My Nine Legged Octopus

I drew a nine legged octopus at work today. I know they're only supposed to have eight but I thought he looked better with nine. Graceful. Mysterious. Frightning. That's what I was going for. I first was inspird by some fabric I found at Spoonflower.com.

And then my boss brought in this huge welded sculpture into the store that had legs like an octopus that curved and flowed in a cylindrical pattern and rested flat against the wall. He called it a trophy. Or an award of some sort. It intrigued me. So as the rain drizzled outside and warded off any potential customers, I drew my nine legged octopus as if it were my destiny. Well, to be honest, I am not an artist. So I was quite impressed with myself for drawing anything that even remotely resembled a familiar object. Go me. Actually, the octopus has been showing up all over the place. On dinner plates, wall art, sculptures... everywhere. So get ready for a deep sea invasion of artistic versions of sea horses, jelly fish, mermaids and octopi. Get. Ready.

So last night I had these horrible nightmares that my boss was going to fire me because the pockets on my tool belt were too ugly.I kept trying to mentally piece together an acceptable looking pocket and jolted awake every half hour thinking I had to wake up and finish it before work. Ugh. Honestly, this tool belt is like a Labyrinth. I have no map, I have no skills, I am just blindly trying to accomplish the impossible and it stresses me out.

So I decided to tackle one single piece of the toolbelt instead of trying to finish the whole thing.

POCKETS

But first off I need to gather some necessary supplies:

So... wine has no positive effect on my sewing whatsover. It basically causes me to make the same mistakes over and over and over until I want to scream and then I take another guzzle of wine and carry on. It's entirely counter productive yet it makes all my adversities seem a thousand times more bearable. I am also hoping it will help me to sleep later seeing I am running on fumes at this point.

Now, last night, while blogging about my crappy pockets, I had an epiphany. Sew the sides of the pockets on first, then sew on the face. This actually worked. Now, I'm not sure if this is the most efficient method of creating pockets, but my results were encouraging.

It looks like a box-ey pocket!! However, sewing the sides on first led me to yet another unforeseen problem... an inability to properly center the piece!! So, though I have a well structured pocket, I have no room to sew on a flap because I have misjudged the amount of room I was going to have above the piece and below the hemline.!! Tragedy! Now I have to create ANOTHER God forsaken, useless pocket on another mock tool-belt before I can finally make a wearable item! I know this is all a part of the learning process but sometimes I feel like I am going to make my best piece while I am sewing with my scrap fabric... it will be too ugly to wear yet the expensive stuff will have crooked stitches and an off- centered pocket. grrr. I need more wine. Carry on.