Making Changes.....

2016 so far has been a year of epic changes.... moving house and town, changing schools -twice and changing job!

As with any changes all of this has taken a toll on our family. We love where we now live in Stroud. It has taken 5 months but we finally feel at home. It is a great town with lovely walks into town and all sorts of lovely shops.

The rest of life is settling down, but we have had to make some changes. The boys have stopped Saturday morning activities for a little while - family time has been needed to help us all settle in.

And I have made the decision in the last 2 weeks that my creativity has taken a nose dive in the last 18 months through work pressures, teaching commitments and life! Like so many of you I can't function without being creative. It is part of my soul and without working on something creative my brain starts to suffer...... I suffer!

So..... I have decided to stop teaching. I love teaching and passing on my skills and creating fabric addicts! But I NEED to work on my own creations. I want to finish my City and Guilds, I want to create new items and I want finish my stack of half finished quilts.... I want to do something for me!

It has been a hard decision and I am heart broken to leave my students, but having made a commitment to look after myself more I feel better already.

Just some of the things I have been doing since my decision to slow down: crochet (3 blankets on the go at once), bread making and finishing the quilt top for my Tulip Medallion quilt.

Sometimes hard decisions lead to a happier life.... a hopefully a more creative life!

See you soon,

One Year On...

It is amazing how time flies!

It has been a year since I stopped teaching for Adult Education Gloucestershire and started working at a community hub.

Module 6 Course Sampler

A whole year!

In that time my creativity and energy has been failing me. I thought it was because of the change in work and the new responsibilities that I have. My energy to blog, sew and keep up with the boys just disappeared.

Then in the summer I tried to give blood and they wouldn't let me because I failed the anaemia test. They suggested a visit to the doctors to confirm my levels. Turns out I am extremely anaemic! The kind of anaenic that involves huge iron tablets 3 times a day and sleeping 16 out of 24 hours a day!

Sept 2015 Curves Class

The last 2 months have been a long haul back from being so poorly. My energy levels are slowly growing and I only need an afternoon nap at weekends!

The biggest problem has been the loss of my sewing mojo. It has just disappeared. I have so many quilts in progress and course work to complete...

Close up of the curves

I am desperately hoping my creativity returns soon from where it is hiding!

Much love

Finding my home....

This last week has seen our house hit by a tummy buy. It started 2 weeks ago with my eldest son and then hit new highs on Saturday when my youngest son spent the day confined to the sofa with a bowl!

Unluckily it came my way...

It has in fact been a little bit of blessing.

I had spent January feeling incredibly restless.... Not really able to concentrate and get on.... Just drifting from one thing to another and feeling quite annoyed with life!

Kind of wallowing in my own self pity I guess...

But over the last 5 days of being pretty much confined to the house I have found my centre again, despite spending 24 hours not getting out of bed!

Sounds slightly strange right? Let me explain.

I am a creative, I NEED to sew, I NEED to do something visual (slightly strange for a person who has a degree in Astrophysics!) and I had stopped doing that. I spent last term teaching literally everywhere, everyday..... Running from one class to another in a crazy person sort of way!

Giving other people the skills to be creative.

I LOVE giving people those skills, I love watching them bloom - one of my students, who had never been near a sewing machine 18 months ago, is now making a selling her own items! It is great to see people become more confident in groups and within themselves.

But I forgot an important lesson... For ME to be complete I NEED to create!

I forgot to nourish my own creative soul, I forgot how it feels to spend hours creating something from scratch and feel the glow that you get!

Yes, I did work on my City and Guilds, but that is a plunge into the unknown every time I work on the required pieces. That work pushes me beyond my comfort zone, which is great, but also raises my heart beat in anxiety...

Patchwork: cutting and sewing, is where my journey began nearly 20 years ago. It is my creative home, full of warmth and lovely thoughts. That is the place I have rediscovered this week.

It is the centre of my well being....

The next time I feel that this single life with 3 kids and all the other baggage that knocks at my door is too much, you will find me with my sewing machine making patchwork.... I will be regaining my sense of balance so I can face the world without a heavy heart...

Why make more?

On Sunday I popped into my friends house to drop off her Christmas presents and say Merry Christmas before they disappeared to family for the break.

I told her about the yummy fabrics that had arrived from Fabricworm and how lush they are. Then I said I have a couple of designs in my head and would she mind if I gifted her a quilt of one of those designs... I basically need to find homes for the designs in my head - we are kinda a bursting at home!

At this point she asked 'why keep making them if you have run out of space for them?'

Honestly, she did.... she actually suggested I stop making quilts.... my heart stopped for 30 seconds!

Once I had picked my chin off the floor and restarted my heart, I tried to explain that it simply isn't an option!

It got me to thinking though about life as a quilter....

How many projects do I have on the go at the moment?

Well, there is the hexagon quilt, the HST demonstration quilt, a little girls quilt, Tula Pink Scraps quilt and a hexagon patchwork top that needs finishing.....

 



How much fabric do I have?

That is a difficult question to answer and would mean looking through my teaching stash, my secret stash, my secret, secret stash and the scraps shelf... oh and the buckets of upholstery weight fabrics.... best not think about that too much... but a girl can never have to much....

The latest bundle from Floressence

How many quilting books do I own?

Again that is a tough question to answer, it could be close to 50... from my first book 17 years ago to the most recent color, block and quilt by Emily Cier.

Available from all good indie bookshops!

Do I need them all?  Yes.... they are a constant source of inspiration, bedtime reading and yumminess... I actually have a pile next to my bed that I constantly rotate....

Why make more???

I dream in quilts. Often I wake up with a new idea in my head, a new goal.

I dream about colours, shapes, designs... I think about colour and texture all the time.

Each quilt is an extension of my skills, it pushes my skill further and allows me to explore those ideas in my head.

I have tried to not make quilts, it makes my brain hurt and actually I feel sad. That is what happened with my handmade bag business. I loved making bags, but they took me away from making quilts and I got more and more unhappy... the minute I decided to swap and make quilts and teach everything rebalanced..

It is hard to explain to non-quilters, but it is like being an artist of any form. You have the need to create, an overwhelming desire to allow the ideas in your head flow into your medium, be it clay, fabric or paint..... You have to create otherwise it hurts...

Quilting is like that, you have to create otherwise it hurts, the ideas get stifled and everything gets squeezed in until you release the creativity and make a quilt...

So will I ever stop making quilts?

No. When I do my world will no longer make sense, and I will lose a huge part of who I am...

So to solve the shortage of space I need to gift them to the people I love, or sell them...... either way I will never have made enough quilts or bought enough fabric!