Bring out Your Dead!

I'm not dead yet.
(Love me some Monty Python).

So....it's been a while.  That is what happens when you are working multiple jobs, finishing multiple gift quilts that can't be posted until they have  been delivered, and oh - I don't know - LIVING IN A HELLISH SNOW VORTEX.  Officially we had 108" of snow, 103" arriving after January 5, 2015, but that's Boston's total and as we are just north on Cape Ann, we picked up substantial more ocean effect snow on top of that.

This is my 6'4" husband knocking down the treacherous lip of  snow hanging off the garage.  This was our only access out of our house for over a month and a half, and we had to fight to keep it open.  One day we went downstairs to leave and found so much snow had drifted on to the storm door that we had to take the glass panel out (from the inside) so we could push enough snow away in order to get the door open. This was not as lighthearted and whimsical as it sounds, nosirreee. The good news is we've been able to use our front door (just like normals) for about a week and a half. It still feels brand new and sparkly and wonderful. The bad news is the winter kill and melting snow has revealed all kinds of awful stuff. Lots of work ahead.

So what did I get accomplished?  Finished an epic battle with a Christmas "woobie" quilt for my friend John. John LOVES Charlie Brown Christmas and requested his own quilt for seasonal decorating and snuggling.  It's a hard thing to make a quilt for.... let's just say a guy with multiple cars and a lot of Rolex, etc. around his oceanfront home. It took ages, I made it all up myself, and I'll never do it again.

Some of these are "work in progress" pictures but the overall effect is there. I didn't get good pictures taken because I finished it JUST before Christmas and didn't have time. I'll do so next year, just to get the proof of it in my files. BTW - the blue lights around the border represent the blue lights he does on his house every Christmas. It's another good story that goes back about 27 years, I'll write about it sometime.

This is a shirtings quilt top I did for our friends, Matt and John. Matt brought over 2 huge bags of their 'old' shirts and asked me to start a quilt for them. (Note to self - never again agree to make a quilt for an engineer.) It took longer to cut up the shirts and iron out flat pieces to cut than it did to sew it all back together. It took me almost as long to sell him on the idea of sashing it with the light gray instead of harsh white. (They have 2 huge dogs....).  John didn't know about this until he opened it on Christmas, and I think there was some unrest about "I thought we had those in the attic for storage, I needed one of them....".  Glad I wasn't there for that. When I saw John next, he gave me one of his wonderful, rib-crushing hugs and thanked me. That's a happy ending. It will be king sized when finished, but who knows when that will happen.

ME. MOI.  After 150 years of making quilts for other people, I took time out to make one for ME. I'm sharing it with my husband because he sleeps with me, but it is MINE. It was made from 100% stash - front and back - and boy did it knock down the piles. I'm not racing to buy new fabric because I'd need to make another 3 or 4 of these this size to be able to rationalize that.  I love it. There are fabrics in there from my mom and one of my sisters' stashes. There are fabrics from other quilts I've made.  It is warm and wrinkly and it makes me very happy.  It is also HUGE.  I sleep on my side and (TMI WARNING) I don't like it when the quilt doesn't cover my extremities. This one does. 

That's enough for now. I survived QuiltCon in Austin, Texas and had a ball working a booth for Why Quilts Matter - History, Art and Politics. I wasn't able to stock up on Aurifil thread the way I had hoped - they had a company booth but they weren't vending. I did get a good color chart and they sent me to a couple of booths that had limited colors, so I did manage to get my hands on some thread and their new (to me) floss. I've burned through enough thread in the last 7 months to realize I need to get the BIG CONES of some of the neutrals I use so much of - it's worth the investment. Besides, I'm not buying fabric, right? Okay, so I did buy ONE piece of fabric, an incredibly beautiful wax print from Ananse Village,  but that is for a jacket and not a quilt so it doesn't count against the stash. (You can reach me at 1-800-RATIONALIZE)

I must stop NOW. I have 3 quilts in the on-deck circle, two are pieced and ready to quilt. One is a wedding quilt due this fall and....not started. But I have the fabric in my stash, so there's that. That counts as "started," right?

Multi-Tasking, Thanks for Asking

This is not a pattern. These are shapes.

I am all over the place.  Depending on the outside temperature I find that during the shoulder season I need something to work on in different rooms of the house.  On cool days the upstairs sewing room is best. I'm cutting in to an old, hurt quilt and making a teddy bear.  I had to find a new pattern because while I saved the directions and the pattern envelope from my old (and I do mean old) pattern, the pattern itself went missing. I love a crisp, new pattern. I cut it apart with pinking shears, too dull to use on fabric but perfect for that light tissue that real patterns are printed on.Then I indulged in the ritual 'ironing of the pattern' where you lightly press the fold and crease marks out so when you place it on the fabric it lies perfectly flat. I started sewing the pattern pieces together without consulting the directions. I was using a REAL pattern, and the markings and information on the pattern pieces made that possible.

