The Year of the Quilt

In 2022 I finished zero quilts.  I managed to piece together blocks I had made the previous year (or did I make them in 2020? I can’t remember…) to complete the pieced top of my green Magic Boxes quilt, and I finished the top of the Nine Sisters quilt BFF commissioned, along with pinning the quilt sandwich and some of the actual quilting… but that’s it. (To be fair, I made about a dozen bags, and several sets of hot pads as gifts, but they were quick and dirty projects that only took an hour or two to make, as that’s all my attention span would allow for. There were also some family medical matters to deal with October, November, and December of last year, along with the typical holiday stuff, so even while I felt better those last three months, I did not have much time to myself.)

THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT.

I was off for about two weeks around Christmas. I was able to sort and organize my craft room (okay, maybe just the fabric parts? but this is still a noteworthy accomplishment) and I feel like I have more of a mental handle on allowing myself to make the time to do what I enjoy.

My plans for this year:

  • Finish BFF’s quilt – IT IS ALMOST COMPLETE. I am literally sewing on the binding, and then I have another 45ish minutes of quilting to do.
  • Keep up with the Sewcialites 2 quilt – I am only two weeks behind, and all the fabric has been gathered, ironed, and planned out for blocks – catching up will be easy. This is going to be a gift for my mom, so I’m hoping it finishes up in time for it to be a Christmas present. (I think I might pay to have this one long-armed, since it’s. Complex.)
  • Do a temperature quilt -This one is going to be super simple, since it’s going to require a lot of focus to keep up with. I have a little over half the fabric purchased (all the purples, blues, greens, and yellows so I can get started right now) and will purchase the rest next payday.  I’m using 1/2 yards of Kona solids purchased from JoAnns, because that seems to be the easiest way to manage the unknowns in the future. I’m still not sure of the pattern, so I’m going to keep track of the low/high temperatures until I decide.
  • Finish my aunt’s quilt – I’m doing another green Magic Boxes quilt (but with different batiks this time, okay?) and I have four strip sets sewn…. and that’s it.  I need to finish this by October so I can give it to her as a birthday gift.
  • Make some more progress on the Kinship sampler quilt. I already have half the blocks done (badly, hahahahahahaalsdkjfalsdfkja, fml, but done is better than perfect) so if I can do another twenty five blocks this year (and maybe fix some of the more fucked up ones) I will be satisfied.
  • Start Becky’s quilt – Basic plans are to go with the Tea Time pattern using an orange Kaffe jellyroll. (Apparently depression doesn’t keep me from buying fabric, because I already have the jelly roll and border fabric purchased.)
  • Start planning Aunt Mom’s quilt – Basic plans are to go with four small JoAnn jellyrolls and do a Trip Around the World quilt, but I need to get THE PERFECT jellyrolls.
  • Start planning a crazy quilt for my cousin  – She was part of some kind of quilt block exchange a few years ago, where everyone made ten or so state-themed blocks and then mixed/matched/traded so everyone involved had one block for each US state. She loved the quilt because it was light and large, but it’s starting to fall apart, and she’s sad. So I need to find an interesting and suitable replacement.

I’m psyched, and will be satisfied if I can manage half of this.  🙃

Trying something different…

My normal resolution for the new year is usually something like “lose a lot of weight” or “exercise more” or “eat nothing but raw vegetables” and I mean. Sure. Yeah. Noble goals – that tend to go nowhere. Whether due to sucky life circumstances, depression, stress, being overwhelmed with the typical mental load most women my age have to deal with, that stuff never works, and I’m just left feeling like a big stupid failure.

This year, for the first time in my life, I’m going to try the exact opposite of that: I’m going to work towards feeling happy and healthy,  instead of trying to meet any concrete weight, exercise, or food goals.

