Stress Relief

I don’t care what your job or home life is: whether your are the director or junior staff at work or stay at home mom, or whether you have a dozen kids or just one or live alone, life gets crazy and things get stressful. I feel like I’m at the age where I’m starting to notice what works and what doesn’t. I’ve learned that, although my commute by public transportation is almost double what is by car, by reading a good book on my way home, I’m able to relax and let go of the million voices from work, with the added bonus of not subjecting myself to road rage. By the time I get home, I’m in home mode and give my full attention to the needs there.


My latest discovery is that when I’m still trying to work something out I need a break from myself and the best way to relax and let go is to do left brain stuff. I love when everything has a place and things are neat and tidy, I just feel better. So after I’ve done the dishes and have a sparkling clean countertop, I need something else. And I’ve found two ways to do this. A few years back, in time of crisis, I instinctively started a puzzle. I hadn’t done one in years and worked wonders. By the mid-point, I was much calmer, things weren’t as bad and overwhelming. By the end, I started having a plan of action. And once I have a plan of action, I’m good. I just need a plan.

And the latest trick, making slipcovers. I have furniture and I have cats and I have scratching posts galore. And I have the usual - furniture that most people would put to the curb. But being on my tight budget, a simple slipcover can do wonders. And I’ve found the slippyness of slipcovers makes them less attractive to the feline friends. This weekend I finished off a slipcover for one of my side chairs. I had gone through a phase of buying clearance fabric with not project in mind - I knew there would come a time. Last night I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at the chair when watching TV - I’m quite impressed on how it turned out. I just realized I should have taken “before” and “after” pictures to post. Nice thing is I can still do both since the “before” is still hidden below and easily revealed.

I’m hooked - I just spent this morning, before popping into work, pinning and cutting fabric for another chair long overdue. The slipcovers are remarkably easy and relatively fast to finish. I’m still in simple mode and didn’t bother trying to work in piping - that would probably move the project from stress relief to stress producer. After cutting and pinning everything together, I pulled the old sewing machine out. It’s been awhile… A long while. Actually, it took me about 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it on - it’s my grandmothers and this was the first time using it since I inherited it. Another 10 minutes threading the thing, only to find it’s broken. The motor hums along but nothing moves. I tried all the buttons and no luck. I did the math and I think it’s probably not been used for a good 15 years. Grandma was a sewer. She probably put a billion miles on the machine. I grew up with her sewing all the time. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sewing much near the end of her life and then it sat in my project room waiting to be used.

While trying to figure out how to turn the thing on and thread it, I did stumble upon a bunch of stuff on the internet. It’s one of the last good sturdy sewing machines of an era gone by - a Kenmore by Sears. Sounds like it’s still worth keeping, unfortunately I’m not finding much in where I can take it in the Boston area to get it tuned-up and fixed. Any suggestions?

In the end, I gave up on the sewing machine and went old school. I hand sewed the entire slipcover. I figured I can always go back and machine sew the seams again once I’m up and running. The nice thing was that I did everything but the bottom hem while the slipcover was still on the chair. It took awhile - practically a day of just sewing. But, again, it was the journey, not the destination for this project. I felt much better at the end and had a wonderful accomplishment to boot! Next up, finding really nice but cheap fabric to buy for the sofa slip cover.