Christmas Cheer

 

I am so glad to report that Christmas 2021 has been a far happier time here than it was a year ago. Obviously, the Covid pandemic is still prevalent and nobody has yet come up with an instant solution for climate change BUT all 3 of my children are home for Christmas. Last year Nella was on a hunger strike during a short pass home from a psychiatric unit - this year she has been battling anorexia and tried to join in as much as possible. She is so happy to be here and hopeful for the year ahead.  

Christmas Day was very casual - I had my usual cooking frenzy on Christmas Eve but kept it all simple and did not bother with a fancy table setting or crystal dishes for the sauces. We did not even watch any telly because Nella taught us how to play Dobble and Uno. There were lots of lovely parcels to open throughout the day, including several pre-loved items and I received a super home-made knitted hat from Nella. 

Boxing Day has been even more chilled out so far - we have plenty of leftovers to eat, we enjoyed a walk up to the stone circle in Durris and intend to spend the rest of the day watching a film or reading - bliss!

Christmas Lights

 

We are edging towards Christmas and have been getting into a festive spirit. I wrapped all of my gifts scruffily in brown paper. It was meant to be printed with a rubber wallpaper roller but the paint took ages to arrive so it remained naked. 

Nella has been working at Crathes Castle for the Christmas Light festival. She has been dressed as The Grinch, Olaf the snowman and an Elf in freezing conditions. The lights in the walled garden were spectacular and it was a lovely experience. 

I made Date and Apple chutney twice using my Granny’s vague recipe. She wrote down rough amounts and simply said to cook in a low oven for a couple of hours. The first batch got forgotten and turned into treacle but the second round was much better. 

Freya has arrived home for the holidays so I feel that our low-key festivities can now begin:)

Low Key Festivities

 I have completed all of the customer quilts that had to be done by Christmas so now I have to prepare a couple of custom ones to quilt on and off as time allows. 

Nella and I had an evening of Christmas shopping, just doing M&S, Paperchase and TK Max. We did not actually buy much - it was just nice to experience the Christmas lights. We sorely miss John Lewis in Aberdeen to get into the festive mood.

I have not gone overboard on making Christmas gifts this year. I sewed up a few obligatory face masks, a couple of handy pouches and one or two hair scrunchies. Nella foraged some evergreens that had blown down in the storm to make a wreath and we made a batch Scottie-dog gingerbread cookies. She was not able to do any of those things last Christmas so all of that is a blessing. 

Fergus celebrated his 20th birthday for which I made a tasty, if rather childish, chocolate cake. Unlike a couple of years ago, he did not go out partying which is just as well as there is yet another wave of Covid (omicron) on the rise. 

My plan for the week is pretty simple - wrap gifts, possibly in home-printed brown paper and at least try to brush Nessie daily…

Send in the Troops

 

There are still quite a few households without electricity following Storm Arwen, over a week later. Soldiers were deployed to check on remote properties - maybe they supplied hot food and blankets. At least we had the wood burner and a camp stove when we were without power - many homes are fully electric and have no alternative means for cooking or heating. 

I went for my Covid / Flu booster this week and felt that I could have been in a Dystopian TV Drama. The Aberdeen vaccination centre is now in the ex John Lewis department store. There was a queueing system like at an airport followed by field-hospital booths in what had been the Menswear and Haberdashery departments, where my jabs were administered by a British Army medic. 

I was bemused and impressed when a 4x4 pickup truck with blazing arc lights parked outside and a guy in full hi-vis waterproofs knocked on the door to check up on Nella. He had been deployed by someone at the Council to see if a vulnerable person living at our address was OK. 

Up-river from me somebody has lost a few logs! They had washed up onto the bank and I managed to pull a few out of the water and load them into my festival trolley. 