I’ve already been eating more cleanly (less processed foods, more water, more produce, but no reduction in dairy, because that is a food group that majorly sparks joy) but going forward into this new year, I’m actively not going to think about my weight. I’m going to do things that make me feel good physically and mentally:

  • No more going to bed before 8pm
  • Eat lots of fruit (vegetables are great, but fruit. Omg. Apples. Mandarins. Bananas. Strawberries. Pineapple. fssssss….)
  • Walk with Ruby (hard right now, because we are entering the season of snow, ice, and (sometimes) frozen mud, but there is an effort on my part to at least chase her around the house for twenty minutes a day like a lunatic)
  • Eat a few salads a week
  • Read more books (my anti-depressants give me sanity, and I can once again sit down and focus on a book for a good hour)
  • Make time to quilt more (oh, the plans I have)
  • Continue going to therapy (I still have things to work through, and I’m probably in a good enough mental headspace to handle it on my own at this point, but I’m going to keep going because it’s nice to have a neutral third party validate my feelings and/or cheer me on when times are tough)
  • Cook two or three meals in my cast iron skillet every week (I have no words to describe how satisfying this is)

This should be doable, right?

Depression and other road blocks

It’s been over a year since I posted.

I haven’t accomplished much. I finished my poppy rail fence quilt, and a small quilt for Ruby; I made an easy Trip Around the World quilt for my mom for Christmas; I finished the top of a green quilt I was making for myself; My bff commissioned me to make her a quilt (and I’m ashamed to say, nearly a year later, it’s still a WIP).

Depression hit me like a fucking train. Until recently, when I revisited my last post, I didn’t even realize just how long the feelings of hopelessness had been with me. (By my estimates, it’s been two and a half years, and it breaks my heart to realize Ruby hasn’t really ever had a sane mother.)

I thought I could fight this alone. I’d been to therapists before. I knew what to do.

Nope.

I tried going to therapy again. The therapist I ended up with was a Trump supporter, and in my eyes, while not a bad person, definitely someone who views the world and other people differently than me. In the end, he was pretty useless.

I told myself there was something wrong with me. That therapy wouldn’t work, and I’d just have to force myself out of the depression on my own.

And then it all got so much worse.

I started to lose the ability to connect with the things that brought me joy. Like quilting. Quilting definitely went first. But then so did cooking. And reading books, watching movies, playing games. I was down to “dinner with BFF” and “playing with Ruby” as the last two things that I could actually consistently squeeze some enjoyment/joy out of, and I got scared. What if I lost those things too? I couldn’t deal with that. (Yeah. What you’re thinking? That’s exactly how I mean it.)

I tried going back to therapy. Except the therapists in this area were either completely booked, never called me back, or stood me up. A friend recommended doing 100% teletherapy with an office two hours away. I was desperate enough that I tried it.

Let me tell you – this therapist is magical.

She listened to me for 20 minutes, and then was like, “You need to go to a doctor and get X, Y, Z tests run. I’m convinced this is not 100% mental for you. If it ends up being 100% mental, we will battle it together. But we should eliminate these other things first.”

I hadn’t been to a doctor in a really long time because whenever I do go for something, they just blame my problem on my weight. So why bother going?

Therapist said I could respectfully tell any stupid doctor off and try going to different ones until I found one I liked.

Which. Okay. I could try this. For Ruby.

I lucked out on the first try. I made an appointment at a small office that was staffed only by women (because I could just not take another stupid man blaming all my problems on my weight and not taking me seriously). Woman doctor listened to me explain my symptoms and what my therapist recommended. I bawled the whole time I was explaining it because I was convinced I was going to have to prove there was something wrong with me. That it wasn’t my weight. That I really just felt like life was nothing but hopeless bullshit.

But when I stopped explaining, she just smiled and said, “You have PMDD. We can prescribe an anti-depressant to manage your symptoms. It’s going to work differently for you, since this is technically different than depression, but this is a good thing, because you’re going to have almost immediate results.”

I was doubtful. Because how could some stupid little pill make all the hopeless bullshit go away?

