insomnia and ice cream...

i am having trouble sleeping of late, a fact with is made all the more frustrating when i find myself laying awake next to a person who has probably never missed a single night of sleep in his life. he has zero understanding of how/why insomnia happens. as a result, he keeps offering the same advice.

him: you just need to learn how to blank your mind.

then i usually give him one of those looks that speaks volumes... and none of it is stuff he really wants to hear.

the worst part is that i know exactly why this happens. i get stressed and/or frustrated, and my mind instantly starts working overtime, which is one of the chief enemies of a good night's sleep. my stress response in life can pretty much be summarized as 'insomnia and ice cream'. meanwhile, he starts snoring at the first sign of stress. so unfair.

him: it will sort itself while i sleep.

then i just shake my head... and i start digging through the freezer for some Häagen-Dazs, because clearly i need to do a bit of stressing on his behalf.

so, this is where you find me. i had about half a million things i wanted to do before it starts snowing again. Summer is halfway through, and i am struggling to maintain enough sanity to fall asleep most days. i think it is fair to say that some of those ambitions will have to be tabled for some other year.

for example, we made lofty plans to reupholster our two sofas this Summer. we even went to the fabric store and walked through aisle after aisle of pretty, suitable fabrics. that experience proved to be overwhelming. there are approximately five billion upholstery fabric designs in existence, and there is a bolt of every single one of them in that fabric store.

that is when the panic kicked in.

what if i change my mind about which design i want while the guy is already cutting the fabric? what if we mess up the fabric and have to spend another chunk of money to replace it? or, what if we realize that we really are too stupid to operate his dad's air compressor? [if you were here when we tried to get the thing started for the first time, you would already have the answer to that last question.]

so we decided to start with something slightly-less-ambitious, and we got enough fabric to refinish the dining chairs... and we also took a trip to Home Depot to purchase an electric heavy-duty stapler that did not leave us both feeling like we just failed an IQ test.

this is what the chairs looked like before. seriously, what kind of lunatic covers chairs in almost-white fabric?

he removed all of the staples...

and we added the new fabric to the cushioned bases.

a few million super-heavy-duty staples later, and we had new fabric on the chairs.

we chose this fabric in part because it lacks total symmetry, which means that it will be a challenge to my brand of OCD for years to come. there was a small bit leftover, which has been added to my sewing pile to be turned into a zippered bag for storing yarny things.  

i feel almost ready to tackle those two sofas... just as long as there is ice cream in the freezer for when things go terribly wrong.

6: he's not crazy...

relief finally came at about four in the morning. it was brief, intense, and very much welcomed by all. i climbed out of bed, threw open the balcony door, and just stood there, savoring the spray. rain! 

i felt a familiar presence near my feet, and i reached down in the darkness to pick up the Little One. then we just stood there... watching it fall. rain!!!

one more brush against my leg, and Baby Bear (the "middle kitty" of the three) had stretched herself out by my feet, right up against the screen door. she too wanted to welcome the newcomer. rainnn!!!

and so we did.

it should be noted that i had to diffuse a growing conspiracy theory after i pulled today's topic out of the treasure chest, which—i was convinced for a short while— had the power to read my mind.

me: i really want to go to the fabric store, but it's too hot for any non-essential trips outside. i think i'll wait till tomorrow, when it cools down a bit.

that was yesterday.

what is the connection, you ask? well, i wanted to go to there for the express purpose of buying a roll of fusible interfacing (stuff you iron onto fabric to make it a bit stiffer) so that i can finally use up of the stack of fabric i plan to turn into bags for housing my various knitting projects.

here are all the bits of fabric, destined to become bags one of these days.

so, there i was this morning, lungs bursting with petrichor, face sprinkled with a healthy spray of sanity-restoring rain, when i came to the firm decision that i would definitely go to the fabric store today! then i shoved my hand into the treasure chest, and... well... you already know the rest. i am still not completely convinced that it really was a coincidence, but i will keep the "alternative explanations" to myself for now.

