First attempts

I spent some time yesterday doing real research on a new sewing machine that I want.  I've spent countless hours on the internet and reading magazines about what machine to buy and I thought I had my mind made up on a Singer.  I went traipsing around sewing centres and I asked ladies who either worked there or were doing classes there what their opinions were of the machine I had my mind set on.  Not good.  I have never heard such vitriole (in a very politically correct way as we are wont to do in the 21st century) about the Singer brand.

That's something I love about us middle aged women, we tell it like it is.  Well the women outside of the Sydney CBD do, those inside wouldn't have a bloody clue about reality.

When I was younger, Singer was the only company you could trust with sewing machines, but it seems it has gone the way of a lot of other tried and trusted brands, and has been bought out by people who only care about the quick turnover of cash.  Very sad.

I want an embroidery machine.  I had a great embroidery machine when my kids were younger and it's still a beauty but the technology is limited in it.  It's a Janome Memory Craft 8000 and I've given it to Lisa (my middle daughter) and I'm happy for her, or either of the other two girls to have it and I don't want it back because I want them to get an interest in this style of craft eventually.  The technology in the new machines allows you to have unlimited creativity with software and a particular file format being used via USB that opens up a world of designs.  I'm tossing up between a Memory Craft 200E or taking the next price step up to a 350E.  For what I want to do (download designs and use them on quilts, linen, clothing etc) I can't really see the advantage of spending more money on the 350E when the 200E has all those capabilities, but just a few less in-built designs. So I think I'm heading for the 200E.... and I'm very excited... my stomach gets all butterfly-ish like a kid at Xmas when I think about it.

Yes, I'd love the girls to get the time to be active in some craft.  When they were younger, I made sure that every opportunity I had, I bought them something to do in the line of crafting.  Louise went for latch hook above the other things she was shown, Lisa went for arty things and Kristy eventually took up creating family history books.   Wonderful because all female variety humans need a creative outlet.  Today, Louise and Lisa are busy with their children but I see them showing their daughters how to make and do things and I know they are nurturing that inbuilt desire we have to create.  The other day Lisa asked me to show her how to crochet again and I was as happy as a pig in mud.

When I was a child it was almost a task we were set - to learn how to knit, crochet, sew, embroider and cook.  Women's duties.  Every girl had to be taught them all and we even had compulsory classes in primary school in sewing and knitting.

I've still got my first "thing" I made at school - a pinwheel - or pincushion without the cushioning.  It was to teach us basic sewing and embroidery stitches.  I can remember making it in 2nd class Infants school so I would have been about 7 years old.

At home I used to love going shopping with Mum and Nana to, I think, Fletchers (the original Myers), to buy a new embroidery kit.  We always had them, it would usually be a Duchess set for Mum (large doily and two smaller doilies), crochet cotton for Nana (to crochet around the edges of the doilies) and a small doiley for me.

I was given a Duchess set for my first attempt but they decided after that it would be better if I just stuck with single ones.  To this day, my embroidery hasn't got much better. :) 

Being the sentimentalist I am, I still have my first attempt at this too.  I thought this was the only one left but a few days ago, Mum told me she had found the other small one in amongst her linen.  The large one is not to be seen though.  Embroidery by me, and I would say at about the age of 8, and crochet by Nana.  

The quilt I have just started is like a culmination of those years of sewing and embroidery attempts.  I often get ribbed by the girls about my terrible craft creations and that's OK, I know they aren't exhibition quality, but they satisfy me in some very deep way.  They give me peace and they give me continuity in life... like all roads have led to this quiet moment.  Doing them gives my mind a chance to reflect, reminisce, rest.

I have a day off today and after I finish sitting here typing this, I'm going to quickly get the housework out of the way and I might...might... go and buy that machine if I can find somewhere that sells it close by.

Or I might just sit and stitch and enjoy the brain resting time.

There are no perfect corners in my embroidery or my sewing, exactly the same as there has never been a perfect corner in my life.

Backbones and Wishbones

Louise, my eldest daughter, just pointed this poem out to me.  All I'm going to do tonight is put it here to remind me about perceived perfection.  I think this has got to be the best poem I have ever read, but then again, I am the mother and grandmother of girls.

“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” By Clementine Paddleford


Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes—
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.


Never wear only pink
when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women—
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.


Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,
fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.


Tramp muddy through the house in
a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.


Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress—
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.


Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear—
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

Fading fast

Just like the hydrangeas in my garden, tonight I'm fading fast.  Another huge day at work, another night where I'm exhausted.  This is no good.  Something has to give.

The problem today is that we are trying to make our corners completely and utterly 90 degrees of perfection to pass this blasted audit and it can't happen.  Someone has to understand that we are human and that nothing is completely perfect.  There will always be something that someone won't think is their ideal of perfection and no one can second guess what that will be.  So, it's now in the lap of the gods and if any of them don't like the amount of perfection we've acheived, then they can test out trying to put that 90 degree angle, into a small perfect circle.  Where that may be, I can't say in polite company.

Tonight, I have one wish and that is that my perfected corners are sharp. ;)

Hydrangeas

So today is the day I started the quilt.

The last week has been taken up with work, (an audit that decided it was happening sooner rather than later), and I have been so tired each night that I didn't have the energy to do anything except pass out.  That's over now and although it was hectic it did teach me one thing.  I don't live to work, I work to live.
This morning I finally managed to cut the squares from the embroidery material and use my new fabric pencil to trace out the first designs.

I chose hydrangeas the other day and it has just dawned on me the significance of starting this one today.  Hydrangeas remind me of Dad and my Nana.  Yesterday was the anniversary of Dad's death, 18 years ago.  The word 'anniversary' always conjures up images of celebrations in my mind.  Dad's death is anything but worthy of celebrating.  I miss him terribly  - still, after all these years.  They say it gets easier as time goes by but I find that very hard to believe.

Next week Nana would have been 103.  Her birthday, May 12th, always fell on or near Mothers Day and so we would always have a double celebration.  Nana has been gone 9 years now too and I also miss her terribly too.  Nana was the most influential female figure in my life and also, my closest ally in everything I ever decided to do.

When I was a child, going to Nana's house was so exciting.  She had a large garden circling her house and it was always an adventure to go into it by myself and explore.  She could obviously see where I was from every vantage point, but to me, it seemed like I was out in the wilds, exploring territories unknown, finding treasures that I was just certain she had never seen before.  There were two parts of her garden that I particularly loved - her strawberry bed where I was allowed to sit and eat every strawberry I could find, and her back steps.

Her back steps were a pyramid shape, 4 steps going up to a landing, 4 steps going back down on the other side.  Right below the landing, along the length of the steps were the most vivid, biggest-in-the-entire-universe, blue hydrangeas.  They were magical flowers to me.  I didn't know of any other blue flowers and I always thought that she had magical powers to turn flowers blue when no-one else in the world could ever do that.

At home, our soil was totally different.  We had hydrangeas too but they were always pink.  When we moved house when I was 13, Mum planted more hydrangeas along the side of the garage and again, they were pink.  Mum eventually found out that if you changed the soil mix you could get blue flower heads on them, so, ever the inventive one, she set Dad to work, widdling on them every night.

I don't know what he ate but after quite a long time, it started to work and we had hydrangeas going from pink, to mauve, to blue.  I never wanted to spoil the thought that Nana was magical with her beautiful blue flowers, and the thought that she might have been out there emptying the chamber pot on them each night was just too much to bear, so I stuck with my fantasies for as long as I could.

I've now moved into the mountains and I have hydrangeas in my garden too, and they are blue.  This year they really don't know what season it is and they are still flowering now, in May.  Hydrangeas shouldn't flower now, they have their season around Xmas and then the heat of January burns them to a crisp.  Not this year, we've had such a long wet cold summer that they are still out there, albeit a bit straggly, but out there in various shades of blue, like the magical flower they are.

Starting the embroidery brought back those memories - the sights, the smells, in fact, I can even remember the feeling of the cold dampness of climbing up those back steps at Nana's house.

I followed Ann Sommerlad's direction and used 6 strands of thread.  I chose the new variegated mauve / blue thread I bought last week.  Ann suggested colonial or french knots for the stitch but  chose to do a 2 round bullion knot because I'm so used to doing them that it was just second nature.

 I'm glad I did because the stitches are raised on the fabric and it gives a real old world feel to it all.

There is something that I can remember as a little child but I can't quite reach back far enough into my brain to pull it out and explain it.  I remember running my fingers over something that was raised and thick like this and I know I thought it was beautiful.  It may have been a pillow, or an embroidered placemat or doily but I can't remember what it was.

