Are you Busy?

 

I am getting quite a few calls from quilt customers that start off with, “Are you busy?” I am busy enough;) On a very productive week I can probably do up to 3 simple customer quilts, depending on where else we have to be. Lately, I have just about been catching up when 2 or 3 more quilts arrive so I always have a mini backlog. I always used to have a couple of other projects on the go but nowadays I can only just about manage to fit in some German practice or tidy up my virtual island on Animal Crossing. 

I had thought that I might make a quilted cover for the Nova sewing machine but I went off the idea and bought one instead. I had planned to replace the rotten canopy on my swing chair - I did start it but did not feel inclined to finish it. I am actually quite worried that I am not excited by sewing at present. Maybe I need to buy a super easy quilt kit to get me in the mood. 

Nella and I have been having short outings to reintegrate her into society. This week we have had lunch out and visited the art gallery in Aberdeen. She needs to be reminded that Life after Covid and Anorexia is worth living. 

A Mini Break

 Don’t tell Nicola but we paid Freya a quick mid-week visit in Glasgow... Nella’s doctor said it was a good idea since she had never seen where Freya moved to last September. We were very careful to avoid busy areas. Nella and I have both had two doses of Covid vaccine and we always wear face-masks. The studenty flat is great, although on the top floor, up 77 steps and counting when you have to take a Scottie dog out for a wee. It is in the West End and even has a Waitrose about 2 minutes walk away. The surrounding streets are actually quiet and rather posh. There are super cafes and shops, selling everything from organic veg to vintage clothes. The Botanic Gardens are close by, which is where we went three times a day with Nessie. She encountered a bold squirrel and a bagpipe player for the first time. 

There was an exciting parcel waiting for me when I got home. I felt compelled to copy a Facebook friend who recently purchased a 1980’s Bernina Nova machine. I just happened to look them up on Ebay, put in a bid and bought one myself. I am delighted with my purchase. It is a simple, small, mechanical machine and it arrived in a clean, well maintained condition, although it was missing a few of its original feet and the outer plastic case had yellowed in the sun. After a little internet research, I discovered that you can coat the plastic with peroxide solution, cover it with clingfilm and “develop” it in sunlight. Amazingly, it has lightened quite a bit so I will give that method a go on other suntanned plastic, such as my overlocker. I would like to keep this handy machine in the house so I need to think of a small, easy project;)

I hosted a Zoom lesson for a Qmatic customer which worked without any technical hitches. I was able to screen-share my Qmatic computer and let her see the whole quilt frame plus my rear view using the Go-Pro on livestream. I expect I could add another camera to talk to the pupil face-to-face. I would like to record some basic processes such as setting up a quilt so the participant can re-watch those sessions later. 

This week I hope to keep up with customer quilts, enjoy the better weather and take Nessie for a pre-summer hair-do. If I can also fit in some German practice and some sort of mini project, it will be a good week:)

Business as Usual-ish

 This week felt almost like the old “normal”. I got 3 customer quilts done with all-over patterns and sent a box of quilts back to Frances in Cardiff.

I did a basic longarm lesson by phone for a new Q24 owner, just so she could have a little play before our official Zoom lesson. 

I have tried to keep on top of my online German courses. I have now reached the end of Babbel but hit a bit of a wall with Busuu as all of the grammar explanations are now in German and I haven’t a clue what is going on. I know a lot more German than when I started but would probably still speak German like a two-year old who knows a few big words. I could really do with a visit to Germany to get some proper practice.

It has rained and rained all week here. I think the jet stream is stuck and spring/summer is on hold. I had to order Nessie a waterproof jacket because she was getting muddy every time she went out. I cannot believe it is almost June weather-wise and indeed, where has 2021 actually gone so far...?

I still have no projects on the go, just dealing with day to day stuff and chipping away at a few customer quilts. I am painting Nella’s room one wall at a time so I don’t have to move all of the furniture at once. The room has very low ceilings so it is quite easy. The original ceiling paint is white and shiny, whereas the new paint is white and matt so it is obvious where I have missed bits. Still, anything is an improvement after 14 years of blu-tack and drawing pins have left their mark!

A Good Week

 Freya has been home this week and it has made such a difference having her around. We had a trip to Rosemount in Aberdeen where we trawled a couple of charity shops, visited a niche houseplant shop and had coffee in a vegan cafe. Nella has become a little braver at going out for coffee and having a snack with her sister instead of just me. It is all a practice for venturing to Glasgow, where we hope to spend a couple of nights in Freya’s flat. In the charity shop I was sad to see a collection of pieces by a local textile tutor who died. It really made me think about what might happen to all my “stuff” when I am no longer around!

