This is your brain on work

This is week five of working full time, and it has been an adjustment from my days of working multiple part-time gigs. My brain is more rested and less scattered, which means that I've been feeling more creative. But I have less time than ever, and my energy gives out at about 8pm every night, giving me only a couple hours to get work done.

Tiredness and distraction have lead to a lot of mistakes. I miscalculated the math on a knitting pattern that I'm writing for a sock yarn sweater, which necessitated ripping back 3 inches. Of sock yarn. Knit in the round (so it's more like 6 inches).



I keep making mistakes at my sewing class, too. I'm sewing the wrong pieces together, or cutting out some pattern pieces twice and omitting others. So far I haven't made any fatal mistakes, but I have wasted more time than necessary. And I value those hours in the Vancouver Community College studio -- there's a serger there, and really good irons, and giant cutting tables. Continuing ed. students are only allowed in while class is in session, so I try to make the most of the access while I have it.

So right now I'm thinking about how to manage this combination of increased creative drive and decreased time and energy. I constantly want to start new projects but I know that I should finish the huge pile of unfinished work, which includes but is not limited to:

• Green floral muumuu (sewing class project). Done except for hand-finished bottom hem.
  
  


• Grey linen skirt (second sewing class project). Can I get it done in my final class on Saturday?


• Aforementioned sock yarn sweater. I'm dying to get this done. I like the design, I like the yarn, I'm not loving knitting a million rows of stockinette on 3.25mm needles.
  
  
• Black sheath dress from Built By Wendy Dresses. Done except for the hem and the edge of the sleeves.
  
• the "Mary Blair" Wrap Skirt from Sew Everything Workshop. Basically done, just needs a stitch or two around the hole in the waistband where the tie passes through.
  
  
  
• Red Late Shift mitts for my sister. Seriously, finishing these will take about 90 minutes. But do I do it? No.
  
  
  
• This secret project.


• The brown gingham thrift-store makeover. Close to done. Moderately successful so far, but I think I like sewing skirts from scratch better.
  
  
  
• All the half-knit sweaters from 2010. There are three that I can think of.


• The first sweater I designed, which is awesome-looked but needs a button band.


• A proposal for this great sweater idea that I had last Thursday. I'd like to have it done so I can just send it out when deadlines come up, since working to deadlines isn't very practical right now.


• Get my portfolio in showable condition for May 31.

This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you decide to start designing patterns AND learn to sew AND start working on your design portfolio at the same time.

I've been thinking that I need to start setting my goals by quarters (just like we do at work!). I think I can accomplish a lot of this list in the next three months, especially if I ignore the sweaters from 2010.

To keep myself motivated, I'm going to let myself start a couple new projects, too. I'm not sure what those will be yet, but things I have been thinking about lately include

• Printing on fabric. I bought some inexpensive block-printing supplies in Portland after Lotta Jansdotter's book got me all fired up. This post from Poppytalk on making simple fabric prints just added fuel.
  
  
  
• Knitting with the silk mawata I purchased after seeing the Yarn Harlot's post on unspun silk mittens. I've sketch out a rough design, but unspun silk is a new medium for me and I want to give it care and attention.

(I'm also dying to break out some of the great dress patterns I bought in Portland, but those will requires muslins and pattern modifications, so the will have to wait until Q3 at the earliest!)