Running my fingers over the small bit I have done on the hydrangeas gives me that same feeling again.  I hope this quilt lasts long enough for the grandkids to be able to feel that too and remember it in their adult lives.

So I've just popped in here to write all of this down before I forget it.

I'm sitting in my new back room looking out the window as I stitch and I'm seeing all the leaves turning into a real tapestry of colour in the backyard.

Very nice.
Very peaceful.

Very as Sunday should be.

Give and Take

It's been quite a long day today.  One of those work days when the one thing you needed to work on all day kept getting interrupted and so, after the interruption, thoughts had to be regained and mind had to go back on track, and then someone else would interrupt... over and over again.

Found the pencil thingo today.  It's actually a pen but it's got an eraser on the tip of it that you use as with a pencil.  Pretty clever.  I also wanted to buy some variegated blue floss because I would like to start on the hydrangea block with the embroidery, but the one shop I went to didn't have any.  They did have some lovely vintagey shades of blues though so I bought 3 of them instead.  DMC 160, 518 and 3768.  I also bought a pink just because I liked it, DMC 152.

On my doorstep tonight is a book I ordered from fishpond.com.au (love that site) named Embroidery & Crazy Quilt Stitch Tool by Judith Baker Montano.  It looks great and I'm looking forward to having enough unsaggy eyeballs to actually see it when I'm not so tired.

There was another event today that I don't want to go into details about because, well it's not my place to do that, but it's had an effect that I think I should mention because this story is all about finding perspective in life.

"Give and take" is very hard to get to work properly, especially when you are young and in love.  Actually, it's bloody hard when you are older too.   Some people give and give and give and some people take and take and take.  Resentment has to set it on the givers and disillusionment has to set in on the takers when the waste matter hurtles itself against the propeller.  And at that point in time, it hurts.  Hurts like hell.  The world seems cruel and horrid and frightening and you can't imagine how you can keep going on.

But you do and you do it with support from the people who love you unconditionally.

I never want to have to go through that crap again, and I'm glad I'm at the stage where that's all behind me, but, geez, I really feel for those going through it and no matter how much wisdom I espouse to have, at times like this, a long hug is probably the only thing worth giving.

A long hug and the words "It doesn't matter if your corners aren't perfect".

Reconditioning

Ever bought a "reconditioned" anything?  A saggy baggy lounge chair that's had it's stomach stapled?  An unroadworthy car with the rust cut out and the oil changed to make it worthy of slipping a few extra dollars to the mechanic to get a pink slip?  Maybe you've bought a "reconditioned" fridge that sparkles like a new dime on the outside and still stinks of dead rotting fish on the inside, just because it would make a good beer fridge.

I'm thinking that's what I've tried to do to myself today.  I'm reconditioning my approach to the world.

I'm cutting out the rust, replacing the idling thingo, patching up the holes in the muffler and getting rid of the musty smell of doing for everyone and watching everyone else do nothing for me. Oh, and staleness.  The staleness has got to go.

Sitting in an office stifled by an air conditioner is wrong in so many ways.  Here's the irony though... those who smoke go out every hour or so to "have a smoke break".  They stand out in the fresh air and suck poison into their lungs.  Um...something wrong there.   Yet, the non-smokers don't get to "have a fresh air break" where we can go out and just breath in fresh clean air.  I don't get it. Might start working on that one tomorrow now that I think about it.

As I said I would this morning, I took my full lunch break and I bought the linen for the quilt.  But I had a few problems trying to slow myself down and do it leisurely-like.  Well I don't get much time to go shopping at lunch, and the shops I went to were a couple of blocks away, but I told myself that the rushed, "but oh so graceful, clodhopping walk / marathon" run was all to make me get a bit of well needed exercise, not that I thought I was taking too long. Reconditioning the brain into believing lies might have to be part of the program for a while too.

It's ok, it's early days in the reconditioning.  I'm still working on it.  I'll get a better coat of Duco soon.

I bought some food on the way back and I sat at the computer, reading work things while I ate it. Lunch got stretched out a little bit that way.. sort of. So that part of the day's plan was achieved.

Getting the linen wasn't exactly right though.  The shops I went to didn't have linen but they did have a nice quilting material that I bought instead.  It's white and it's got a good strong weave in it and it will do nicely for the embroidery... and it was on special and that's always a beacon shining in the dark night to me.

I have to try and remember to buy a fabric pen that washes out...not sure what they are called but it's to transfer the designs.  That will be for tomorrow's foray into the fresh air and sunshine at lunch, if I can walk past the smokers without suffocating.

