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Saturday, May 13, 2006

Happy Mothers Day!!

I know I'm a bit early there but won't get another chance to blog until Monday at the earliest. We personally don't make a BIG fuss about Mothers Day but we do a little bit, and it's always nice. We are going to spend some time with George's mum and sisters and I am really looking forward to that. I will knit a sock (my Project Spectrum project for the month as it is multi shades of green, dyed by my fair hands) on the way down, and while we are there I will work on this week's stitch homework which is a textured piece on canvas. (It was meant to be on rug canvas. I didn't buy any rug canvas as a kind person in class had a big roll of plastic rug canvas to share around. I tried and tried but I just couldn't use it, it hurt my hands, so I am using a much finer piece of canvas which was the only one I had under the bed). I made her a little bag to keep wool needles in, with a couple of packets of them inside. I;m rather proud of it, it's a Humbug bag in the medium size and big enough to keep sundry sewing supplies in. It was very easy to make and took me an hour from start to finish, not counting quilting the fabric - I ad two patchwork fabrics I wanted to use and I decided to take the plunge and machine quilt them. This is important because I tried machine quilting some years ago and made a horrible mess of it and threw it away and vowed never to quilt again. But I have been teaching myself to do free motion machine embroidery recently and thought that machine quilting is the same technique, more or less, so I would give it a go. And I conquered my fear of machine quilting! I was so proud of myself.

Work is really ramping up on the course and I am starting to panic. Considering that I don't even have a paid job, you'd think I;d have time enough compared with all the others, but I guess the down time of CFS and fibromyalgia takes up a lot of time. At least I can often get stitching homework done when I am too flaked out to do anything except loll on the couch. This week I have to do the canvas work and write two design briefs for next Friday. One of them will be from scratch (except that I have already pretty much thought out the basics of the design I want to do), the other one I have already done all the research for and just have to put it all together. Plus I have to deliver stuff for sale at The Highway Gallery on Thursday to go into their Come For A Yarn exhibition in a couple of weeks - all the stuff is made, except for some patterns I need to print out, but I need to price them and fill in the consignment form. I have also agreed to teach two scrumbling classes during the exhibition. So am feeling a little panicky at the moment! I was going to exhibit three things as well as the stuff for sale, but I think it is only going to be one thing now as I haven't finished the other two and it is unlikely at this stage that I will finish them.

Plus we have some stress going on at the moment which I won't go into right now, we're in a difficult situation with one of the kids and we have to make some tricky decisions quite quickly. Teri, who left a comment on my previous post - when I have some time I will email you and continue the conversation you have started!

I hope you are all spoilt by your kids, if you have kids, and spoilt your mothers, if you are lucky enough to have mothers!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Judy,
I often pop by for some colourful inspiration. Today I'd like to thank you for the Mother's Day wishes, which recognise that we don't all have kids or Mums. I wish all Mums a happy day ... while I miss my Mum who passed on 10 years ago. She introduced me to all manner of knitting & sewing crafts & took great pride in producing beautiful objects for her family.
Love the Humbug Bag, too. Around 1970 I was given a roo skin (fur was ok back then) keycase which was basically a humbug shape with a little strap sewn inside on which the keyring & keys were attached. The keyring tucked inside & the pouch zipped up ... to protect pockets & handbags from key scratches & tears.
Good Luck with the CFS too. It's a beast of a thing ... my sister's vision suffered terribly when at her worst. Now she gardens & restores furniture! so long as she avoids petro-chemicals. It's a long haul ... hang in there!
Best Wishes to you & Thanks for your blog.
Jo in Melbourne