Trigger warning, this post discusses suicide.
I am a bad mom, I’m not good enough, nobody likes me, I’m a failure. These are just a few of the negative thoughts that I have often. As with many others I am at war with my brain nearly every single day.
When I was growing up, I was made to feel that my feelings didn’t matter as much as others, that I was sometimes a burden, and that I should just keep my head down and keep quiet. And when I was 17 years old, I grew such hate for myself and my environment that I made a plan to end my own life. Thankfully, I said something to someone before I followed through because that is what I needed at that time. I was admitted to a psychiatric facility for four days before I was released. Since then, I have managed my dark thoughts and depression with medication and therapy.
More recently, just in the past few months, I am believed to have Bi-polar disorder and ADHD. As I’ve previously stated, this past year hasn’t been the easiest and I’ve definitely fallen into the darkest thoughts again, and in this darkness, I came up with a vision on a design I wanted to have come to life to depict how my brain is 99% of the time. This vision included an ariel view of the human brain, one side blossoming with flowers and kind words, while the other was dark, cloudy and filled with hateful words. I know how to sew but my 5-year-old can draw better than I can, so I needed to find someone who could help me bring this idea to life.
Initially, I asked a designer who had designed something for me in the past, but her schedule got busier, and we had two different interpretations on my vision, so it didn’t work out. I love to print all of my custom design fabrics at Raspberry Creek Fabrics so I posted in their Facebook group asking if anyone would be willing to work with me, Liz was the first to comment. I quickly messaged her and told her what I was thinking. Later that night, or the next morning (She’s FAST!!) I got a first glance at the design and to see where she was headed with it. After a few adjustments with coloring and placement it was ready to go! I love how she was able to see what I was envisioning, and if you look at the image below, you’ll see that the negative thoughts are actually the brain waves.
Luckily, last weekend RCF had a “Custom Print Party” (a sale) so, I was able to print my design on a couple of fabric bases at a discounted price (WINNING!). Liz did offer to put the design as a panel layout, but I wanted to play around with it and not be committed to just one option, so she sent me the image in different sized files, one even large enough to print and make a blanket (which is a genius idea!) I like to use Canva to create my panel layouts, it’s free and pretty simple. In addition to the panel printed on sweatshirt fleece I also printed on double brushed poly. My planned patterns were the Sav Sweatshirt for the fleece and the Green Tee using the DBP. Side note: you can get the Green Tee free with a code found in their Facebook group.
When the fabric arrived Monday night after ogling over the design in person, I noticed that I may have messed up on the panel placement on the sweatshirt fleece. I had one panel printed on the entire yard and chose to have the panel closer to one side instead of in the center in hopes to get more out of the yard. I thought I measured correctly but, it was in fact too close to one side which affected my original pattern I had in mind.
After doing some searching for an alternative and asking around, I decided to give a new to me pattern a shot. I purchased the Bianca Pullover. It still has the dolman type sleeves like the Sav but isn’t as oversized, so I was able to make it work! I looked over the options and all the tester photos to determine which I thought would look best for my body shape and the panel and decided to do the hip length option, hemmed instead of with a band. This gave me a longer cropped look without showing my midriff. Choosing to omit the band also brought me out of my comfort zone with what I’m used to wearing.
While my initial plan didn’t work out, I’m still thrilled with how it came out and also feel like my mistake was a blessing in disguise. Personally, I think the sizing of the panel would have been too small for the Sav and would have been more hidden, whereas the Bianca option I went with it’s perfect. I’ve already created new panel layouts in a larger scale and plan to order from RCF soon so I can still get my Sav with this design, because I can never have too many Sav’s!
Thank you for joining me today, I hope I inspired you or maybe brought you some sort of comfort. If you have your own personal design in mind but can’t execute it yourself, I highly recommend you reach out to Liz. She is so easy to work with, truly listens to you and as I mentioned above, she is SO FAST!
For anyone else struggling with mental health issues, please remember that you’re not alone and you are loved! If you know anyone who may be struggling, please don’t keep quiet. Continue to talk to them and remind them how special they are and if there’s anything you can do to help them out.
I also put together a Tik Tok on this if you’d like to check it out. This will also be posted to my Instagram sometime today.
Until next time,
Afton
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