Time for Tea

I have finished something! Hurray!
After my last post about coming to terms with my possible long term state of morning sickness, I sat down and thought about some radical changes to routine. If my capacity for all the things in my day had shrunk from about 8-10 good hours to about four, I needed to think creatively. And I needed to prioritise.

The best solution I could come up with was making time to sew in the morning, when I was at my best. It's usually the time I spend doing housework and playing with the kids. And then I would sew during rest time and after they were in bed, my little reward, my break from the world. I felt really uncomfortable making sewing time during my 'work hours'. It was hard enough not to drown in the laundry as it is without trying to squeeze in sewing too. So I just sat with the idea for while, waiting to see if a better plan arose.

Well then both my kids got sick and most of you know how that throws any kind of routine straight out the window. Friday night I finally got to sleep at 5am, and we spent the weekend basically in survival mode. I'm so thankful for a friend that cooked enough food to feed us three nights in a row!
I'm also so thankful for Tim. He decided to take Monday off work and stayed home to attack the washing with me, take the kids out for a drive, and give me time to sew.
I managed to finish off this custom order tablecloth.

 And having a finish is a great feeling anyway, but while I sat there matching colours, feeding them slowly through my machine, (I was using an overlocking stitch on my sewing machine - great motivation to learn to use my overlocker!) I started to feel an energy and peace I couldn't get from a full night's sleep. And it started to help me feel differently about the way we shape this next season.

I was reminded again that serving my family isn't just making sure the washing is up to date and food is on the table, and it isn't even just making myself available to them, but it's feeding my own soul too. I'd let go of all the things that give me energy to make time for the bare essentials. And I was feeling bare.

And do you know what I've realised (but kind of always known)? My kids play really well together in the morning! They haven't even noticed me tucked away in the studio for an hour. It's the afternoons when they become twitchy, and need to know I'm there, need me to feed and water them more regularly. So I park myself on the back steps while they play outside, ready with fruit and water when they come asking. Maybe this will work longer than just while I'm pregnant?

Oh, and a few notes about the tablecloth. I used mostly fabrics from Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry and Cameo by Amy Butler. Don't they work well together? My customer requested a large style patchwork in bright colours so I had to be choosy about prints that worked well in big cuts that I was happy to let go. Though I do only have three months left in my Fabric Fast, can you believe it?! I used an overlocking stitch to piece them together and folded the edges over twice and used my 1/4" foot to hem them. These colours will be just perfect for Christmas, don't you think? Which has got me thinking that this is a reasonably quick gift to make compared to a quilt...

making eyebrows

 

I think I've been staring at this computer screen for about 20 minutes now. My brain is a fog. It has been for the last two or so months. I'm spending life constantly double-booked, or finding myself on the couch wondering what I was doing, or just giving up and having a sleep. I think whenever I'm pregnant, my body becomes distracted making eyebrows, or whatever it's up to now. I am no longer Jodi. I am a vessel.

I'm thirteen and a half weeks now and I still feel sick most of the time. I felt sick with Tully till around 12 weeks, with Evie till 36. So I'm just starting to process the realisation that this might be me for another five or six months. I was snuggled up in front of the TV with Tully yesterday and one of the shows said, "It's time to let go of your expectations and go with the flow." I felt like it was for me. But OH! I think I find that the hardest thing to do EVER. I've come to that time of the year when the markets are busy, the custom orders are flowing in and I'm starting to write a completely ridiculous list of the Christmas presents I'd like to make. And I'm having a bit of a tantrum about the fact that I'll have to choose.

 It makes me really thankful that my friend Jodi has been coming around every Thursday to sew up our friends' Fire Quilt. And yes, I am amused that we share the same name. It's for all the times I wished there were two of me. Although we're not actually that alike. She's very organised, good at maths and never double books herself. Probably makes us quite a good team, really.

I can also rest in the fact that while my ideas for what I could make for the Olive Tree Markets are all amazing, I do have plenty of stock left over from the shop earlier in the year. More is not always more, Jodi. 