(It might be worth noting at this point that tests were also run to confirm nothing else was going on – I’m actually really healthy except for a vitamin D deficiency, which is an easy fix with a vitamin.)

So a week and a half after talking to Magical Therapist Woman for the first time and a few days after talking to Super Doctor Woman I started on the antidepressants (and vitamin D). Within two days, I felt like a completely different person. It was like someone flipped a switch inside my brain and was like, “HERE YOU GO! GO BE HAPPY!” and I actually could be happy?

I didn’t realize how horrible I had felt until I was slapped in the face with how wonderful it felt to not feel like hopeless garbage.

I feel like doing things again – and I can actually enjoy doing the things? It’s not like I’m forcing myself to sit down and do something to try and not be depressed. I’m excited to sit down and freaking make something. I have more patience. I feel like my empathy is returning. I don’t constantly feel like a burden to everyone.  I can sit down and concentrate on things again. (It’s kind of amazing?)

I have my sanity back. And I can’t wait to catch up with all the things I’ve missed. <3

Quilt samplers are not for me…

So I made it to block 30 on the Fusion Sampler quilt (though I have about 60 blocks done – I jumped around a bit because of color/lack of space to keep that many fat quarters flat and neat) before some major depression hit and I was unable to do much of anything until about a week ago.

It was the kind of depression that makes everything feel pointless and hopeless. Every single task was next to impossible. My hobbies felt like joyless, thankless work.  I think the reason I was able to get out of bed was because of my dog – because how can anyone say no to that little face? Not sure any one thing triggered it. Not sure any one thing is making me feel better at the moment. Just actively trying to reconnect with the things that used to/should make me happy and not stress about things out of my control.

Which was not the Fusion Sampler quilt.

I want to stress that this pattern is magnificent and beautiful and so wonderfully put together. I regret nothing, except the fact that I’m apparently not in the right headspace to be able to do something that intricate. (I’m also currently lacking dedicated sewing space, and setting up a table, gathering my tools, etc. takes up about half of the time I set aside to sew every day, which is a bummer.) Someday I’m going to pick it back up again and finish it.

For now, I’m forcing myself to do simple things. Currently working on a small quilt for Ruby (I’m currently hand-stitching the binding) and the Rail Fence poppy jelly roll quilt I started about a year ago.  I got frustrated after only four blocks and sat it aside.  I was not experienced enough to know that a) you don trim jelly rolls like that and b) as long as simple blocks like this are the same size, it doesn’t really matter that the size isn’t perfect. (This particular quilt has been pinned, and will be machine quilted over this long weekend over many a strawberry margarita.)

Here’s to getting something done and possibly enjoying it along the way.

Bad things happen on holidays

My grandfather died on Valentine’s Day in 2016. (He’d been diagnosed with cancer a year before, so we knew it was coming. But still.)

My uncle died on Easter in 2017. (This changed the entire dynamic of our family, and we have not celebrated a holiday as a family since. Four years later and this still breaks my heart.)

My father’s eyeball almost exploded about a week before Christmas in 2018. (Blood vessels behind his eye fused together, and his eye was getting too much blood at too much pressure, and it probably wouldn’t have really exploded, but when I asked a doctor they refused to say that was an impossible outcome. He’s fine now. But if he would have waited and gone to a hospital on Christmas Eve, he’d be dead. Because at this point I’m convinced that’s how it works.)

And not that my birthday is a holiday (no worries, I know I’m not that special), but my grandma died on my birthday in 2005. (I felt guilty for celebrating my birthday for years. My mom said I was crazy, but that doesn’t change the fact that my birthday is still remembered as “the day grandma died” for that side of the family. I have no hard feelings about it and the guilt is gone, but I still hate celebrating my birthday. It feels weird when anyone–with the exception of like, five people–acknowledges it at all.)

