While I'm in a finishing mood I thought I'd tackle the Tiny Album blocks. I started them in 2017, and I've been casually working on them ever since.
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| 64" x 75" |
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| 77" x 88" |
One whole night was devoted to getting the borders on my Ohio Stars top.
I was on a mission to fill up my box of 2.5" x 4.5"bricks so that I'd have lots to choose from for my leader-enders. I didn't want to pull out the scrap drawers and cut strips, so I weeded all these charm squares out of the charms drawer.
I was making good progress on my Beloved blocks, but I kept thinking,
"Why am I making an 80"square quilt. I don't like square quilts. I could leave off 2 rows, have a 68 x 80" quilt and that would suit me better."
So that's what I did.
I've been busy with EQ8, working out plans for the projects I have on the go. I always feel more in control when I know exactly what I need to complete a project, so it's worth the time away from the sewing room.
This is how my leader-ender of Stacked Bricks will look. I haven't got the pink triangles around the edge drawn properly, but this is good enough to be going on with.
My time in the sewing room over the last few months has been spent jumping from one thing to another and getting sidetracked by new projects, then trying to dig myself out of the resulting chaos. That hasn't been very productive, but I've had fun with it, so that's what counts. But last time I was home, 2 weeks ago, I got a bee in my bonnet about my Beloved project. I had kitted all the blocks I would need and packed away all the fabric, but then I decided that I just needed to get it done.
It's not easy to sew the blocks together; the seam allowances make a big bump no matter how they're pressed, and I wasn't looking forward to that. It seemed that the only way to deal with that was to just get on and do it, so I sewed like a maniac and got half the quilt in one piece.
Life keeps changing, and because I'm committed to helping out DD Seonaid and her family, my life changes with theirs. 2 weeks ago Hayden started another Fly In Fly Out job, this time at Olympic Dam, a mine in the north of South Australia. At least he's in the same time zone this time, so he can easily stay in touch with the kids. He's working away 2 weeks, and home for 1, which is a lot kinder than his last job where he was gone 4 weeks at a time. I'm still working out how long I will stay with Shonny each fortnight to help out.
The first 2 weeks were a blur as we worked on getting the kid's routines established without Dad there to help. Finn is the hard one to work around; when he's hungry or tired there's no reasoning with him, and there have been some epic screaming bouts from him. Now that he's nearly 6 months old we've introduced some solid food to his diet, and he's certainly calmed down. His hunger pangs are savage, so a bowl of rice porridge is helping overcome that. He gets so excited when he sees his bowl and spoon, it's hard to get around his clutching hands, he wants it so bad. Mealtimes are so easy when they like food and are willing to try anything.
It will be hard work for Shonny to do it all on her own, especially bath and bed time, but if I use my time down there to make freezer meals and make sure the washing is up to date then I'm sure she can cope without me when I come home for weekends. It will all evolve into a workable routine over time I'm sure, and I'm still enjoying spending such a lot of time with the grandkids. Not everyone has that privilege.
Thank you for all the well-wishers on my last post. If I haven't replied to you privately its because the comment came up as no-reply when I tried to email you. But I'm grateful for your concern.
My many projects are in a terrible mess, littering every surface and tipping my sewing room into utter chaos. I'm cutting so many different size pieces, for so many projects, and I'm just making a bigger and bigger mess all the time. For some reason I focused on my Beloved blocks mentioned in a previous post, and resolved to find out exactly what I needed to kit up and how many blocks I already had.
This post has nothing to do with quilting, but it's an important part of what's been happening in my life over the last 2 months, and it may inspire other people to take care of themselves.
Here in Australia we have a Breast Screening program that provides free mammograms every 2 years. There are screening buses that travel all through rural South Australia, so there's no excuse not to attend. Mereth and I have always kept those appointments, because we lost our Mum to breast cancer in 2006. However, at the time of my last appointment I was in Adelaide, and then I didn't make a new appointment, and then Finn, and Covid and.....
At a doctor's appointment for something entirely different I mentioned that I hadn't had my last mammogram, and also that on occasion I'd noticed spots of blood in my bra. Well that's not good, she said, and arranged an appointment for a mammogram at an Adelaide hospital. I had the mammogram, and an ultrasound, and both showed nothing, but the doctor said We really need to investigate this blood discharge, because it's not normal. I was scheduled for a biopsy a week later, under general anaesthetic, and that wasn't fun,but it wasn't too awful either. I did think that there was an awful lot of bruising for a biopsy and it was a large incision
When I went back two weeks later I was a bit astonished to be told that the pathology came back as cancerous; up until then I'd sort of felt I was wasting their time and there was nothing wrong. The doctor said I wasn't to worry because they had removed all the tissue they deemed to be abnormal, and it was good that they'd caught it so early. I was glad that they didn't go on with the biopsy, wait for the results, and then schedule another surgery; it was much better to just have the one operation. I will have an MRI in three months time to make sure that there is no recurrence, and regular checkups to make sure I'm OK.
I am most grateful for our Medicare system here; the four consultations, the mammogram and ultrasound, the surgery and a night in a care facility cost me nothing. I paid $16 to leave my car in the hospital carpark overnight. While I'm still a bit shocked at the speed of it all, and the "You had cancer and now you don't" statement, at least I don't have medical bills to take care of.
If I had been wearing my black bra I would never have noticed the little spots of blood, which was the only symptom; nothing showed up in the mammogram or the ultrasound. When it was large enough to show up on a mammogram it would have meant more invasive surgery to remove it. From now on I'll wear a light coloured bra, I'll have a mammogram every year, and I won't ignore even the slightest thing out of the ordinary. Fingers crossed that the MRI in 3 months time is clear.