And this custom order for a patchwork table cloth brings all the fun of BIG piecing without the basting, quilting, binding. When I finish the top, I will actually be finished!

I think I'm the kind of person who takes a couple of months to find a groove in new situations, to decide what my priorities and goals are. At the moment my only goal is to not be ridiculous in my expectations of myself. I'd like them to be better articulated than that, but slowly, slowly. After all, the point of life is not to produce, but to be.
And today being means messaging a bunch of friends to cancel afternoon tea because I won't actually be here, I'll be on my way to Sydney for my Dad's 60th. It means not beating myself up for handing over my brain to my uterus.
Then I'll put on some music and do a very poor job packing for camping, because I can't for the life of me think intelligently about what we'll need. And then I will enjoy being with my family and celebrating my wonderful Dad and not worry about forgetting pillows or toothbrushes.
I do love that I can share this here. Writing is the way I process, remember, move on. Thank you friends. x

A Gift in Season.

About a year ago Tim and I were travelling through the New South Wales countryside wondering what the heck had happened to our lives. We had two kids, a toddler and a baby. And while I'd always wanted to be a mum, I missed the adult conversation, mental stimulation and positive feedback of the academic life. Tim missed having a wife who had interesting dinner (and travel!) conversation. You may have read here that I drew hope from the trees and their seasonal life and started to formulate a quilt to express my reflections. 

Around the same time, I was reading Maureen's story. At the other end of the 'small children' season to me, and on the other side of the world, she was processing difficult news about her health at the same time as sending her youngest off to school. I was discouraged that this season felt so long, she was grieving that it was over so fast. And her story, a reminder of how much a mother's life changes over and over, connected deeply with me.

So I decided to make that quilt for her, stitching away, praying it would be a blessing, terrified of sending my work to someone I admired so, pushing back the voice the told me not to bother. I don't write this to 'big note' myself. I write it because pushing that voice back felt like the main thing I was doing through it all. So when Maureen wrote to me recently and this amazing quilt arrived in the mail and she told me how much it had meant to her, and how perfect the timing had been (it arrived the day she dropped her daughter off at school!), I felt like that little boy, so long ago, who had given his fish and bread to a master chef, and it was used to give a feast to a crowd.

 This beautiful quilt, with the lady that looks like she's waiting for something, and the butterflies fluttering off in freedom, also came right on time for me. Tim and I had found out a couple of months earlier that we were to be officially outnumbered. I have been excited, but if I'm honest, mostly I've been terrified. It feels so ungrateful to say so after losing a little one earlier this year. I'm sure it's partly been hormonal, and partly the result of morning sickness, but also a big old part of me is just scared to go back to that time where I'm constantly tired, working to someone else's rhythm and no longer have life in my control. We'd just hit the stage where Tully could pour milk, butter bread and work the computer. Were we crazy?? 

Yes, I'd say we are, but Maureen's note encouraged me to remember that I don't have to have full brain capacity or energy levels to love people, be inspired, or grow or enjoy the sunshine and the new leaves budding in our yard as I write.
Thank you Maureen!

And then today, seeing that tiny heartbeat, knowing it was made to be loved, loved by me! I could feel those fears start to fade. I know there's a crazy, noisy, experiencing too much 2am, road ahead. But I also hope that 3rd time around, I've learned a little patience and grace to remember that my turn for sleep and ease will come in time, and this precious gift will be a wonderful reward.

Jodi. xx

Bee Catcher

Apparently I'm in a bit of a blogging and making slump at the moment. I blame it on the weather. Spring seems to have hit early this year. And my kids. For the first time ever, while preparing a vege garden, they have not systematically come behind me to destroy it. We've been shopping for hay, we've been planting blueberry bushes, we've been enjoying the new buds on the pomegranate tree. My camera and phone all the while, have laid abandoned inside. I usually have a running commentary in my head as I go through my day, all of life potential fodder for my blog, but I've felt compelled lately just to experience the moment and let it flitter away, never to be recorded.