All this to say:

Today, my aunt experienced some complications from a procedure she had ten days ago. These complications included heavy bleeding, and she was pale and shaky and clammy, but she still had a five hour wait in the ER where the nurses were rude and dismissive. She’s actually still there, and part of me is getting more and more nervous.

Because nothing good happens on holidays. EVER.

Edit:

Aunt is going to be okay, but my original statement stands.

The Kinship Quilt Along…

It’s officially day two of this quilt along, though I’ve been working a bit ahead for a few days (like, 28?) to try and get some cutting done. While I don’t mind cutting anymore, it’s not my favorite thing so getting some completed beforehand makes things feel more doable.

I have a few days of blocks completed, in case Life Happens. Otherwise, my goal is going to be seven blocks a week.

I can confidently say after cutting about twenty-five of these blocks. that fussy cutting is definitely not my cup of tea. It’s… okay? I can do it. But It Feels Like A Lot.

Additionally, making a bunch of different blocks for a quilt is probably also not my cup of tea. XD At least maybe not this many in this kind of time frame? Maybe it’s the time of year, and when I sit down to work on this I just keep dreaming of being in my garden–should I haul my stuff outside and cut there?

My background noise for this project is Star Wars. I thought I’d watch just the movies, and after blowing through the original three (IV, V, VI) I decided watching everything, from the very beginning of the story, was probably a more appropriate goal. Thus far, I’ve watched Episode I and Episode II (I hate Anakin), the animated Clone Wars movie (I strongly dislike Anakin), and am now slogging through the Clone Wars series (Still strongly dislike Anakin).  I say slogging because ug. Was it made for kids? I don’t know, and neither does the show. We get lessons on life and friendship, and then someone gets murdered without any follow-up, explanation, or consequences, so. (I’m surprised by how much I also dislike Obi Wan? Because while Anakin is showing signs of being evil, he still gets shit done. Yes, he just stabbed someone, but do you really need to scold him Obi? He just saved your life.)

I’m told season 3 is where it picks up. That’s only 50ish episodes in, which is comparable to the investment required for Gintama, so I’m sticking it out. (Regardless, I’m sticking it out, because I feel like I have to.)

So I joined a quilt along…

I’m a little nervous about this, but I’m going to give it a shot!

I typically need projects that come together quickly. I get bored with persnickety things because ug. It feels like so much work. I’m trying to get over that, because there are some incredibly beautiful quilts that I want to make that require more than some basic slicing and dicing of jelly roll strips.

The more I quilt, the more I enjoy all the parts of quilting. When I first started out, I really disliked cutting (which is kind of a vital part of it). I just wanted to sew!  But the more I did it, the more I liked it.  So I’m hoping this quilt sparks more of that kind of joy.  It was built for fussy cutting, and I’m going to try a few blocks of that, but I think that still might be one step beyond my persnicket-level.  We shall see.

Currently gathering fabric and planning some colors. In the next two weeks I hope to get some blocks cut before the event starts, because quilting on summer weekdays can be hard for me.  I’m going to take the host’s advice and shoot for seven blocks a week, instead of one block a day… Though I’m going to try to get a bit ahead so I can still share one block a day. That seems so much more manageable for me!

Additional information: https://www.gnomeangel.com/100days100blocks-event-information/

Holiday Cheer – A Quilt for my BFF

I made this quilt for my bff of 29 years. She is only one of three people that I’m willing to use/work with pink for. 😉

Pattern

Holiday Cheer, by Cozy Quilt Designs

Fabric

  • Meadow Lane, by Sara Davies (Riley Blake Jelly Roll* purchased from Jordan Fabrics)
  • Nickel Gray, Bella Solids (Moda yardage purchased from Jo-Ann Fabric)
  • Pink viney batik (Brand unknown, purchased from Sewing Solutions)
  • Purple/gray fitted sheet for backing, 400 thread count cotton sateen (purchased from Ross)
  • 100% cotton batting

Fun Facts

  • Pieced and quilted on my Baby Lock Zeal
  • This is the first quilt where I didn’t do a square quilting pattern. (Okay, to be fair, it’s a diamond design – so yeah, technically still squares. But they were deliberate squares and not just a result of me stitching straight across the quilt from edge to edge!) I had to mark straight lines over the solid gray areas to keep my lines straight. It was weird having to secure my stitches – I’ve always just stitched right off the edges.
  • The french binding was created using hand-cut bias strips from the pink viney batik. It was stitched to the front by machine, and hand sewn on the back.