THIS IS A PATTERN

 Well that, and because I learned how to sew from using real patterns back in the day when Home Ec was mandatory for 7th grade girls.  I still think it should be mandatory - for boys and girls.  Why not learn to sew? Cook a meal? Banking, growing plants, living with a budget. Do a load of laundry without ruining the works. How to paint a wall. How to wield a cutting brush. Life skills, baby, I'm talking about basic. life. skills. Back to the bear -  I started watching an old movie on the VHS in my sewing room (man, I am a dinosaur) and clipped and darted and notched my way thought more than half of the bear before I called it quits for the night. (Okay there is a DVD player in there too, just sayin'.) I love old movies. I love REAL patterns. They are a marvel of engineering. How else would you get such elegant curves and shapes and forms?

NOT BLUE

If it's too hot for the sewing room I work on the main floor in the family room, paper piecing. I'm working on making a new purse and I loved my Japanese big bag so much I'm doing a smaller version, but NOT IN BLUE, MOM (if you're reading this in heaven and you probably are because I hear you yell at me every time I sew over pins.) I went WAY out of my color comfort zone and am doing this in shades of purple, mainly because it's already in my stash and I'm not getting any younger. I am photographing the hexie layout on my ironing board so I can work from the picture when I go downstairs to sew it together. (Easy to consult the iPad and double check the layout.) I'm also using straw needles and YLI silk thread to join them - double thread, because it's a purse. Even with interfacing and future layers, I want it sturdy. I must say, silk thread is the most unbelievably EASY thing to sew with, once you face the fact that properly knotting it is never going to happen. Even a quilters knot slid down the length of it tends to just melt apart. Oh silk, you are so...silky. It's very therapeutic to hand sew in the evening, I find I sleep better when I'm thus tranquilized.  As long as I manage to leave my iPad alone and not read email, Twitter and other assorted addictions (okay ANGRY BIRDS) I have a productive evening with beautiful results.

Sewing used to be my reward.  I work multiple jobs and it involves a LOT of juggling. I say "used to be a reward" because I've realized lately that it is something I MUST do. I'm happier, more aware of color and texture in my personal and professional lives (I work with art groups) and it opens up my head.  When I was commuting to Lowell every day I used to sing in the car.  I'm sure people wondered what the hell I was singing that took so much air and effort (usually something from Handel's Messiah or another choral work...) but it had the same effect. While it did cut down my road rage, I will confess to changing the words to an expletive when someone cut me off or changed lanes in front of me too abruptly.  It also made me laugh hysterically - you need to sing "motherf)($&#(er" in full soprano head voice to get the full effect.  Regardless of the word usage, when you get it really going and flowing it spirals up and creates a kind of harmonic buzz in your head. You get a little bit....high. At least I do. Music and art are the gifts that let us glimpse at the Paradise Lost - the world we were supposed to be living in, and not the one mankind has created.

I love autumn, it's my favorite season. It's good for inner reflection, taking inventory of life and time left. Hand sewing provides the opportunity to think back, remember, and relive wonderful memories. I am more awake - is that possible? I'm conscious of counting my days, wanting them to be full and filled with the glories of creation, the people I love and excellent football. Not every day will be so burnished and successful, but I'm working on it with the hope that it helps me through the days that are.......well, not so much.

What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

Willa Cather

It's About Time - Getting Satisfaction

I did a lot of thinking after I posted that last entry.  Mostly about how much I self-edited, removing things I felt deeply but was fearful of putting out there in the world because depression is - and seemingly always will be - a taboo subject.  There are some great tweets about that attitude -

I figured out why I am so vibrantly aware of things these days - I'm running out of time.  I have more of my life behind me than I do ahead of me and while I'm good with that (honest!) I've got this whole stupid list of things to do "later", when I get the money, when I will be able to enjoy it, when I have the time (as if!) or some other BS rationalization.  It's time to do it now.  Money will always be a prohibitive factor, but the lovely silks I've been collecting for years are going to get CUT UP and made into a wonderful wall piece.  The beautiful Moda French General hexagons I painstakingly pieced and hand sewn are no longer in the "when I think of what I want to do with them" pile because I cut and bound them and they now look wonderful on various coffee tables in my family room.  My treasured damask and vintage linens are being used on my dining room and kitchen tables and YES I SAID THAT are getting food spilled on them and thrown in the washer and used again and again and I love it. 

