Slow Sunday Stitching, March 26, 2017

My poor neglected blog. It is feeling very lonely and left out of things these last few months. I’ve at least been trying to maintain a weekly Sunday stitching post, but last weekend I was hit with something nasty, although I have no idea what it was. A fever of 101 aka 39 for those who think in celsius, and all the attendant aches and pains that come with fever. But nothing else..... no obvious source of what caused the fever. And by Sunday it was gone, leaving me feeling like I’d been hit by a truck with all the attendant aches and pains that would cause. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Thankfully, by mid week, I was more or less functioning normally again.

But still, carving out time to sit and give my blog some loving is getting very difficult to do. For those of you who don’t know, I have fibromyalgia. I don’t talk about it often, because my preferred method of dealing with it is to live with what I can and ignore the rest. However, one of the challenges I’ve learned to live with is the sleep disorder that goes with it. I take medication for it, which means my morning start ups are late and very slow, like an engine trying to turn over with a dying battery. You know the sound.... My very kind husband brings me a coffee at around 10 am. After that, I get up, and make myself another cup of coffee, and sit and read on my computer for the time it takes for the second cup to have its desired effect, and for my mind to be thinking at least semi clearly. All this means that my usable days start at about noon. Something to eat, and up to the studio to work on customer quilts, or my own, or guild projects on the long arm. Then it’s supper time. My husband leaves at 4 to go pick up our daughter from work, and grand daughter from daycare. They get home at 5, just in time for all of us to have supper. Her husband Matt gets home from work a little later than that. We spend time with them, usually until Abbie is ready for bed, somewhere around 6:30 or 7.

Then there’s the business expansion stuff to be done, files drawn into Corel for using on the laser. Once those are done, my husband Scott does the actual running of the laser. Learning Corel was a challenge, but a fun one. I love learning new stuff. I think it keeps me feeling young, mentally at least. It’s exciting learning new things, and the feeling when something is mastered, or something falls into place with that “aha” moment is actually quite a thrill. I’ve learned a lot, and am getting much faster at what needs to be done. I usually give myself until 9pm for that, and then I reward myself with some stitching. This whole business expansion is actually a family thing. Our daughter Becca is doing up the computer files for the labels. Our son Noel is doing the photography for the products. Here’s a photo of a couple of the hexagon acrylic templates he took. I love the quirkiness of the background he used.These will be up on the website when it’s finished.

Scott is doing the book keeping and the actual running of the laser. It’s been a wonderful bonding experience in our family, which was already very close.

Weekends lately, have been labeled as “mine”. Yesterday there was a guild sewing day for working on various projects for our community outreach. It was a wonderful day of socializing, talking, having fun, and getting stuff done, all at the same time. Joining the guild a few years ago has to be one of the best things I have ever done. It’s taken this shy, quiet, very non-social person, and turned her into someone completely different. Or maybe, not someone different, but maybe released the person who was there all along, just buried? I don’t know, but I love it!

So, all this to say, I’m crazy busy, and mostly loving every minute of it. But it makes what Kathy was talking about in her Slow Sunday Stitching post all that much more important. I need to intentionally carve out time to do the things that bring me rest and peace. Spending time daily with my Lord, in His word and in prayer is a huge part of that rest and peace, the biggest and most important part, actually. But He gave me this desire to create, and Sundays are the day that I love to take and indulge that creativity. I love reading on Kathy’s blog what everyone else has been up to in their hand stitching journeys, and I love this hand stitching journey of mine.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of a new project I’d started, which the Electric Quilt software calls Castor and Pollux. I’ve made significant progress on it. This section is finished, and I’m working on the bottom half. It will be 20”x20” when finished, and will likely end up as a pillow. It will have half diamonds around the outside in order to square it off. I’m hoping to get lots more done on it today. So, with that in mind, I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, maybe get some lunch, and do some slow and restful stitching.