I was able to knuckle down and catch up with a few customer quilts while Nella and Freya did some sisterly things together. I have now completed all 6 of Frances’ colourful quilts. Normally she visits her sister in Aberdeen a couple of times a year and brings her quilts to me for DIY quilting but due to Covid she has sent them up from Wales in a big box instead.

I did a test Zoom call with a new Qmatic user, successfully sharing my computer screen and had the GoPro live-streaming a view of the quilt frame. This could be an absolute game changer for me as it could mean that I will not have to travel in order to teach the basics. What I need to do next is record some sessions so the pupil can re-watch them later. Despite having all the gear throughout last year, and the whole country doing Zoom quizzes,I had not got around to any Zoom lessons while Nella was so ill. 

I even entered Rainbow Warliors into FOQ which is scheduled to go ahead at the end of July. I had been putting it off as I had not come up with a blurb but in the end, the online entry form only allowed 130 characters which is only a couple of sentences. I have not achieved so much in one week in ages;)

Mundane is Great

 

As I sit to write my weekly blog during this long Pandemic, I wonder what I have been up to all week. My life is not as busy and chaotic as it once was. I have not posted anything on social media for weeks. I don’t have any competition quilts under construction. 

BUT for the first time in 2 years Nella and I are enjoying going to the supermarket and having coffee in a cafe. She is still tormented by anorexia but seems far more positive about the future and is engaged with her recovery process. AND I am pretty content with such a slow life if the eventual outcome is normality for Nella.

Apart from our little outings this week, I have also managed to complete 2 customer quilts. The patterns I chose stitched out a bit slowly but I think they are worth it. I have half a dozen more quilts to do so if I get 2 done each week I will be “busy” until the summer.

After a whole year to get my act together with Technology, I have finally committed to giving a Zoom lesson to a Bernina longarm customer. I want to do the sessions using 2 cameras so I tried to do a dummy run before the actual lesson.Typically, the internet was not functioning in the workshop and the camera battery was flat so I am glad I decided to iron out the kinks before scheduling a real lesson. I seemed to have spent Lockdown buying cool recording equipment that I have not yet used so it is high time that I got  it all sorted;)

Mini Milestones

 It may still feel like winter here but otherwise things are looking sunnier. Freya has been home for a visit for the first time since Christmas and Nella managed to order a drink in a cafe in Aberdeen!

We had a lovely few days just hanging out with each other and it gave Nella a boost to look forward to a trip to Glasgow.

I got 2 customer quilts done with simple all-over patterns, kept up with my German exercises and paid off my virtual mortgage in “Animal Crossing”. 

Apart from that - I am trying not to feel any guilt about the slower pace in my life and just concentrate on Nella’s recovery journey:)

Everyday Life

It’s all very well sitting on the sofa criticising contestants on the Sewing Bee on TV for making silly mistakes but if I was ever selected then I would definitely be sent home in the first week. I did eventually get my oversized wool dressing gown finished. It is probably too big in the shoulders, could be even roomier elsewhere, is not made quite according to the instructions but I think it is a success. It does not need to be tailored as a garment for taking Nessie for a pee in the garden first thing in the morning - it just needs to be warm and substantial. 

My lovely, new clicketty-clacketty keyboard arrived this week. This means that my new computer system is complete. I had to tidy up the many trailing cables and wires. According to Youtube I should now film a “productivity desk tour”. Apparently, people (myself included) watch that sort of thing.

I managed to get 3 customer quilts done this week. These days I am pleased if I can get a simple one done in a day and set up the next one. 

Nella and I have have decided that we need to schedule in little outings to ease ourselves back into real life and to give her a purpose. This week we went on jaunts to Aberdeen’s underwhelming IKEA hub, the open day for a new zero-waste shop in Banchory and a dog-walk in Duthie Park. Non-essential shops in Scotland re-open next week so we have planned a short trip into town to visit a couple of our favourites, hopefully making some small purchases to keep them open for business. 

Gradually Getting There

I am a coffee snob with a penchant for collecting stovetop espresso makers. Freya should be able to come and stay next month so I wondered whether I could get a really big Bialetti that I could brew up in the morning and reheat later. I found an 18 espresso cup pot on Ebay and found it amusing to line all 3 sizes up on my stove. 

My new Mac Mini arrived and I am very pleased with it so far. I don’t particularly like the monitor by Dell as it seems temperamental. I have transferred all of my old files over and just need to reorganise them. I even found the PDF jacket pattern that I thought was lost. I found myself watching Youtube videos by Mac nerds and may have ordered one or two over-specced items - I now have a gamer mouse and a trackpad which is definitely overkill. An irksome issue is that I have cables all over the place. I either need some cable tidies or some Lego mini figures to sort them out for me. 

I finally finished the Christmas Friends quilt and posted it back to its maker. It was a relief to have two nice and simple all-over customer quilts to do after all that intense quilting. 