I recently made 2 table runners as gifts for the newlywed children of friends. I did the registry gift thing for their bridal showers, but this time I felt like I wanted them to have something more meaningful - well, meaningful to me anyway. Both brides are mature, free spirited women who know themselves well.
I heartily regret machine quilting these runners with variegated thread - while it seemed inspired and dashing at the time, every sin you make with variegated thread screams. I backstitch to anchor starting and stopping points and damn if every time I did it the color of the thread would change just enough to look like a schmeariblik. Once I was on a pale yellow stretch of fabric when the thread turned a dark violet and MAN was that way too much contrast - it looked like I took a Sharpie pen and drew lines, for Pete's sake. This is not to say that I haven't done just that - I have a large and colorful collection of narrow Sharpie pens just for a similar  purpose. I touch up those areas when a bit of white thread pops up out of nowhere, a rogue bobbin thread that doesn't exactly match needs come camouflage - that kind of thing.

I now spend evenings embroidering wool felt ornaments that I consign to a nearby quilt museum. I love those things - each one a little creation that will go live in house of someone I'll never meet.  I used to keep track of where my Mother's quilted runners and wall hangings went when we sold them in my husband's shop. She loved hearing about the ones that went to London or Italy or Germany or Pennsylvania. Now I understand why.  Putting pretty little bits of yourself out there in the universe is a very satisfying use of time. I want my time now to be filled with more of that, whether it is making something or reading something or any one of a myriad of other things that are satisfying.  Time is much more my friend now than ever before, and all because I've been learning to use more of it to satisfy myself.

Physical-ly Sick

I had my yearly physical on Monday, about 6 months later than usual because of some insurance shuffling and coverage dropout periods.  (Long story.) This blog post is not one of my usual topics but is probably one of the most important things you will ever read in your life.
Or maybe that you will read today.
Okay, probably somewhere in between.

I'd like you to meet my new healthcare team:

I can tell you with the utmost conviction that YOU are now your sole, core healthcare record keeper.  Let's repeat that for emphasis:  YOU MUST KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING RELATED TO YOUR HEALTHCARE.  Get a nice, blank book and start writing down EVERYTHING.  The dates, locations, who ordered it and the results.   Xrays, blood tests, mammograms, colonoscopies - the whole 9 yards. Even though my physician has to write a referral for every miniscule THING, none of this comes back to them in the form of information or results. I spent a lot of time sitting in my elegant paper gown waiting for the PA to go find out the results of a colonoscopy I had in December and a hip x-ray I had 3 weeks ago. All done by physicians in the system I was referred to, all in the same hospital system, but never mind that.  Nadda. Next she had to pop out to see what the latest guidelines were for pap smears - apparently it's every 3 years now, so I didn't need to shave  my legs.  Crap.

My understanding of having a "primary care physician" was that there was someone out there who keeps track of all this stuff.  Apparently not.  Bonus - it's getting worse.  I wish I had known this even five years ago - I've had a slew of medical problems (mostly spinal - with specialists) and no one knows from nuthin'. It is appalling.  It is infuriating.  Mostly it is scary, because as I get older it's only going to get worse, right?  I'm not going to wake up someday and find my degenerative discs have miraculously healed and everything is hunky dory - yay!

I'll probably keep a digital spreadsheet of all this information,  but a blank book won't crash or get a virus. (Ironic.) I'm fully prepared to load a flash drive and take it with me to the doctor so the most accurate records are at my fingertips.  I'm also going to CHARGE THEM FOR THE INFORMATION because why the hell not - they would charge me for a copy of my records, right?

I left with lab slips for more blood work and a referral for a mammogram.  I hate getting my mam's 'grammed. I'm debating on even doing it because the results won't get back to them and they'll never know, right? I've got an attitude about those damn 'gramms - every time I have had a blip they refer me on to get an ultrasound. Here is an idea - screw mammograms and just have ultrasounds. They are painless, faster and easier.  (That is why there are no scrotum-grams, just sayin'.  Men would never put up with getting their dainties smashed up between two plexiglass plates, so why do we?) PS - Spare me the mammogram lecture, I'm an ovarian cancer survivor, I know the drill.

I'm good and angry.  I've got to look at changing primary care physicians, but I don't know if I can find one that can (or will) do the job I expect them to do.  I don't know if any of them do it anymore. I have a feeling it's on us to keep the record. I'm going to need a boatload of Big Chief Tablets to keep track of all this information, John-boy.