It has been a personally eventful month and I’m not going to write about most of it here. Mostly just stuff that rocked my little nuclear family, but that probably seems fairly small to anyone outside it. I will share that I’ve decided I’m probably autistic, as well as bipolar. It has been interesting, looking at my life through this new lens. It was all-consuming at first, but has now faded into a smaller hum in the background as I go about my business. You can’t think about your whole life through the lens of being autistic 24/7 indefinitely, you know?
I finished that mulberry dress I wrote about a little over a month ago, and have worn it joyfully several times since then. That was the last sewing project I’ve done. I’ve been daydreaming and planning for more projects, but the selfish pursuits part of the deal has mostly kept me away from the sewing machine. You see, Christmas is coming, and my other new hobby, stitching, is a thing that can be given to other people, so I’ve been spending more time doing that instead. I’ve finished a little pink and green design on a mat that I plan to give away, and I’m currently working on a small piece that I’ll finish into an ornament. It isn’t exactly a sacrifice, doing stitching instead of sewing. Both activities give me a lot of pleasure, both allow me to achieve that meditative flow state that I love so much. But I do want to at least make myself a bright pink open cardigan/jacket type garment before fall is over. Probably that will happen towards the end of October.
I also put my handwork skills to use repairing a pair of pants for my husband. His favorite pair of pants got a big rip in their front pocket from his keys a couple years ago, and he hadn’t worn them since. He brought them to me, and asked nicely if I could think of a way to mend them. I decided I could, and I made a little patch which I hand stitched into the inside of his pocket. It isn’t an invisible mend but it isn’t as visible as it could have been. I tried to convince him to let me use dark green thread, but he chose the more subdued grey that almost blends into the tan pants themselves. Doing the mending project brought me a surprising amount of pleasure, and now I smile to myself every time I see him wearing the pants, which happens a lot since they are his favorite pair.
That’s all for now. I’ll try to post here again before too long, maybe talk a little more about how I came to self-diagnose myself as being autistic. Or maybe I’ll just talk more about my stitching.