Background Noise

  • This was part of my Marvel Movie Rewatch:
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2
    • Captain America, Civil War
  • Star Trek Voyager (season 5 and 6)
  • Babylon 5 (season 3)

Time Frame

  • January 9, 2021 – Started piecing
  • February 2, 2021 – Finished piecing
  • February 3, 2021 – Hiatus – machine being serviced
  • February 12, 2021 – Hiatus – back injury
  • Feb 24 – Prepped backing
  • Feb 28 – Pin basted
  • Feb 28 – Started quilting
  • March 4 – Complete!

 

Sheep Poop

I recently bought a wool pressing mat, because my small (hard) tabletop ironing board is on the way out, and the (soft) pressing mat I bought is so flexible and limp that it doesn’t let me press without wrinkles.  The information sheet says it’s New Zealand wool, and the company is based out of Oregon. (I try to buy local, I try to buy American, but especially so in instances like this because in my experience, most fabric/fiber that comes from China smells like musty kerosene.) It looks to be really high quality. No complaints there.

I read somewhere that you couldn’t use steam on wool mats.  That sounded bogus, so I did some more reading. Apparently steam isn’t recommended because it will go through the mat. That’s extra problematic for me, since I often work on a plastic tabletop.  But, I thought, I could use my soft pressing mat to protect the table, and use the wool pressing mat to actually iron on.

Problem solved!!

Except.

The wool pressing mat has a really awful smell when it gets damp.

Like, hot manure awful smell.

Which is bad enough on it’s own, but I am allergic to sheep manure. I don’t know that I’m actually allergic to my mat, but my head has been totally stuffed up since last evening.

I checked reviews to see if it was an issue for anyone else. It is, but it apparently goes away on its own.  I’m hoping so. Because I really, really, really love this mat, otherwise.

I wonder if Fabreeze would help or make it worse?

Using sheets for quilt backings

There’s this stigma about using a sheet as a quilt backing. Like using one makes you less of a quilter.

Why?

Because it’s not pieced? Because you didn’t spend an outrageous amount of money on fabric? Because you didn’t have to go through the agony of searching for a mostly full bolt of fabric? (Is this a problem for other people? We don’t have a lot of places to buy fabric in my area, and the pandemic has caused some shortages and slim pickings on nice fabric at our local JoAnn.)

Nothing against those who want to piece the back, or use a super fun fabric, or whatever. I’m not saying I think there’s anything wrong with doing that. But using sheets can also be a good solution. It saves you time (no piecing), money (way less expensive) and you can get super high quality fabric.

Maybe it’s because when people hear that you used a sheet, they think you used an old sheet. A used sheet. The kind that are 80% polyester at Dollar General and get fuzzbally after one night of use, that live in the back of your linen closet waiting for when you need a drop cloth or a quick car seat cover for your dog.

I agree that using that kind of sheet is super icky.

But I’m a sheet snob.  When I use a sheet, it’s new, 100% cotton, with a thread count of 300 or greater. These are sheet sets that would sell for $90+ at a department store, but that go for $30 or $40 at Ross or TJ Maxx. I also open the package as much as I can and feel the sheets to make sure they’re super soft. (And I’m not afraid to return them if I get them home and HATE how they feel.) If I get a king size set, I can use the flat sheet (for king size quilts) AND fitted sheets (for twin/throw size quilts), and I can save the pillow cases to embroider on.

Win win win, right?