I've felt a bit guilty, which is strange, because I haven't promised a regular update to anyone, except perhaps, to myself. I seem to be the kind of person who baulks at commitment. I'm highly driven to complete things sprung from internal motivation, but as soon as I commit to someone else's project, or push past the motivation of my own, something in me falls asleep. Is this common? Is it left over from school and uni days, dragged from one deadline to the next? I used to think I was motivated by deadlines, but now I think I was just trained to push myself to meet them. Is anyone else out there like this?

I've felt the same with my online quilting bee, Scrappy? Sew Bee it! Thankfully, I've had a very gracious and relaxed group of new friends to initiate me into the world of monthly quilt block making. I really enjoy only making one or two blocks, having a quick project over in an hour or two, but somehow, earlier this year, I found myself seven or eight months behind! I'm embarrassed to even share it here, but the reason I am, is because when, in May, I decided I would try to catch up before my month in June, I discovered some important things about the way I work and why I couldn't achieve something as small as a block a month. I thought I'd share it with you in case you can relate.

I think the biggest single difference for me with my usual sewing habit, and making a block for someone, is the way I make a start. I rarely use patterns or shop or make sure I have the right materials before I start. My most comfortable way of making is to turn on my iron and machine and sit down. Sometimes I have bursts where I do a ton of cutting, but mostly I have a couple of things on the go so that at any time I can just walk into my sewing room and sit. Sitting is my default.

But with block making, the beginning steps are very different. It starts with turning on my computer, checking Flickr, downloading or clicking the link to a pattern, sometimes printing (my least favourite, because my printer hates me). This long list of prerequisites was not at all clear in my mind when I would finally sit down to make a block and, drawing a blank, end up picking something else to work on. It sounds obvious, but I really had to train myself to go to my laptop first rather than my sewing room. I had to remind myself to read all the instructions rather than look at a picture for inspiration and just make up the measurements and colours.

It's been an important learning curve for me to understand that I wasn't behind because I was lazy or disorganised. I just needed to teach myself some practical skills that went against my natural inclinations. I just needed to break it down into tiny steps. What about you? Got any extra tips for getting bee blocks in on time?
Now, I just have one more block to do today, and then I'm heading back outside to enjoy the sunshine.

ten years

I want to tell a story from before the days of digital photography. Can I keep your attention without pictures? It was before the days of mobile phones and Facebook, and sharing photos of what you ate for lunch. (Sorry, I still don't get that!) Back when we soaked up every moment, ever present, rather than seeing it through the lens of our camera phone.

Ten years ago today, my not-yet-husband surprised me for my birthday, turning up at my door step in a tiny rural town where I was a youth worker at the local high school. We were just friends back then, good ones. And there'd always been a bit of something more, maybe, since I'd met him 3 years earlier. But he was over three years younger than me. And he'd just moved back home with his folks to start a band with his brother. And neither of those things struck me as someone who was going somewhere.

We filled the weekend with exploring the local area and introducing him to the local people and staying up really late drinking tea and doing jigsaw puzzles. And maybe I wasn't very good at keeping my feelings at bay. Maybe I flirted, just a little. At at the end of the weekend, he asked me if I wanted to pursue things further. 
I kind of did. But I said I didn't.
"Not ever? Or just not now?"
I felt like saying not now was still committing myself. So I said not ever. 
I lied to him, "I'm sorry if I've given you the wrong impression. Please don't read into my actions as anything more than friendship."
He left early the next morning.

The following year, his musical hopes dashed, he moved out of home again to go to uni. He was enrolled in a Bachelor of Micro-Electronic Engineering. I remember discovering that it was about speakers and audio and amplifiers and things, and thinking that he was really from another planet. I had made the right choice, really. I was after someone who was interested in saving the world like me.

