Dumb luck

How great is this? I asked my mom if she had any old apron patterns she could send me, and in a box filled with frog and mouse parts (the fabric kind, along with those patterns) she sent me this. Tie One On Apron fans, do you see that rick-rack? Right in the pattern -- it calls for rick-rack! While I've yet to make an apron, this business has been a one-thing-leads-to-another challenge that has me a little hung up. (I find a big, juicy hunk of nice, heavyweight cotton purchased from Laura Ashley years and years ago and think it's a nice weight for an apron, but then am loathe to cut it because it is such a nice coupla yards of material and I think -- is this how I most want to use it, to make an apron? -- then I start imagining the thing I'd really like to make from it [a kimono-style top] and I find a pattern for same [although not exactly as I had pictured it, but close], then I wonder if this top with this fabric is too ambitious -- will the linear pattern of rows of perfect little tulips show off my lack of precise sewing skills so that I end up with no apron and a kimono-style top that I'm embarrassed to wear because I've made such a hack of it? And at this moment on my dining room table is the fabric with half of the kimono-top pattern pinned to it and I have to make a decision because we're having company for dinner tonight and I STILL haven't made an apron. Plus I never accurately measured the hunk of fabric so I don't even know yet for sure if I have enough of it for the top.) Ah, the dark side.

And I have all these dark thoughts particularly because I have been under one of my dark clouds of stupidity the past couple of days. I did some weird mixes of laundry, even thinking to myself, "hmmm, should I really toss all of this in together?" and then I do it anyway and of course now I have a tablecloth that's been dyed, unintentionally, a really weird shade of pink/red. I *think* that the dye transfer was even enough that I can still use the cloth (you know what I mean? how sometimes when things over-dye they look all splotchy and horrible and sometimes you do manage to get a nice, even coat of the color?) but every time I see it I will remember that I knew I shouldn't have washed it with that other jacket and that I did it anyway. To my family, I will pretend it was time for a change. And this one -- yesterday, I bought a yard of white, 100% wool felt (I was at Joann's for the kimono-top pattern and had a coupon that expired yesterday so I HAD to) and I brought it home (drumroll, please) and threw IT in the washer and dryer thinking I'd felt it -- but it already WAS felt. Oh please. Re-felting felt is, ah, not recommended. And oh, did it smell awful when I pressed it with a too-hot iron, trying to bring it back to some usable condition. It'll be interesting to see what I come up with for that. Don't try this at home.

It's not so much that I mind when I make mistakes. That seems human enough. But when I stop before doing something to consider if I really should do the thing or not, and then I go ahead and DO the stupid thing anyway -- this drives me insane. "I knew I shouldn't do it!" I moan, and I have the depressing knowledge that this will continue to be my story -- if I haven't stopped by now, I don't expect there's hope. I think I have this inner sense of luckiness -- that I can do things and get away with them because there is a measure of truth there, too -- but I wear it thin. Here's hoping today goes better.