...and depression breeds productivity?

I've had a bad attitude lately. Don't get me wrong, life is fine, family is wonderful, I've just been a downer and it's all me. I've been working on improving it. Triggers are the current circumstances I can't control and the fact that there is nothing I can do really bugs me... like REALLY ticks me off. Some days it's better than others. The negative side is I'm not good company the tired-er I get (is that even a word?) but the positive side is I'm a demon getting things finished. Understand, I'm not getting the things that need to be done by Christmas finished. I'm finishing the things that have been hanging around in drawers, final-final things for projects already done and the scraps were still hanging around (like the picture above; will discuss in a second), and finding things that need to be organized better and used up so I know what I have/where it is/how much I have/if I need it. (Last month it was baking and we are still enjoying the frozen products of that bout of crankiness and so are the friends and acquaintances that received the give-aways. I think they are looking forward to me getting depressed again because it breeds pumpkin pies. For me a baking depression breeds less freezer space and I can't do that too often.)

I told LMSS last night that this passive-aggressive attitude towards the 2 projects left for Christmas gifts was amusing but not great for the thrill I get completing things and crossing off to-do lists, not to mention the people the gifts are for that I have NO IDEA what to buy them otherwise. (I actually broke down and bought a Christmas gift for the 3rd pair of potential socks hanging around because I couldn't do another speed-sock-ing like last weekend.) Also, if you knew how much I had already made for Christmas gifts you would think I was crazy for balking at the last 2 pairs of socks.

Well, I never said I was sane. Socially acceptable most days, yes, but not sane.

Anyway, now for the above picture. Those are the pillow shams for our quilt that I had thought about making but I'm not a decorative pillow/pillow sham person so I wasn't sure if it would happen. I started with the one on the left and it turned out so good I made the one on the right. They look nothing like each other but they fit ("Like us" Hubby said) and I love how they turned out. I used the leftover partially sewed scraps for the left one, simply sewing more frames on until I had the deminsions I needed, and did the back as two panels overlapping. I even had a little fun by sewing the remainder of the bias binding as a trim around the edge between the front and the back. The right one was from scraps too but I was able to plan a bit more with bigger scraps, thus more piecing, back done the same as the left but in different fabric. This eliminated all those little scraps, blocks, binding, squares, strips, etc. and left only the big pieces of fabric which are now sorted by color in my stash to live on in another project one day. I love it. I love the new space and I love how this filled a space that needed to be there, I hadn't reached the time to do it until now.

I'm the left pillow, Hubby is the right pillow. Couldn't you tell?