I moved to Dubbo, a bigger town, not far from where I was, to study further with Cornerstone Community, the organisation we work with now here in Newcastle. That year was the very tiny beginning of learning to listen to my heart and longings, rather than the strict list of rules and plans I had written for myself as a teenager, I think as a reaction against the pain and chaos of those years. I started to take Tim's calls, and return them. I started to listen to his stories and share my own. I started to give myself permission to fall for him, and not yet think about where it might lead.

But I also knew I was slightly stuck. I had made myself clear. No matter how much I talked or giggled or batted my eyes at him. He was under strict instructions not to read into anything. As much as I loved the idea of him coming to sweep me away, I'd told him not to. I'd told him to stay away. The ball was in my court.

I found out he was going to be in Sydney for his cousin's wedding. My parents lived in Sydney, so I travelled the six hour bus ride east to meet him there. I managed to pry him away from his family and we ate the most terrible, greasy fish and chips under the Harbour Bridge. After dinner, I took a deep breath, mustered up all my courage and said,
"So, I was wondering if your earlier offer was still open?"
He looked at me, teasing, "Offer for what?"
Oh, you bugger. You want to make this hard for me, don't you?
"Umm. For a relationship?" I felt like such an idiot.
He smiled. "Jo, I want you to know that whatever happens, I think you're a really cool chic."
What! What does that even MEAN?
"Meaning?"
"Yeah, I think it could work well. Come on, let's go get ice-cream."
Work well?? Ice-cream?? I rolled my eyes at him. And we went and got ice-cream.

A year later, we were hiking through the Blue Mountains together, and having reached one of those quintessential mountain cliff views, Tim turned suddenly, dropped to one knee and proposed.
I paused. I so wanted to get him back for that night under the Harbour Bridge. But he started to look worried and I chickened out. I said Yes.
Suddenly, he turned and climbed up this massive boulder. He said,
"So, a year ago, under the bridge, I was pretty restrained because I wanted to allow things to grow slowly, but this is what I wanted to say..."
He threw his arms in the air and yelled out across the valley,
"WAAAAHHHOOOOOO!"
That's better, I smiled.

 

Well, I'm 33 today, and Tim has less hair and I have more lines on my face. And I've never managed to shed that baby weight, but I like myself a whole lot more than I did back then. And the more I've learnt to like myself, the more I've filled my life with things I like. Like studying history at Uni just because I wanted to, and having kids and sewing and deciding not to work or have a mortgage. There is less sleep in the 30s. Less emotional highs and lows. Less poetry and friendships and feeling like you're achieving something. And there's a whole lot more washing. Settledness is something that terrified me in my twenties. But now I bathe in it. I like it's solidness, the space it gives to master things, to finish a quilt, to try another, to plant fruit trees, and know (as much as one can) that we'll be here to eat the fruit. 

Yes, I'm going to enjoy 33, Tim. And I think it's mostly because you're here to shape it with me.
xx

Fabric Fast Month 8 ~ Happy Mail

Well, I'm past the half way mark of my year long fabric fast, my challenge to myself to not buy any fabric for a year and to sort and use my scraps. I wrote a little while ago of my weariness of this challenge, especially with lots of delicious new fabric lines coming out, but my recent influx of happy mail has well and truely quenched my thirst for opening packages and any lacking I felt about my stash.

I was given the opportunity to write a tutorial for Lily's Quilts using two fat quarter bundles from Abakhan Fabrics. They arrived a couple of days ago and I immediately jumped in and started my fabric book. I'm really enjoying the flat solids and stripes compared to my usual scrappy look.

My next exciting bundle to arrive was a charm pack by Dear Stella, of their Spring 2013 lines. 125 squares of fabric that I don't already own. I have a friend who always buys a fat quarter or charm pack of lines she likes so she can see them in person, whereas I've always bought lots of a few prints. Since quilting more, longing for more variety in my stash, and being surprised by the kinds of prints I end up using all the time, I'm pretty sure my buying habits will be siginficantly different once I start shopping again (thought hopefully not increased!) In this load of prints, I've found plenty that I know I wouldn't have chosen online, but would end up using a lot.