I have started to cut out a wool dressing gown for myself. I am trying to use up pieces of tweed that I already have so some of it will have to be patched together. That is a bit of  faff but less risky than making a hash of wool-tweed that costs more than £20 per metre when I am not a confident garment maker. A new series of The Great British Sewing Bee  has started on TV so Nella and I are getting inspired to try sewing up some outfits. 

She has been battling with her “anorexic voice” being angry that she is trying to recover. It is like a screaming bully is inside her head telling her that she does not deserve to get better. So far she has managed to keep going, even though her intake is still mainly “healthy” food and smallish portions. A big boost for her was receiving the Covid vaccine so now she can begin to imagine herself taking part in Life again. We just have to keep undermining the bully and try to enjoy the return of the pleasures of “normal” life.  

Little by Little

 I am still working on the “Christmas Friends” customer quilt... just doing an hour here and there. My quilting stamina is not what it once was and I just can’t stand for hours, mindlessly filling in backgrounds. Hopefully, it should be completed in another 2 or 3 hours  as it is not even that big.

Nella has continued to be committed to Recovery but that does not mean it has been easy. One of the features of her anorexia has always been orthorexia - an obsession with “healthy” food. I blame the zealous “Health and Well-Being” aspect of the school curriculum for that, demonising foods such as fats and carbs. She has tackled some of her fear foods this week, including banana, avocado and sourdough bread. We have even been on short trips to the supermarket to look at foods she might like. We are both aware that anorexia could hijack her again at any time but for now she is looking forward to the summer and beyond. We have even booked a holiday cottage in Norfolk in June so we can visit family but not have the stress of eating every meal with them. 

I am excited that I have finally decided to replace my old laptop and desktop computers for a new Mac-Mini. I had both of those old computers reconfigured but they both ran so slowly and I could never find anything. The last straw was when I was searching for a PDF pattern for the Wiksten Haori jacket. After quite some time wasted searching my archived files, I decided that I would reorder it. Unfortunately, Wiksten has discontinued it so I ended up ordering a paper pattern from Simplicity that is similar-ish. I should note that if I am ordering a PDF pattern in future, I ought to print it off immediately. What I have learned is that it would be sensible to save everything to Icloud as my files were originally very well organised but since the laptop died they seem to have got scattered all over the place. The cool thing about the Mac-Mini is that the monitor and other peripherals are all separate so I should not have to replace the entire system all at once in the future.

The 11th Hour

 At the start of this week Nella was seriously ill, not eating, dizzy and fainting. Her doctor was phoning hospitals, looking for a bed. She had an appointment on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a blood-test and find out whether she would be admitted to an adult medical ward until a place was available at a Young Person’s psychiatric unit. It was as is she had a sudden revelation that she did not want to spend yet more time in an institution, wasting Life on being ill so she ate lunch! We are now on Day 5 of “Recovery” and trying to keep up momentum. Already she has more energy and positivity - it is incredibly hard for her to give up a 2 year relationship with anorexia but she is currently giving it her all. Hopefully, Nella can gradually rejoin Life during the summer months and I will eventually get my Creativity back.

I did 2 simple customer quilts this week then began my second Lynette Anderson “Christmas Friends”. This time round the customer provided “Warm and Natural” wadding and I have added a layer of wool. It is definitely better at filling out the large appliqués. I will work away at this over the next week. The intense background quilting is what really takes the time. 

Nessie got a very smart haircut this week from a groomer who stood no nonsense and knew what she as doing. She actually looks like a proper Scottie at last. She is delighted that Nella is eating more since it means she can have 2 walks a day. 

We watched the last episode of Grayson Perry’s Artclub on Channel 4. It has been a really enjoyable series, making Art seem truly accessible. It did make me feel slightly guilty that instead of working on some hand-stitched masterpiece, I have been engrossed in my “Animal Crossing” game. If I ever have grandchildren who ask how I spent my time during lockdown I will tell them I created a weed-free world, complete with dinosaur park, diving school and funfair...

Routine

I need a schedule in Life otherwise I would probably feel as though I never got anything done. I write lists for the joy of crossing things off them.  My day is currently very regimented around Nella’s meal times, even though she is refusing just about all food again. I think a hospital admission for medical stability will be inevitable and probably soon. I have to think positively and hope this could be helpful - maybe it will be shorter term rather than months of nothing really improving in the Young Person’s Unit...

My day starts with taking Nessie for a pee, letting the hens out, making a cup of tea and taking it back to bed to check the News. After breakfast I try to spend a little time in my workshop. We take Nessie for her daily walk and I try to “study” some German. I have decided that language learning apps are all well and good but I need to write things down and also do some revision. The trouble with Duolingo was that it was very centred around racing through the lessons in order to be at the top of a league table. 

