Misfit Musings
Entertainment, culture, hobbies, & more!
All the non-political things.
All the non-political things.
Guest Contributor Heather
Greetings. I come before you to tell you the story of how I came to be interested in the art of sewing and indeed all things crafting. It’s good to have a hobby or two. Believe me: If I can find time, you can too. I hope you will enjoy my tale and that you can gain some benefit from it.
My husband has two girls with his ex-wife, and I have two boys and a girl from my previous marriage. We also have a daughter together. (These are obviously the CliffsNotes, but my favorite part of my story starts there. I figure the other important stuff will surface organically.) My life was 100% centered around my kids and my hubs. I was feeling too emotionally dependent on them. I tend to be pretty high strung, I think that is just my natural state. I am also what most people would categorize as a 'neat freak.’ Brian insists I have O.C.D., but the professionals disagree with him. Obsessive or not, I was seeing that the more I cleaned the same thing over and over every single day, the angrier I was that I was cleaning the same damn mess for the third time today and OMG WILL THIS EVER END?!?! And it is okay. It is perfectly normal to feel frustrated sometimes. But I was feeling frustrated a lot of the time. Brian runs a business from home and also has a longstanding hobby: He has always been into drag racing. It has been a wonderful outlet for him practically his whole life. I... um... well, I liked Netflix. Is that a hobby? Since I tend to be a total introvert due to my sometimes crippling social anxiety (like, holy crap, you have no idea how awkward things can get), I hadn't really noticed that I totally drifted away from all of my friends. I wasn't even reading books. I was in the ultimate 'mom rut': Wake up. Clean. Feed kids. Clean. Naps. Feed. Clean. Homework. Clean........ Don't get me wrong. I was not unhappy. I was on autopilot. I was surviving. I was bored out of my mind. I was unnerved. I was anxious. BURSTING at the seams with energy and thoughts and ideas and ABSOLUTELY NO OUTLETS. But, my house was clean, and the dinner was on time, and everything was perfectly boring. So when I was trying to think of what hobby to adopt, I decided I wanted to develop a useful skill. I picked sewing because, well honestly, it was because I have four little girls and I LOVE monogrammed stuff for girls. But, I have four of them, and there is no way I can afford the kind of monogramming I was dreaming of for that many people. So, after a short search online for "how to sew," I quickly found there were more than enough free resources available for me to teach myself at home. It seemed like a hobby that could at the very least save a little here and there with repairs and craft sewing for the house, but could also eventually be profitable if I decided to take things in that direction. Hubs gave me a sewing/embroidery machine for Christmas in 2014, and that is where my love of crafting originated. It just sort of blossomed from there. Now I try all kinds of stuff. Jewelry, Mod Podge , vinyl, sewing, clothing, layette, monogramming, pet clothes, DIY birthday parties, DIY EVERYTHING. I am definitely a craft supply hoarder. There are worse qualities to possess. Initially, I tried selling the things I was sewing in an attempt to earn extra income in a time of need for my family, and as a way to pay for even more craft supplies! Alas, I was never happy with the quality of my work, manufacturing was slow going due to the constant state of momming in which I kept finding myself, and I just sort of gave up on that little venture once it was no longer necessary. But I made several wonderful friends who share my new passion, and I learned to sew. I developed a general love of crafting. Glue guns, glitter, and beautiful little mistakes that nobody will notice anyway. The idea for this article is to have it become a series documenting and sharing my not-quite-fail-not-quite-pretty craft projects. You know, the ones you can't throw out because you worked so hard on them, but can't display because the kids won’t agree to tell people THEY made them? It will inevitably also include a few of the things that influence my hobby, like the kids’ friends’ last-minute birthday parties (these tend to be some of my best work), the dirty dishes (or rather, procrastinating to put off washing them), and absolutely anything and everything that I decide is noteworthy enough to write about. But hopefully, it will mostly be about the sparkly monstrosities that I attempt to replicate by following various Pinterest tutorials and/or $1.00 sewing patterns. I hope that you, my adoring audience, will enjoy my musings and (mis)adventures :)
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MusingsThe Misfits have a wide variety of interests & passions and because we love to express ourselves, we wanted a place where we could ramble on about them. Don't judge our palates, we don't claim to have good taste! ArchivesCategories |