Sewing Projects – Girlies!

Early last year, I found a sewing project (in a box titled ‘Kids UFOs’.. un-finished objects) that I started when I still lived in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Victoria… so I was probably 6 to 9 years old.
I wanna say 7.

Holly Hobbie

It’s a bunch of little girlies that I think are based on the original Holly Hobbies design.

initial design

My Mum traced the shape and I think I designed and/or coloured the clothes.

finished girlie

I started sewing this green one when I was little and almost finished it, and starting to do them again and finishing them all now has been very interesting, and they’re so cute!

frantic baby stitches!

I believe (I hope) this is the sewing of a 7 year old me.

almost wondering if Mum sewed that...

And I believe this is the sewing of a 14 year old me.

ah, I was too cute ;p

All of the drawings and planning and colouring was done when I was little, as you can see… lol.

initial design

This is the next one I did…

finished girlie

Somehow she ended up a chocolate girlie because I ran out of my first skin colour, but yay for diversity! All of the other skin colours are different anyway.

enter interesting caption here

My fancy feather!

I gotta say I love Macro photography... whatever that is

My amazing changing stitch size… hmm.

initial design

This was my next one, and I don’t know if it was possible I copied the design, because I don’t know my exact age when I coloured these or when I first played Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life…

Muffy from the video game Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life

finished girlie

…but this girlie looks exactly like Muffy, the desperate waitress!

a bit tricky

Weird little peeptoe shoes… the materials gotten a bit fluffy and I don’t think the material lined up very well (or is that my cruddy stiches?) because theres some skin colour showing around the edge…

it's a sleeve...

Love how I did her cardigan though 🙂

initial design

Next one, everyone tells me she looks like Cartman from South Park… damn hat lol.

finished girlie

I didn’t do the bobble on the beanie, I wasn’t quite sure how – I considered buttons, but at the moment it’s just like this.

"shut up, fat boy!" - South Park...

Heehee, fat little belly.

is it just me or could those stitches be... VAMPIRE BITES!?!

Um, her neck – I just wanted to have four photos for each girlie >>;

finished girlie

This ones fairly plain…

initial design

But the original design had terribly drawn butterflies – My Mum couldn’t figure out what they were!

reverse bingo wing? bot fly? scarab beetle? aliens?

She has a bit of a strange bulge in her arm o.o

*something witty*

I think my sewing on her hat was pretty good.

initial design

This original design looks very… um… I imagine a grubby old woman gardening.

finished girlie

But she turned out to be my second favourite (next to beanie girlie). Her skins not quite so pale in real life. I love that material I found for her skirt, because it has all the other colours in it! And, no, there is no huuuge flower on her hat, but the hat material has a flower design.

frantic stitches!

Haha, that shoe was quite frustrating..

hmm, see-through arm

The hand overlapped the skirt just a ridiculously tiny amount, so I didn’t sew that bit of the skirt.
Another thing I probably should’ve had a picture of was the sleeve – the arm has actually been slipped up into a slit in the shirt for the sleeve, because, um, we didn’t plan very well, I suppose.
I kinda wanted to sew her shoulder in so it was a complete sleeve but I didn’t.

There was a little gap of time (apart from me aging 7 years making the first girlie) between the first three girlies and the last three girlies because I had to find the right thread to match the tan skin tone, I did actually have the right colour of thread but it was quilting thread, so no go.
I’m not quite sure what to do with the girlies now – there are 3 that face left and 3 that face right.
At first I was considering a quilt or lap-quilt, but Mum was too lazy to wash some of the material, so something that won’t get washed like wall-hangings is more suitable (so the material won’t shrink or run).
I’ve moved onto sewing one of Mum’s UFOs so I’ll do a post about that next 🙂

I feel oddly alone.