After the hiatus of the long power cut I did not get much quilting done and I was keen for some quilts to be collected - since ordering several rolls of wadding and big cones of thread my bank balance was shockingly low at £5.10…

Quilt-Con 2022 rejected “Rainbow Warriors” from its juried show. I was quite disappointed but recognised that many other amazing quilts had not made the cut either. To be honest, when I visited Quilt-con in Savannah, I thought that many of the entries were very similar to each other and it was not a huge show with many diverse entries, unlike Houston which is also juried. What really hacks me off is that I have to subscribe to become a member of the Modern Quilt Guild in the USA before I can even enter so it is an expensive process. It makes me appreciate that FOQ encourages everyone and simply offers a discounted entry fee to existing Guild members. I will enter “Rainbow Warliors into the World Quilt Show if the UK is entering and see what happens, otherwise it will join all of the other vanity projects on one of my workshop shelves!

At the end of a wintry week, it was decided that we would cheer the house up by putting up the Christmas tree. Nella missed all of that last year as she was in hospital. Although she is not exactly thriving, it was a significant reminder that she is always better off on the road to recovery.

A Storm Blew In!

 

Nella and I had a grand day out in Edinburgh on Tuesday. We drove down and got the tram in from the Ingliston Park and Ride. It took about half an hour to get to the city centre then we had to tramp for a while to get to the Grassmarket, where we had booked a table for lunch. I wished I had a paper map and bus timetable to find my way around as I do not think using a phone is as useful. We ended up stomping for a total of 5.5 miles that day by the time we had visited the revamped shopping centre where there is a lovely John Lewis. We got Glühwein from the Christmas Market off Princes Street - it was not nearly as good as a German Christmas market and there were significantly fewer stalls this year due to Brexit and Covid. We did have a lovely day, although it was a bit rushed. We agreed that it would be great to stay overnight and explore vintages shops and galleries at a more leisurely pace. 

I have been trying to crack on and get through a few customer quilts, particularly as I ordered several rolls of wadding and a batch of thread. I was running low and reckoned that prices would creep up or there could be supply issues if I left it too long. Everything was actually in stock but prices have risen since my last order.

We have had weeks of mild, autumn weather and I kept saying how unusual it was for me to go out for a walk without a coat in late November. On Friday a storm arrived out of the blue and blew down trees, power lines, fences - leaving us without power and wifi all weekend. We had to cook on a camping stove and spent all of our time in one room with the wood burner. It highlights how reliant we are on electricity and it was pitch dark by 4pm. It is surprising how much effort goes into staying warm and wearing multiple layers of clothing. Our power was off until mid afternoon on Tuesday and after 4 cold, dark nights the novelty had definitely worn off. I felt relieved and privileged to get the power restored! We have not had a power cut this bad in years and it really made me think how challenging life is for people who are homeless.

I Forgot!!!

 

 A Customer Quilt

I have been writing a weekly blog since 2008 and it has become a ritual or habit that I write something every Sunday unless I am busy travelling but this week I actually FORGOT to do it. Perhaps it is because Nella and I are trying to keep weekends sacrosanct since she has started college? Instead of catching up on customer quilts or working on projects we have been trying to do as little as possible.

At any rate here are some photos from the past week…:)

Cutting into a quilt to make a coat

 Visit to a Chinese Supermarket

 Sunset at Brigton Farm

 We went to the Theatre!

 Nessie's new Raincoat

 Homemade Tofu

 Another Customer Quilt

Virtually Busy

 

As I write my weekly blog I scroll through my camera roll to see what I have been up to during the week. This week there were only 2 photos of a mushroom ring in the garden and a very nice customer quilt. It would seem that I have done very little of any consequence yet I have felt constantly busy. 

Nella and I had a trip into town for coffee and books, we walked Nessie daily as usual and she was busy working on college projects. I did some tidying and mending, taught a Qmatic class by Zoom and did a follow-up video afterwards. So I have not exactly been idle - I just did not have any photographic evidence or a project to prove that I have not been playing on “Animal Crossing” all week!

Coos and Coats

The cows in the field next door escaped this week. After exploring our driveway and leaving a couple of cow-pats, they trundled off down the track and trotted speedily up the road, causing a bit of a traffic jam. I phoned the farmer as soon as I saw the herd dispersing and he quickly rounded them all up again.

