I pulled the sewn part out from under the needle, what I had just sewn fell to two sides.  I hadn't checked the bobbin and it had run out!  That isn't a really big deal, but I had just painstakingly pinned sixty inches of fabric together, run it through the machine, pulling the pins out as I went along, and then watched as it separated.  Like I hadn't done a thing at all! 

I was so frustrated and it was late, so I put it all away for another time.  When that "another time" came and I wound the bobbin and tried to put it back in and start again, my machine pooped out on me.  It wouldn't work.  I got out the manual, read it over and over, rethreaded my machine, put the bobbin in and out, rethreaded the bobbin over and over.  Nothing worked; the thread bunched and went all wonky every time.  I put it away and didn't try anything with it again until we moved for the second time in Dallas and my mom tried sewing curtains.

It still didn't work!  We took it in to a shop and this guy with wicked quick fingers threaded the machine, fixed the bobbin, and sewed a perfect line on some scraps.  "Nothing's wrong with it!" he exclaimed.  He didn't charge us anything for this wonderful information, which was very nice.  But when we got home...bunch, bunch, bunch went the thread.  I don't know if our fingers weren't fast enough or if we just weren't speaking the love language of my machine, but that thing would not go right for the two of us.

Enter my new sewing machine.  Mike bought it for my birthday, after a great deal of research (so much that he impressed the sewing ladies in the store where he bought my machine!), and I am very happy with it.  I am a long way from doing anything fancy, but I did make our Halloween outfits (not Hook's!) and now have picked Michaela's quilt back up.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!  It has been so long, and was a project that I longed to finish, and now I hope that I can!  I finished the rows so that the main part of the quilt is done (by main I mean the middle of the top piece). 

I have put a kind of trim around the main, middle part, and am working on the final addition to what will be the complete top piece of the quilt. 

I think it will be very pretty when it's done.  Of course, I'm going to have to figure out how to sew the batting/backing and edge the whole thing.  And then do the actual quilting.  I don't even know what I'm talking about.  I am going to have fun doing it, though.

I have had a lot of fun, and felt a lot of joy while sewing.  I'm so thankful for Mike's thoughtful gift and for the time I have been able to spend creating in this way.  Wouldn't it be lovely to give it to her for Christmas?!  That is ambitious, I know, but...a girl can dream, right?

Comments

[Wendy]

That might be your best/worst face ever!

The quilt is awesome...I'm glad you're back at it!

[Elaine]

I have absolutely no sewing skills (unless you count suturing up mice). So... I'm very impressed to say the least!