That might be because I’m the only one in the house >>; lol

But, what I really mean is, I feel like I’ve been strangely ‘alone’ for most of my life.
Since I stopped going to school after 1 year when I was 7, my Mum has always said “we’re homeschooled” or “we’re unschooled” but I really don’t feel like I have been.
(don’t know what unschooling is?  http://www.sandradodd.com/unschooling)
I feel ‘unschooled’, but not in the way it should feel.
I mean, my memories probably aren’t accurate, and I’m probably taking how I feel now, or how I felt when Mum was working, and applying it to the past…
But I feel like I was just sort’ve left alone, that I was raised by myself… and the computer, and the television, and the sega or the playstation.
For my first 10 or 11 years of life, I was always home with my mother, she was always there, but I don’t feel like she’s taught me anything or really helped me learn.
I’ve learned by myself, and I feel, and I think that I act and have the understanding of an ‘educated’ person, but at the same time I don’t feel like I am… because I’m not.
And I’m confused.

And now, this year, when I’ve actually been trying to homeschool properly, I feel like I’m mostly doing it by myself, even though currently I’m doing nothing and have no motivation, I keep trying to get the motivation back, and I try talking to her about it – but it’s just like, whatever she says is the opposite of what I want.
We don’t work the same… she likes to just charge things head on, “if you want to do something do it, don’t complain about it”, but I try to think about things as much as possible.
I feel like she’s aggressive and maybe frustrated or angry with me, it’s like she’s always like “stop whining” – I’m not whining, I’m trying to understand what I’m supposed to do!
And I just get stressed so easily, and feel so pressured… pressured by WHAT?

She’s gets surprised that I’m just always Googling things every day, because I’m curious, because I want to know things, and she gets surprised when I have proper conversations about things with people – and I know it’s like a proud kind of surprise feeling…
Like, she knows me better than most people know their children, which is great, but shouldn’t she NOT be surprised anymore?
Why IS she surprised?

I just so often feel like everyone sees me as the same person I was years ago, before I became a teenager.
I don’t have temper tantrums anymore, I used to try to hit people when I was a kid and I don’t think I’ve tried to hurt my mother for 5 years now.
I was getting really good at not-swearing when I was like 11, but no body believed me, because they didn’t pay attention… then I went back to school and the not-swearing thing kinda went out the window =/
And I don’t know whether I’ve whined about this before, but I always feel like my older siblings (especially my sisters) belittle me – they act like because my opinions MIGHT change later, they don’t matter now.
Um, yes, yes they do. Because I still have feelings. And I still have thoughts. And you did when you were my age, and I’m sure that not all of your feelings and thoughts have changed now!

I don’t really want my parents to come home.
I don’t want them to come home, and interrupt me typing (and occasionally crying).
I don’t want them to be concerned, their concern is annoying, I’m a bit busy here.
Although if they come home now it’ll still be early enough for me to have a shower because I was too scared to while they were out, lol.

I’d like to work through all of the internet pages I have open so I can actually turn my computer off tonight instead of just closing the lid (tis a laptop).
So I guess I should shut up now.

I just… really wish, that I had been homeschooled properly when I was younger, although the things I would’ve done probably wouldn’t have been much different from things I do anyway – read a book, have an opinion about it, do some art and crafts, go outside.
It just seems so much simpler, like these are things I do now but I don’t feel like it counts as work now, I feel like it would’ve when I was a kid… but eventually I’d still have to get up to this shitty part now.
I’m always imagining how I’d like to raise MY kids, how I’d like to homeschool them, things I’d like them to do…
I shouldn’t be thinking about that stuff now, and the reason why I do is because it’s stuff I wish I’d had, and it’s stuff I still wish I had and stuff I’d like to do NOW.

It’s like earlier this year when I got depressed because I had no toys, and I made Mum buy me Beados and Magic Fabric.
But now I want the educational aspect of childhood, which is probably why I spent a whole half of the other day talking about pc games I used to have – I guess I can’t really say that I DIDN’T have the educational aspect of childhood… I did do a lot of the things I would have my own children do, and that I want to do now.
But I’m too old to play with Fatty Bear, just like I’m too old to play with Magic Fabric, which is now sitting in my cupboard somewhere with half of the designs used up.

Although now I totally want to play with some Magic Fabric 😮 I just don’t have anywhere to put all the stupid things I make with it.

What was I complaining about again?

Motivation = Dead (an actual real post of importance, involving what I’m supposed to talk about, which is me, and homeschooling. shocker.)

And so it has been for most of this year.
Most of my life, maybe.