I am currently obsessed with this block, made from 2" strips. It's easy to put together, and it seems the perfect block for all those odd strips of repro fabrics littering the scrap drawers. In fact, I like it so much I have used most of my precious scraps to kit up another 30 blocks, and I can't wait till I have time to sew them all.
Life has settled down to a routine of 3 days in Adelaide, and 4 days at home, unless there's a need for me to help out longer with the grandkids. I'm loving the time spent with them, and because I'm there to babysit it means that Shonny doesn't have to take the kids with her when she does the shopping and runs errands. Thomas is not a fan of grocery shopping, and Finn hates his baby capsule with a passion; he's big enough to graduate to a car seat now, so that will help his attitude. It's much nicer not to have to deal with screaming kids on every outing though.
I stayed up late one night and got the borders onto this quilt, and I didn't even have to bully myself into it. It was nice to cross it off the list, once and for all.
I haven't been in a blogging mood lately. I've been sewing, but I don't have anything finished yet. I just want to move on and start something new, instead of finishing borders. Ordinarily I would bully myself into it, but even my inner bully is off her game. So I'm being nice to myself, and just pootling around doing what I feel like.
We're in the middle of a big shake up at our shop. We've been offered a smaller, better appointed place, so we'll be moving later in the year, and another business is moving into our space. With that in mind, and the fact that there aren't a lot of travellers and buyers around in this pandemic, we're shutting up shop until we can move into the new one. We're having a big sale, everything has been discounted, and we're being quite ruthless because we don't want to have to shift all the stock home, and then bring it back to the new shop. I'm quite looking forward to not having the responsibility of manning the shop when I'm home from Adelaide; we were shut for 9 weeks, and that felt like a holiday. Monday will be our last day, and then I can stay home with a clear conscience, and maybe get some quilting done.
I don't now why my scraps derail me the way they do. The 2.5" ones were really annoying me, so I sat down and sorted them into colours, and tried several patterns to hopefully use all of them up entirely.
There were some strange repro squares and strips that I always reject when I'm choosing strips. They were sewn together into a doll quilt, which was a good way to get them out of the drawers.
Wow, 7 weeks have gone by in a flash, and I spent most of that time with the family in Adelaide. I managed 2 five-day visits home though, so I have quilt progress to report.
It's so hard to post. When I'm with the family there is very little time in which I can gather my thoughts, write something uninterrupted and then find a photo to go with it. I've been home twice since Finn was born, and when I'm at home I play catch up with work and chores, and when I sit down to write something I find myself constantly saying 'I can't write that, or people won't be interested in that, or that just sounds like whinging'. But I'm going to write it all, and then hopefully I won't have to revisit it, and I can just talk about other things.
I've been staying at Shonny's to help with Finn. He's not a happy baby. He doesn't settle after a feed, he's constantly congested, which makes drinking hard for him, he's always getting his breathing and swallowing out of sync and chokes and has to be patted on the back until he can breathe again. Then he's even more distressed, and he's even more out of sync so it happens again. Sometimes he vomits his whole feed up, and then he's starving and tries to drink too fast and.... It's a terrible cycle for him. He's seen two doctors and a community nurse, and all they care about is his weight gain, so they think he's fine. But he's in pain from colic and gas all the time, he doesn't sleep like a newborn should, and it's wearing the whole family down. He needs so much attention; he does better if he's kept upright, so we hold him for much of the time, which is OK when there's an adult for him and one for the other kids; when I'm home and Hayden is at work it means Shonny has to cope with the whole household while trying to feed and comfort Finn.
Some of Finn's discomfort could be an allergy to cow's milk protein in Shonny's milk, so she's given up dairy to see if it makes a difference. Thomas had a terrible reaction to cow's milk protein as well, he ended up on a goat milk formula at 12 months old, so it very well could be Finn's problem too. In a way I hope it is, because we can fix that. Unfortunately Shonny won't be able to have lattes or cheese or sour cream, but it would be worth it for a happy baby. If it improves his breathing so he's not always struggling to get air through his nose that would be a huge benefit. Shonny will try and feed him as long as she can, because he's stacking on the weight anyway, and antibodies from her are important at this time, but he may end up on an allergy formula if there's no improvement. We just want a solution for him.
I don't think there is going to be a 'new normal' for quite some time. If Finn wasn't so little, and so unsettled, I would hunker down here at home and wait it out. Shonny and I would do video calls so the kids could talk to me, and we'd get by. But Finn needs so much attention, and so does Thomas, and Isla is missing out, so I feel like I need to be there to help. If/when Finn is not in so much distress, and sleeps for longer periods, I will come home, but for now my presence makes a huge difference. I wouldn't find any solace in unlimited sewing time knowing that my family was doing it tough without me.
We live in interesting times. It's hard to know what to expect from one day to the next. Here in South Australia there are 50 confirmed COVID-19 cases, all of them related to travel, or contact with an overseas traveller. And no cases in regional SA, which is good for those of us who live outside the city.
I feel like I've been in isolation anyway, looking after the baby, and Thomas, and helping Shonny's family any way I can. I left the house 3 times in 3 weeks, so my contact with others has been minimal. I've been home for a few days now, and have only gone out to have coffee with a friend and to collect the mail. In one way it's a very limiting lifestyle, but in other ways it's a bonus. I can get very distracted from things I should be doing, and now those distractions can't happen. So I can just stay at home and work on things that need to be done.
2 days isn't a lot of time, but I tried to spend it catching up on chores at home, as well as catching up with friends. And I managed to fit in a little bit of sewing time late at night.
A few hours after that last blog post I was in the car on my way to Adelaide; the baby was on the way, and I was needed for baby-sitting duty. All went well, and our beautiful boy arrived at 10.30 at night.
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