i honestly figured that his presence with me in such a setting would deter any unnecessary spending. i would get in, grab some interfacing, and we could kill a bit of time elsewhere, and maybe grab lunch before heading home.

boy... was i ever wrong.

worst part was, it was all him.

we took less than three steps inside the store before he was trying to convince me to buy the first thing he saw. a wooden basket with all sorts of compartments for storing sewing supplies.

me: i don't really sew enough to need something like that? why would i get it?
him: because it looks so cool.

at one point, he was lamenting that we are not into nautical themes in our home decor. he said this while gazing up at a display of drapery fabric featuring lots of shells and sea creatures. i just shook my head in wonder.

i made the mistake of suggesting that we should check out the bin that every fabric store on the planet has, where you can get great deals on the odd bits from the ends of the rolls (or the pieces that customerd changed their mind about buying after it was already cut from the roll). it is the perfect place to go diving for 'odds and ends' for making project bags.

i looked at a few pieces, and i was ready to resume looking for the interfacing... but he just kept digging deeper through the bin and adding stuff to my shopping basket. not only did he find a few great pieces for bags, but he also convinced me to buy a couple other pieces so that i can practice sewing knit fabrics (the kind that t-shirts and other "stretchy" garments are made from), as i have very little experience with such things.

he spent some time considering a display of large pieces of foam, and considering their usefulness in the noble art of puppet-making. yes... you heard me right.

i decided that i wanted a bit of black denim to mix with some of the patterned fabrics, and while i was walking away from finding that, he convinced me to get a bit of some cheery, colorful fabric to add to my bag-making stash.

then we got to the button aisle, and things went completely sideways.

he found a corner with a bunch of Disney buttons and such things, and he proceeded to "ooh" and "aah" over every single one of them. luckily the place was nearly empty, or i would have had to explain to curious passersby that "he's not crazy... he's an animator".  i may need to print that on a t-shirt.

he came across these chicken buttons, so now i own a cardi-worth of chicken buttons because he really liked the design. makes perfect sense.

i do not keep a lot of sewing supplies on hand these day, so i had to get some zippers and threads to mach the various fabrics. and, yes... he even enjoyed that part of things.

then... finally, we went to find the interfacing. and, as we were heading toward the register, he decided that he really wanted those perfect-for-puppets pieces of foam after all, so he ran back to get them. not sure why, but i sense that there is some puppet-making in my near future.

so, i will share the (planned) bag-making combos from the new pieces of fabric. this is also meant to serve as a note-to-self for after i shove all these pieces into the same drawer, and i find myself six months from now trying to remember what combos i intended for the whole lot.

this was the first piece of fabric that caught my eye. i wanted to emphasize the bright yellow with a matching zipper and thread, but i am considering using the black denim for the bottom of the bag, to pick up those small bits of black in the design. or i may just decide to skip the denim on this one.

there was very little of this floral fabric, so it will definitely be combined with the black denim. i cannot decide if i like this better  with the beige zipper and thread or with the black.

this was the colorful fabric he suggested. he also picked out the thread and zipper. i love this combo more than i can explain.

this is a heavy fabric of the type that is used for outdoor furniture, so it should make for a durable bag with either the antique gold or the black zipper. i might add a black denim bottom to this one too... if i have any of it left by that point.

these are two identical pieces of knit fabric, for practice sewing. i folded one to better show the print. i need to go hunting for more of this, because i want a set of big-kid pajamas made out of this stuff.

and a different practice knit fabric. this would be lovely as a skirt.

and, last, but certainly not least... three meters of the unremarkable fusible interfacing that started this whole field trip to the fabric store.

i could have just ordered the thing online, and skipped the trip, but then i would not have twice as many sewing projects to ignore. joy.

oh, and if you ever get a chance to spend your life with someone for whom "embracing your inner child" is both a career requirement and a "calling"... just take it! i guarantee you will never regret the experience.