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...