I quilted the Bewitched quilt (to be repurposed into a coat) using a Karlee Porter design called “Swivel Circle 2”. The gold lame looks fab, of course and it has made me wonder if I should invest in some new, shiny gold boots;) 

Images of quilted coats filled my Instagram feed after I posted a photo of my progress and I sent a link to Nella on how to make a quilted hoodie. We found a suitable looking sacrificial quilt on Ebay. It was made from 1980’s furnishing fabrics, minimally and badly quilted with a hideous satin ribbon binding. We cut up a teddy fleece blanket and over-quilted it with a simple meandering pattern. The resulting quilt was thick and heavy, not ideally suited for garment making. She drew around a hoodie to make a rough pattern and it went together reasonably well, although the sleeves and the body did not quite line up so some jiggery-pokery had to be deployed. We broke 5 needles and could not overlock anything due to the bulk but it looks OK and she likes wearing it. IF we ever make another one, I will make sure that we use a very thin, cotton quilt!

Nella and I decided to go to the local firework display since the weather was reasonable and there had not been a bonfire in Banchory at all in 2020. In all the years of living here I ave never seen such a huge crowd. It seemed that there were no other organised displays in the area and even the Aberdeen Beach show had been cancelled again. We stood at the edge of the park, not wanting to venture deep into the throng and as usual, the firework show was great. Some of the coffee shops were open late so we got a takeaway afterwards. 

I got one customer quilt done, using a nice digital pattern called Marmalade. After a couple of weeks of having nothing on the go it looks like I will have a steady stream running up to Christmas. I suppose I will have to start thinking about doing some C-shopping and / or making before too long…

Halloween 2021

 

Another week just flew by, probably because we had been away and we took most of Tuesday to catch up with ourselves. I had to think of a project since I had no customer quilts waiting (although there are now quite a few, all of a sudden). I dug out a long-forgotten reincarnation of “Bewitched” that I had intended to become a show quilt once but then realised that it was not really show-worthy. It seems to be all the rage on the internet to make coats from quilts so I have jumped on the band-wagon and will use the Wiksten Haori/Unfolding jacket pattern. It has also inspired Nella to make a quilted hoodie out of an old quilt. I was not prepared for her to sacrifice a family quilt so we ordered a scruffy one from Ebay.

Other things that we footered about with this week included having a go at making Tofu. Of course we can buy it but it is always fun to give these things a go. It worked fairly well so we soaked it in a marinade and took it with us when we visited Freya for the second weekend in a row because she had invited Nella to a grown-up Halloween party. Nella has really struggling lately with motivation for anorexia recovery so we decided it was a good idea to go to the party despite having cold feet at the last minute. We are hoping to go to Edinburgh for a wee trip soon just to keep reminding her that Life can be fun!

Nella's 18th Birthday in Glasgow

We had a funny kind of week, anticipating our weekend in Glasgow to celebrate Nella’s 18th birthday with Freya. I got the zippered leaders finished while Nella made sure her college work was up to date. We also made her a simple halter-neck top and a couple of hairbands. The thing was that we thought Freya was coming home midweek to go to the dentist so we did not plan much, thinking that we would be doing stuff with her. She cancelled that because she felt too busy so we were kind of kicking our heels for a couple of days at a bit of a loose, holidayish end. 

We arrived in Glasgow mid-afternoon on Friday and found the Volvo an even trickier beast to park than the Landy. There is no parking anywhere near Freya’s flat so I had to hunt for some suitable street parking where I could safely leave it for 3 days.

We had an itinerary that included a yarn festival, lunch out, a visit to the Tenement Museum, pumpkin carving and even a cocktail. It was a lovely weekend, far better than last year’s hospital birthday, even though Nella is still very much struggling with her anorexia. Trips like this are essential for reminding her that there can be a life of freedom and fun if she chooses Recovery. It is hard, though because after an event such as this, the “voice” in her head will demand a relapse. We have to stay several steps ahead which is why we are planning to return to Glasgow this weekend for Halloween…