Settling into Sewing at Home

I've been at home in SF for a few weeks now, but am still having a hard time settling into any sort of routine, at least when it comes to sewing. Part of it is that this is the home I grew up in, and because of that sewing is not an established pastime for me here. Every time I've been in this house in the past, reading has been the mode of recreation. So the plus side is, I've been reading* a lot more (my husband has experienced a little of this, too, as normally he watches TV or plays Call of Duty at our apartment in TCOCC; here, there's been no TV-watching to speak of, and Skyrim has replaced CoD). It feels odd to be in a place that is so strongly home for me, and yet not. This is the home I grew up in with my parents as the authorities, where I had a curfew and had to be accountable to them for my time. Now, as an adult with a husband and a cat (who is having his own issues adjusting**), it's strange navigating between being technically autonomous, but still wanting to respect and honor them.

Anyway, the result of all that is my sewing time has been erratic. If my parents don't have errands they want me to run that day, I can get in lots of sewing time, but only as long as it's not too cold downstairs. In case you didn't know, San Francisco, especially the Sunset District, is notoriously wintry even in the summer. Foggy and overcast outside = cold and gloomy in the office where the sewing machine is set up. Those sunny days when I took pictures? Flukes. And coming from SoCal, where I'm seriously spoiled by sun, I have a hard time sewing when it's not brightly lit in my sewing room. I know, I know, this is nothing compared to people in the UK (like Jane and her seasonal sewing lamentations!), but my sundress plans seem a little silly right now. I've got my Spiderman dress for the throwdown with Tanit-Isis cut out, but that's about it. Even then, the cutting was ridiculous as all three cats wanted to get in on the new fabric.

Adding onto the weather is the actual sewing situation -- I've come to terms with most aspects of my mom's old Kenmore, with the exception of how long it takes to switch out the bobbin thread. It's funny, I can forgive its rattling and occasionally erratic feed dogs, the lack of needle position adjustment, and even its temperamental thread snapping, but the non-drop-in bobbin really bothers me. Funny, what things get to you, isn't it? There's also the fact that the seam ripper here has a perfectly round handle, so whenever I set it down it rolls away, off the edge of the desk, and into the trashcan, as if it was trying to shirk its job. Okay, I know, now I'm just being a drama queen. Also, I have the sewing machine set up on part of my dad's desk in his office, which is much less space than I'm used to, and if he needs to use his desk that gets precedence, of course. Sigh.

I think the solution is a quick and easy project, just to get my sewing mojo back, but I only brought relatively complicated projects with me. Or at least more complicated than I feel like dealing with now. Maybe it's time to return all the books to the library so that I have to sew something. The silly thing is I even miss sewing! I just can't bring myself to go downstairs and brave the cold, cramped office.


Wow, that was a lot of whining. I'm pretty sure I should have just titled this post #firstworldsewistproblems, especially in light of my mom's griping about hobby sewing vs. making a living.  

Have any of you ever had similar issues? Tell me about your most difficult sewing situation to make me feel better! Alternately, you could just tell me to shut up and stop egoizing.


*World War Z and The Dispossessed and several short story anthologies.
**Walnut's uncle Gummy has turned out to be a bully. He's always jumping out at him from behind corners and trying to bite him. This has made Walnut very nervous about being upstairs, but we spend most of our time upstairs since it's cold downstairs...looks like we're going to have to just suck it up and wear sweaters in July.

Right after this picture was taken, Gummy jumped at Walnut, who went racing across the house and back downstairs to his safe zone. There's been quite a bit of yowling going on as well.