This was supposed to be a year of doing things and having things and being happy.
Mum and Dad got back together, Mum left her job to stay home with me, Dad got a job, and they weren’t going to move in together and start hating each other, and I was going to start homeschooling and DESCHOOLING, to get all that crap out of me.

Then we were forced to move because the house was being sold (we rent), and we ended up in this dodgy place where everything’s cold and wet, the bathroom floors are covered in silastic for the dust to stick to, and the pantry is so big you could live in it but it’s impossible to reach any food or utilise the space.
And it costs the same as a four bedroom two bathroom house with its own beach that just popped up on the market =/

My sister moved back home the other month, robbing me of my study space, and now I’m pushed out into the corner of the dining room with my stupid little desk and squeaky chair, just after I had gotten my real office back into shape and started to muster my motivation! D=
She wanted to bring her mattress instead of being normal and sleeping on the spare bed, so she dumped it on the floor, and when we picked it up the other day there was a large amount of mold growing under it.
And the hot water system sucks… I hate cold showers.

Oh, and histamine intolerance is a bitca, as I have recently discovered.
I should be on a proper diet, because I really don’t want to be walking around at summer time with excema and hives all over my legs.
Just to share with you all.

And… I just find myself to be bitter, and grudge holding, and close to tears a lot of the time, having to think of stupid things every day.
Thinking of stupid things that stupid people at stupid school did to me in their stupidity.
Still angry about my Dad being jobless, living with his parents, which probably all started with my Mum deciding to be a lesbian in her anti-depression medicated state (and this happened like 3 years ago).
Mind you, she probably would’ve become a lesbian anyway, just not have been so “la di da everythings fine” about it.
Constantly frustrated and disappointed with my siblings, even though they don’t really live with me anymore (minus temporary younger-older sister staying), I always think about what they did/said when/where.

And homeschooling is wigging me out, even though I’m barely doing anything.
Earlier this year the home edu lady gave me a “get out of school free” card until the end of NEXT year, because I was enthusiastic and creative, but when that time comes I’m going to actually have something to show for it.
I lost the motivation to do my lessons properly about the same time I lost motivation at school (early/mid ‘term 2’), and I didn’t even have people harassing me here, and I actually CHOSE the work I was doing.

I had exciting projects, studying a country a month, learning about Gustav Klimt, designing fashion and reading Jane Austen.
But somehow my excitement went away and I was just left with “I don’t care”.
And that was my state, thats what I said to everything, school-related at least.
Because, whats the point?
I don’t HATE doing Maths, but I saw no point in it, I wasn’t going to use it.
I liked the idea of my ‘monthly country’ thing, but the work was frustrating, the research and the organizing… I can be fairly OCD/perfectionist, but at the same time I just get sick of things and give up.
Somehow I just didn’t REALLY care about anything, as nice as the ideas were or as interesting and exciting I tried to make it.

At best I’d draw, and do some English, and sew, because thats what I liked.
I’ve been trying to get back into it, but it’s really hard.
Mum told me just to do what I wanted, but I feel like that’s not enough.
My problem is I don’t know if I feel so incredibly stressed (my TMJ clicks like a… idk, something that clicks) because I’m not doing enough to satisfy myself or if I’m not doing enough to satisfy someone elses idea of what my education should be!
And thats been my problem for months now.

I guess I can’t be TOO unmotivated if I managed to spew all this out, but it’s taken a long time to get around to it, yet I’ve barely talked about anything, really.
I’m just frustrated with this half-life I’m living… I’m in limbo.

I also wasn’t too unmotivated to kick the crap out of The Legend Of Zelda : Ocarina Of Time for Nintendo 64! =3
except now I’m realising my Nintendo thumb hasn’t been painfully swollen in a while… I don’t think I’ve even played it for a week.
Even my gaming motivation is wavering T-T damn Gerudo guards!

Anyway, I’m hoping that my 15th birthday brings some sort of… rebirth.
I like to think it’ll bring the year that this year should’ve been.
I like to think I’ll kill my lazy depression with overflowing happiness and joy.
But we got half a year more in this house of fail… sigh.

Aaaand… if I keep going on, the word count of this blog will be double the amount of pages in the book I just read (which was awesome, btw, although I’m probably about to make a blog and complain about it)
I have to dry the dishes now.