While I was on holidays I found out I won this Collage 10" layer cake from Fabric Bubb! It's so fun! And it gives me my very first newspaper prints. One challenge with my fabric fast is the growing use of low volume and text prints replacing white in my sewing bee. I made sure I stocked up on white before embarking on my fast! But I didn't even think about the others. A year is a long time in the quilting world!

My wall of leaves is growing rapidly following my turn as queen bee in June for Scrappy? Sew Bee it! I love that this is going to be a quilt I could never make on my own. The range of prints and colours is so vast, it's going to have a character all of its own. I love it.

And then finally, a very special one. This half yard bundle of Briar Rose by Heather Ross, arrived a couple of days ago, my birthday gift from my mum. Thank you Mum! It was fun posting a photo on my Facebook page asking whether people would open it immediately or wait a week, till my birthday. I was surprised that most people couldn't have waited, those that would have loved the idea of opening it on the special day, loved the suspense, the ritual. Not being from a very gifty family (we all love that Mum gives us a set amount each year, in our bank account), and being terrible at gift giving myself (at least, the being organised and creative part), those things weren't as important to me as the fun of ripping into the envelope the moment I'd posted the photo, so I could see all these beautiful, happy prints. I will wait to cut into them, but only because I plan to use them for the Penny Sampler!

I do feel so very thankful for these additions to my sunny sewing room. It does feel a little bit like cheating! But I also know it's the encouragement I needed to get to the end of the year. It also feels like a reminder of why I chose this. I definitely love the choosing, the waiting, the receiving, just as much as the making. And I'm sure you can relate that it's much easier to put colours together on a computer screen with a glass of wine after the kids have gone to bed, than to sleepily make my way to my machine! But here I am nearly 8 months later and my buckets of scraps or shelves of fabric don't look significantly depleted. If I feel like I am lacking, it's because of changing trends, not because I'm running out. I am looking forward to that first shop in January 2014, but I hope this has set me on a more sustainable path.

Snow

We had our first ever family holiday in the Snowy Mountains National Park a couple of weeks ago. We normally spend our holidays visiting friends, going to birthday parties or weddings, at family Christmasses. It's taken me seven and a half years to convince my extroverted Tim this is important too. Though, I'm not sure if I convinced him it was fun. :)
We experienced the rugged, dry beauty of the national park for a couple of days before the clouds generously gifted us with snow. I've only spent time in the snow a few times in my life, while living in Eastern Europe, but they hold precious memories for me. I think I came here to the mountains as a kid, but didn't remember the exquisite, unique beauty of our mountains and eucalyptus trees dressed in white. The views, the cold, brisk air and the playfulness it brought out in us, gave me an energy I don't think I've felt since I was 19, living in Poland! I was so, so thankful.

We travelled down to Melbourne to meet Tim's family for a week after this precious time alone. Melbourne is Australia's treasured European city, and I have many friends who've chosen to live there over the years, so I was excited and curious to see it. We stayed in beautiful apartments right in the centre of the city and it was wonderful to see the way my kids connected with Tim's family and to go to the craft fair with my mother in law. I did have fun, and all my photos from that leg of the trip are in my Instagram feed, but the lack of sky or land did make me feel walled in. While all the things we saw were interesting, it wasn't energising in the same way.

Tim and I listened to lots of podcasts during our 2500km of driving. One was on the topic of beauty. It told the story of a school set up somewhere in the States for kids who had fallen out of the mainstream system. The focus of the school was arts. They painted it beautiful colours, always had fresh flowers and gardens, taught music and dance and their students have an 80% college entrance rate! It got us talking about all the things we've thought of doing to our home but have put off. I want to create that kind of energy and light in our house and garden.
Now, if only I could get it to snow here!