Happiness

I just finished reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. It was a really enlightening read. She said that she posts six days a week to her blog. Wow! I might post six times a year. But then again, I'm not a professional writer. Maybe one day.

So this week I got out the sewing machine, because Gretchen, in her book, said to make time for your passion. I love creating. I love sewing. I've been trying to get myself to make a slipcover for my couch for years. I have the best material, and I've even started on it, which is supposed to be the most difficult part. But I have a hard time getting everything out of the shelves and on to the table, because I know I won't have a lot of time to work on it. I like to get things done in one sitting, though that rarely happens. So I was was inspired and decided to just set apart some time to work on it.

I pulled out everything and got it all set up. I started to sew a zipper onto the fabric. Unfortunately, the zippers that I had found and repurposed were broken. So I'm stuck on finding zippers for the cushions again. I know. I will find them if I just go to eBay or amazon or some online store. But at the moment, I had just gotten everything out, and I wanted to sew.

I had some old blue jeans that were just dying to be turned into a project, so I started cutting to see what they wanted to be. It turns out they really wanted to be a bag. Someday it is going to be a really cute bag, but not today. As I started sewing, and as I went through a really thick part, the needle broke, and apparently the machine broke. I took off the face plate and dusted everything out, but even with all the cleaning and replacing the broken needle, the machine will not sew.

I think maybe I should give up this passion. Not sewing all together, but sewing with a machine. Hand stitching takes forever, but maybe not as long as getting a machine repaired. If I gave up machine sewing, I could get rid of all the material cluttering up my attic. There will never be enough time in my life to go through it all, even if I do get my machine fixed. So, maybe now's a good time to spend some time on decluttering, which was step one in the book.

Thanks, Happiness Project!