On accomplishments and judgment against them

Some days I know who I am, some days I think I have no clue. 

Some days I am confident with my life choices while on other days criticism really hurts me. 

We had a long weekend, and I wanted to deep-clean the apartment. I LOVE our apartment, it's the first place in my adult life I call HOME. I want to spend time (and money) making it prettier and more "us". Rented apartments in Israel are usually kept in a bad condition. Despite the (very) high prices it's not uncommon to have lousy and old facilities. When we moved in two years ago we cleaned the place thoroughly, painted the walls, hung shelves etc, but we didn't do much with the bathroom since it was all too much and we didn't want to start painting both walls and ceiling.

It was fine for two years, but after the winter the bathroom needed a face-lift. So I bought hydrogen peroxide (diluted it to 3%) to get rid of the mold, and gave the washing machine its annual treatment with vinegar and baking soda. As it wasn't enough, I also applied new grout on the bathroom floor.

I felt like a super-hero!

All happy and stinky I went to a family dinner, and proudly shared my afternoon act of magic. The first reaction was "oh, you have too much free time!", followed by another key line  "but it's a rented apartment, why would you go through all the trouble?"

This reaction crushed me. MY HOME is so important to me. Coming back from work to a place I can call HOME is a feeling nothing can replace. having a place that I love, knowing that most of it is my own creation, this is something I care so much for. Being surrounded by items that spark joy is precious. And having it all dismissed by someone implying my time is better spent doing other things is hurtful.

I didn't know what to do, so I went back HOME and went all out: painted the bathroom (walls and ceiling! primer and paint!), scrubbed the ceramic with vinegar to get rid of all the limescale, took the sinks apart to clean the pipes, removed the carpet from the bedroom floor (my landlord approved) and more. The bathroom looks amazing, and three days from now I'll take myself on a date to the flee market to find accessories. Every shower I now take is different and refreshing. And I have myself to thank for it.

But I'm still sad.  I choose to live a different life. I have a "normal" day-job I will not replace for anything in the world, I think what I do is important. But at the same time I feel that sewing my own clothes, using ecological cleaning supplies, recycling and reusing is my way of living a balanced life, feeling that I'm a positive force in the world, that I do more good than bad. I also choose to spend my (hard-earned) money on dance classes, trips, fabric and craft supplies. Should I be ashamed?

When somebody dismisses my choices, saying I'm wasting my time with all this, there still is a little voice in my head thinking that he might be right.

Should I do something else? Be somebody else? Am I a young idealist that still hasn't grown out of it? (I'm 27, will I change?)

and most importantly - am I alone with my point of view on life?

Did anyone ever insulted you, laughed at you for sewing and DIYing?  How should I react if/when it happens again?

 

I made a rug!

Yes, the quilt is DONE!! It deserves a separate post though...

I wanted a rug "to define" our living room ever since we moved into our current apartment (more than a year ago...). We have one big room that serves as our living room, kitchen, home office, and sewing studio. I obsessed with furniture organization since we moved in order to define different areas, and a rug could help. We couldn't find anything we liked, we kept saying everything was too expensive to fit in our budget but I think we have become DIY snobs - unless we make it ourselves, we don't like it.

Searching Pinterest I found some tutorials for a DIY rug but most used an existing plain rug (we do have it in IKEA here, but it costs double than in the US) or some sort of crochet pattern I assumed would take me forever to complete and won't fit our budget anyway. I didn't want a project that was too complicated or used many products I didn't have on hand. Instead I aimed for simplicity, assuming the "perfect rug" would be one I can complete in a reasonable amount of time (and money). Eventually we had the idea to use a thick piece of fabric on top of an anti-slip mat. We searched for the perfect print but we couldn't find anything we liked and was thick enough for a rug, so we decided to paint ourselves a plain piece of fabric. We chose this rug from Urban Outfitters as our inspiration (I say "we" because it was a mutual decision), after scrolling Pinterest for black and white geometrical rugs for HOURS.

I used a regular pencil to draw the pattern (with my quilting ruler) and black acrylic paint. Despite initial concerns (the first two lines turned out awful) we both like the end result, and it took only a few hours to finish the entire thing. I should say that the cheap acrylic I used changed the texture of the fabric so it isn't soft as the unpainted parts, but I know there are some paints designed to be used on textiles (I couldn't find any). I'm very happy with this project, it was way easier than I expected and the impact it makes in our small home is incredible. 

Costs:

Anti-slip mat: 39 ISL (10.61 $)

fabric: 68 ISL (18.5 $)

paint: 20 ISL (5.5 $)

Total: 127 ISL (34.61$)

Work in progress - quilt

Am I the only one overestimating the amount of sewing I can do in one (short) weekend? For this weekend I planned no less then 4 garments (moss skirt, knit top, "lady skater" dress and ultimate trousers). However when I came back home Friday afternoon I realized I had way too many UFOs to start new projects this weekend. I had the black Summer Dress that needed hemming and our new quilt I started in April. While I wanted to start new fall projects, especially after some realizations post OWOP, I know better than piling up UFOs. 

The hem on the black dress was done within a matter of minutes using a double needle. I started hemming the dress using a blind stitch, but since it's a knit dress I thought it wouldn't be sturdy enough. I've yet to take any "finished garment" pictures so I'll wait with posting about the process with this one. 

The quilt, however, is a different story. I started it months ago and planned on using a simple solid yellow for the back. But I had too many triangles left over from the top and I don't like scraps. I spent some time designing the back using the triangles but few weeks have past and I haven't started sewing it. A week ago I realized it will never happen. The new design required more cutting and calculating things (and converting cm to inches and vice versa), and I wasn't up to it. So yesterday I decided to just do it, stitched it, and today I finally basted the quilt sandwich. 

I had to move all the furniture and just barely had enough floor space to lay it down. I taped the back right side down to the floor, smoothing the fabric as much as I could.

 I was so happy to finally take the backing out of the closet. It took up so much space!

 I used all the pins I have, knowing I'll have to take the quilt off the machine and back on the floor mid-quilting to smooth the fabric and re-distribute the pins from areas I would already have quilted. 

I'm more than half way through with the free-motion quilting, my favorite part (and the reason I made the quilt in the first place...).
I hope I can finish it in next next few days, so it'll be off my "to do" list and on our bed!