The young lady I work with who is young enough to be my really young youngest daughter asked me what was wrong today.  She said I seemed calm.  I feel calm actually.  I feel like all the melodrama and frantic antics of others just washed over me today.  Didn't even get a splash on me, I just watched those who did it slowly drown in their own backwash.

Tonight is a late night of work for me so I'm too tired to do anything when I get home, plus it's too late.  I'll be slipping into bed with a glass of red, watch a bit of telly and then pass out like a reconditioned DVD player just out of the 3 month warranty.

I'll give one last thought to the Frantic Antic-ers tonight before I roll over to sleep and that will be "To each his own".  

May they always think that their corners are perfect so they don't suck anyone else into their backwash.

Variegations

I work too hard.  I know I do.  I like to give my best at a job because I'm so uppity that I don't want anyone to think I can't do something.  So I take on more than I should because....well, I don't know why.  I don't know why I do that.

Last week I may have known why I do that, but today I don't.

I'm sitting here having my morning cup of tea and preparing myself for another working week and it suddenly dawned on me that I'm a fool.

I don't mean a moron, I mean a fool.  Fools rush in where others fear to tread.  That's what I do at work.  I rush in and get things done because others won't or can't or just don't.  It happens day in and day out.  You can hear them... "There's that fool Kim going at a hundred miles an hour getting everything done and so she can do this too.  She's fool enough to take it on".

Hmmm.

Well, not anymore.  Today is the day I work at the pace everyone else works at.  I do my bit...obviously well :)... and then go home and forget it and what didn't get done will be there tomorrow.

I don't want to work.

Who does?

I need the money to pay the bills and that, really, is the only reason I work.  I get satisfaction out of a job well done, but I honestly know that if I gave up working tomorrow (because the Millionaire Fairy landed) I wouldn't be bored and I wouldn't feel dissatisfied.

I have so many hobbies that I do and such a wonderful growing family that life could never be boring or unsatisfying.

The fragility of life hit me hard yesterday with the death of a young lady who I saw grow from a toddler to a glamourous young woman.  She did nothing wrong, she worked hard...way too hard at times and she was taken, in the blink of an eye, without having the chance to find that peace only older people can find.

It stinks.  Justify that God or Allah or Bloody Tutenkahmen.  Justify that in your warped fairy tale ways.

And that's what I woke up with in my mind this morning.

So today is the start of the quilt.  I just ordered online my green floss for the leaves and stems.  I'm not going to stick to Ann's colour scheme, I'll be making my own to suit my moods.

I chose variegated green and brown in silk for the leaves.  201 Ash to be exact. I've ordered this from  the Country Quilt Company in Ipswich.

I love to see leaves change colour.  Autumn is my favourite time of the year and my garden gives me so much pleasure as I watch the maples and dogwood change from green to bright reds and yellows.  The variegation in the leaves can be stunning.  It reminds me of how beautiful the world is and how vital it is to remind our kids, and grandkids, to take a moment each day to see something of beauty like that.

So my leaves will be variegated.

I'm going to take my full lunch break today.  I usually don't get a chance to do that either.  But today, it's going to happen.  That will be my first major life variegation.

During lunch,I'll be looking for the linen to use to do the embroidery on.

Onward to a new way of doing things.

Life's corners

Hi,

Today Daughter Number Two lost her childhood friend.  She was killed in a head on car accident.  28 years old, so much to live for... such sorrow.

Today I spoke to my 76 year old mother and thought about what it will be like when I won't hear her voice anymore... such regret.

Today I held two of my four granddaughters and saw their innocence and wonder.... such love.

Today I went to a quilt show and met with a 98 year old lady who was hand quiliting.  I stopped with her and spoke of life for about half an hour.  She was giving me history lessons on quilting, teaching me to take what comes with our lives, telling me practicalities of quilting.... such knowledge.

And then she said to me some words I will never forget.

"It doesn't matter if your corners aren't perfect".

I've never heard truer words.

This is my journey to create a quilt that will always remind me that life doesn't need perfect corners to give you satisfaction.

I bought a pattern from Ann Sommerlad for this named Country Garden.  I spoke with Ann about making it and as she only lives a short distance from me, I know where to go for any help I may need with it.

To be honest, I don't think I want any help.  The quilt is going to help me put everything in perspective.

Please join me.