A Material Girl

This Week

I was able to to almost finish this project, and I am so happy with it! Any perfect corners in my piecing are few and far between. Still, I'm really proud of what I was able to do, even if there aren’t very many straight lines

Sew cute right!? 

Throughout this week I was able to finish quilting the lines I wanted on the front panel. I also attached the back part of the cover, and then attached the binding. 

Backing attached with clips before sewing

Getting started on the binding. Binding is one way to finish a rough edge by attaching a strip of fabric to the edge and sort of folding it over.

Now that the binding is attached on one side, I just need to hand stitch all the way around on the back side to finish it off. I could machine sew it, but it would make the stitching really visible and I don’t want that. So, I’m going to do it by hand instead. This is the first real hand sewing I am going to do in any of my projects, and I’m excited! I hand sew a little bit when I crochet and have pieces that need to be attached together, but nothing this big or with a whip stitch like I am going to use. 

Graduate School and My New Occupation

I feel that my participation in graduate school has influenced my participation in this activity. However, I do not have a lot to compare it to as I started this occupation as a part of one of my classes for graduate school, which means I have not really done this outside of this context. Mainly, I would say that graduate school has impacted my time, which in turn affects how often I can participate in my new occupation. In a given week, I usually spend every weekday after class working on homework, and then I try to set aside a little bit of time on the weekends where I am not studying so that I can work on my sewing projects. I will say that I have not really been participating in any of my other hobbies because of the time graduate school takes up. However, there are times where I could have chosen to do one of my other hobbies instead of sewing, but a lot of my hobbies involve crafting anyways, and I felt inclined to work on the projects I had already started. 

Through the semester, I feel that these effects have also fluctuated. At first, I felt really overwhelmed because I did not know how much time homework would take, how much time I should be studying, etc. Once I found what methods and times worked for me, I settled in a bit more. This meant I was able to find more time to participate in other occupations aside from my graduate school commitments, which included engaging with this new occupation.

As things are ramping up towards finals, I again feel more difficulty in finding time to pursue this new occupation, because there are lots of tasks to complete for my classes. I might even go as far as to say that it is affecting my desire to participate in this new occupation, because I feel pressure around wanting or needing to get school tasks done, rather than do something like sew. Still, when I sit down and actually sew, I find it enjoyable and a good break from everything, especially when I get into some kind of flow state where I can disengage from other things. This new occupation has been a good opportunity for me to have something to engage in aside from traditional school work and gives me a break from those things when I need it. Truly, I think it’s helped to keep me from getting too burnt out because it gives me more semblance of occupational balance than I might have otherwise had.