Getting an obsession is like getting a cold, only over a longer time period. First there's that little tickle in the back of your throat, and then you feel a little achy, and it's harder to get up in the morning, and the next thing you know you're sneezing at a Gatling-gun pace and getting carded when you try to buy Dayquil. 

Sewing obsessions have the same progression … first you start to notice something you've never noticed before, and then you start thinking "huh … maybe I could make that," and pretty soon you have fifty browser tabs open, you're abusing Pinterest, and you're thinking about the shoes you're going to wear with a dress you haven't even made yet.

I'm a little bit worried that I'm at the tickly-throat stage of an obsession with guipure lace, which is just FLAT OUT DUMB. First of all, the number of occasions where I could wear a guipure lace dress in a single year is measured in the average number of fingers in obscene gestures. (And that's in a year where I decide to get married. Again.) Secondly, I've never, ever sewn with lace, and thirdly, it's ungodly expensive, and fourthly, well, fourthly, I already have a curio cabinet of previous sewing obsessions, which, like all good obsessions, are only dormant, not dead. (Shirtdresses: I am talking about you.)

But: isn't it pretty? 

So: is there any kind of zinc lozenge you can take to ward off a new sewing obsession? Please send help.