Valerean

I'm feeling very blah right now. This month has traditionally been hard on me; there are the birthdays of two loved ones now gone from my life that I have to get through, the pumpkin spice nonsense explodes, and Christmas things show up everywhere in a big way. As I write this it's been raining steadily for two days, so I can't really spend any significant time outdoors. I need inspiration and motivation, stat. I have been looking in my own photo archives to see the projects I most liked from past Octobers in hopes that it would jog something, and saw this thrifted crocheted baby blanket that I acquired unfinished with the yarn and hook the maker had been using, and I finished it. I loved that project. In 2024 I made a small quilt from a pound of fabric an Etsy seller chose and sent to me. That is a challenge I really enjoy and I've made several quilts that way. In 2023 I completed the second embroidered recycled linen quilt in some of my favorite ...

If I didn't have diabetes I would probably never leave the house except to shop for food. I am a homebody by nature. I love my home, my guy, my nephew and our dogs. That's my world. I do not feel the same about the outside world and most of the people in it. The world seems dark and nasty, and most folks appear to be just out for themselves and what they want, and heaven help anyone who gets in their way. For these reasons I would happily stay at home forever. When I'm not writing, cooking, caring for the pups and my guys or doing my housework, I can sit for hours and crochet, read and watch videos. That's my life and I do love it. Maybe that's why I am a very sedentary person. Also, I've never found an exercise that I ended up genuinely liking. I've done gymnastics, weight lifting, dance, aerobics, swimming, tai chi and a bunch of other stuff. Now I'm so old and crippled by arthritis that all I can do is walk, but I do walk, twice ...

Despite my best intentions the only quilting I did last month was my March tote for my calendar project, and there was barely any of that involved (basically some applique of the two fabric panels.) I want to say that I simply ran out of time and month, but honestly whenever I wanted to work on something I opted for crochet, as I'm better at that now. To get myself motivated I've made myself a mini-challenge: make something quilted every week in April. As a warmup for the challenge I decided to use was this flamingo novelty fabric I bought at the county quilt show last year to make a bowl mat for my nephew's dog. I sewed and quilted this mat almost entirely by machine, and it only took a couple hours. It's not perfect, but it turned out much better than I expected. I have to admit, part of my problem with quilting is that I resent having to do so much by machine now. I'm just not a machine quilter at heart. That said, it was a lot less painful th...

I'm starting to seriously slow down with just about everything I do, and not by choice. Writing now takes most of the day just to reach quota (I've been trying to go back to my one-session method, which is not working.) It's all I can do to get my housework finished each week. Meals seem to take forever to prepare. All the quilting and art projects I want to do are piling up; finishing one seems to take all the time in which I used to complete three or four. I suspect it's my age, and like everything about this time of my life I need to accept it. Since my spirit animal is a cheetah, this is going to take some doing. Slow stitch has helped me appreciate the journey more than the results, so I've got a bit of a jump on slowing down. I can go back to my two session method for work. Housework is always going to be unfinished, and I know I need to devote a little more time to it. I'm already looking for simpler and quick-fix dinner recipes (found some g...

One part of my process with writing anything is to reward myself after I cross the finish line. I usually choose the reward in advance so I'll have that prize waiting for me while I work, and it's always something I really want. Dangling a carrot like that is great motivation for me, and before I turned pro it was also like a little paycheck. Just before the pandemic hit I went on a writing hiatus; my partner and I were shifting to a different business model which, due to a number of factors beyond our control, didn't work as well as what we'd been doing before it. Over the summer I was supposed to get back in the saddle, but my first project turned out to be very problematic, and I struggled with figuring out why. When I finally straightened that out and started writing I plodded. I could get the words on the page, but it took twice or three times as along. It also exhausted me. It was really awful, which writing has never been for me. I'd spend hours ...

Working on the table runner has given me a chance to clear my head every night and think about the future instead of panicking over the present. Pandemic-related panic has already wrecked too much of this year for me, and facing the potential end of my ability to hand-stitch can be terrifying or inspiring. I'd rather be inspired than terrified, so I'm going to focus on what I can do for as long as I can do it. Once I'm finished the quilting I might do a bit of feather stitching on this one with one of these embroidery threads. There's an unmatched seam in the white patchwork in just one spot (directly below the threads in this pic) that annoys me. I decided last month that I want to make a couple of quilts that combine artistry and function. Thanks to Theo, I was able to purchase a quilt kit and a second panel featuring prints of some architectural/nature watercolor paintings by Noelle Phares : I'm going to make this one according to the kit. I think...

Today I'm off to spend the day with Oliver, but I wanted to post something to explain what's been going on with me. I actually spent an entire day last month writing up a very long post to explain why I've been (virtually/emotionally) hiding under the bed for most of the summer. It started out with detailing some unkindness I had to deal with that upset me, the pressure on me in several areas with my job and the family, my latest bouts of insomnia, plus a lot of wingeing over my new hand issues and my old neck problem, both of which are quickly getting worse. Watching my country being torn apart by a pandemic and the most hateful politics I've ever observed doesn't help. Writing about all that then blew up into this diatribe on basically everything that has been weighing on me, not just this summer but for years. Imagine a mushroom cloud of emotion, all negatively-charged, and that was the original post. After proofing it and realizing just how upset and depr...

I got this warning in my fortune cookie from our Chinese takeout: It sounds ominous, right? It certainly could be, but I don't think it is. What it immediately called to mind for me was all the projects I've stuck in my to-do bin: As I mentioned last month I'm losing function in my only working hand due to the progression of my arthritis, and I think by this time next year I won't be able to hand stitch anymore. Now I can whine and cry about that (and I have), or I can get on with what I want to do right now while I can still do hand work. I can do a lot in a year, trust me. :) Along with my silk crazy quilt I've added my to-do bin to my hand quilting bucket list. So I unpacked the bin to look at everything and decide in what order I should do them: These are shibori fabrics dyed by a textile artist; I have some vague notions on making them into an art piece. I've always wanted to make a queen or king size version of the Yellow Brick Road pa...

Based on how long it takes me to do one 14" crazy quilt block the way I want to do it, I'm probably going to be spending upwards of 1000 hours this year to make one quilt (and at this point I'm not sure I'll even finish it.) The finished project cannot be actually used as a quilt, so it's definitely art. I'm not especially gifted or skilled with embroidery, so it won't be one of those spectacular crazies that ends up in a museum, either. So why do it? Wait, it gets even more depressing. I'm making this quilt from recycled silk, which even if it is carefully preserved will likely fall apart in less than a hundred years. Only no one in my family really likes my art or my quilting much unless it's something they can use, so I expect after I'm gone the finished quilt will be sold or donated -- or possibly thrown out. Whatever happens to it, I doubt it will stay together longer than maybe fifty years. So really, why do it? This is a question ...