Getting WIPed*

I have a tendency to obsessively throw myself into a new interest- living, eating and breathing whatever has currently caught my attention.  Sometimes the interest lasts (like pen and ink drawing, knitting, politics and activism, baking) but usually I'm quickly bored and forget that I was so desperate to learn everything I could and spend all of my time with whatever it was that intrigued me.  Like scrap booking, bead loom bracelets, watercolor, Russian, swing dancing, linoleum print making, embroidery, nearly every thing I studied in college, college in general, now that I think of it.... All of these were abandoned, and I have the half finished projects to prove it.

I mention this because I think my histamine response is the same way.  While the ragweed pollen is still in the air, my allergies seem to have petered out.  After the initial punch in the face, my immune system has decided it's bored now and is letting me live my life like a normal person again.  So, hurrah.

As a result my brain seems to have come back (not being totally zonked out on Benadryl probably helps) and I have an attention span again.  Which means I've actually been able to do something more productive with my time than watching Law and Order reruns and folding Kleenex into decorative shapes before stuffing it up my nose.

I've spent the last couple of evenings at my parents' to use Mater's sewing machine and have her hand hold me through my first ever pattern.  It was initially supposed to be for the epic Halloween costume of nerdiness, but after cutting out the pattern pieces Mater announced that it's construction would look stupid in the fabric we picked out.  We decided to give it a test run just in case, and rather than use plain muslin we raided her stash and picked out something that had enough yardage.  Which is how I came to be making the most hilarious dress ever.

Actual pattern pieces!  Also, I hate pinning.

Pinning can go right to hell if you ask me.  I understand the necessity, but my fingers definitely spent a good amount of time being quite hurty.  Maybe if I was a little less useless at doing it I wouldn't hate it so much, but here we are.  Also, ow.

Here's the half finished dress:

I'm holding the dress up, not doing the chicken dance, promise.

I know, the '80s have thrown up all over me.  It's awesome.  And it's vintage, which proves that I can't hop on board with the current resurgence of '80s fashion even if I wanted to because I was there the first time.  I'm just a little sad that I don't think I can ever really wear this because it is so outside my comfort zone even though the dress itself would be quite flattering.  But happily, we found another heap of fabric in Mater's stash that is within my comfort zone, so I'll be returning to this pattern and making a dress that I'll wear more than once.

Since Halloween is fast approaching the '80s dress of fluorescence is being put on hold so that I can actually have something to wear.  Went and bought a new pattern today and rather than actually work on it I ate my weight in pizza, watched Univision's coverage of the Chilean miners' rescue and played with my niece.  After several hours at my parents' I have this to show for myself:

I am a paper cutting champion.

I've also been working on a sweater for myself.

It's very pink.  I may dye it.  Because color freaks me right out.

Even though I have a veritable heap of things to be done for holiday gifts.  Progress is slow because of both the kittens refusing to not try and kill my wiggling needles and yarn and surprise moth damage necessitating me splicing every other row or so.

Yes, moths.  The majority of my yarn stash is in zipped plastic bags, so I'm not terribly concerned, but I have a large box of wool that was given to me by a friend that is unprotected.  The yarn I'm currently using came from that box, so I just know that there's an even larger tragedy lurking in it's depths.

I have a hard time being too concerned about not finishing knits for other people because, if I continue with my usual habit, I'll think it's too boring to look at in a few days and leave it abandoned for at least a few months.  Wait, this sounds familiar....

*Title courtesy of the Boyfriend.  Because, hee.