I have become unhealthily obsessed with the Nintendo “Animal Crossing” Switch game. My island now has a 4-star rating but the animated residents have apparently complained that there are too many trees. I need all the fruit-bearing trees to pay for the exorbitant charges for infrastructure. I cannot believe I can lose so much time planting virtual flowers, building a Zen garden and creating a museum complex. The truth is that Nella cannot really do much in her malnourished, hypothermic state apart from reading and crochet. I could do some sort of hand-sewing exercise, I suppose, but in my computer world it feels like I am interacting with other “people”. We humans are far too obsessed with Productivity and the guilt associated with a lack of being Useful.

At any rate, I got a big quilt and 2 mini ones done for a customer. She always provides Quilter’s Dream wool batting / wadding which is light and lofty. 

This week I invested in 2 new sofas! I had one that was second-hand, derelict and uncomfortable and the other was slightly less derelict and not much more comfortable. I did not want expensive new sofas that the pets might ruin and I hate to buy new furniture where vintage is an alternative so I sourced 2 red leather Chesterfields. I suppose you could say they have a zero-carbon footprint since they were local, delivered almost immediately and made in 1972. Unfortunately, they are completely covered up by quilts and blankets to protect them from Nessie and the cats but at least all users are impressed that they are far comfier and have nice wide arms and backs for perching! I need a schedule in Life otherwise I would probably feel as though I never got anything done. I write lists for the joy of crossing things off them.  My day is currently very regimented around Nella’s meal times, even though she is refusing just about all food again. I think a hospital admission for medical stability will be inevitable and probably soon. I have to think positively and hope this could be helpful - maybe it will be shorter term rather than months of nothing really improving in the Young Person’s Unit...

My day starts with taking Nessie for a pee, letting the hens out, making a cup of tea and taking it back to bed to check the News. After breakfast I try to spend a little time in my workshop. We take Nessie for her daily walk and I try to “study” some German. I have decided that language learning apps are all well and good but I need to write things down and also do some revision. The trouble with Duolingo was that it was very centred around racing through the lessons in order to be at the top of a league table. 

I have become unhealthily obsessed with the Nintendo “Animal Crossing” Switch game. My island now has a 4-star rating but the animated residents have apparently complained that there are too many trees. I need all the fruit-bearing trees to pay for the exorbitant charges for infrastructure. I cannot believe I can lose so much time planting virtual flowers, building a Zen garden and creating a museum complex. The truth is that Nella cannot really do much in her malnourished, hypothermic state apart from reading and crochet. I could do some sort of hand-sewing exercise, I suppose, but in my computer world it feels like I am interacting with other “people”. We humans are far too obsessed with Productivity and the guilt associated with a lack of being Useful.

At any rate, I got a big quilt and 2 mini ones done for a customer. She always provides Quilter’s Dream wool batting / wadding which is light and lofty. 

This week I invested in 2 new sofas! I had one that was second-hand, derelict and uncomfortable and the other was slightly less derelict and not much more comfortable. I did not want expensive new sofas that the pets might ruin and I hate to buy new furniture where vintage is an alternative so I sourced 2 red leather Chesterfields. I suppose you could say they have a zero-carbon footprint since they were local, delivered almost immediately and made in 1972. Unfortunately, they are completely covered up by quilts and blankets to protect them from Nessie and the cats but at least all users are impressed that they are far comfier and have nice wide arms and backs for perching!

As You Like It - Done!

 I finally committed to getting the FOQ sampler, “as You Like It”, done from start to finish. I did nothing else in my workshop all week, just working for a maximum of a couple of hours at a time. Obviously, a teaching workshop is only 2-3 hours long but I think a finished sample should show what the piece can evolve into, hopefully inspiring the student to add more to the basics at home. 

I had a vague plan in my head that the sample should include twin needle, echo quilting, rulers and couching but I was not working from a pattern. I just plonked down some main motifs and elaborated from there. I jotted down thread and tension settings so I can write up a handout later. 

Honestly, there is a far more in that one class than would normally be covered in a half day class but the piece is small and it is really just a taster of what the machine can be used for. When I run classes I show students how to use the tools, run a few techniques by them then set an exercise in working on the quilting. I have always believed in pupils learning and becoming more confident from doing and experimenting.

I used a vintage linen pillowcase on top of an old practice piece so the reverse is a hilarious mess. I tried to incorporate some of the original vintage crocheted lace but it must have been made to fit then sewn on by hand.  By the time I had quilted the old pillowcase and trimmed it the old lace was too big so I had to fiddle about at the corners to get it to fit. I wish I had stuffed it with a feather pillow form for the photos as it looks a bit lumpy and although the afternoon shadows look arty, they are not great for a class catalogue. 

At any rate, it is done - I am relieved and found that I enjoyed it once I got going. The next thing to do after catching up with customer quilts is to be brave and have a go at the Wiksten Haori jacket...