May 10, 2018
So what is up with me! A lot has changed in the last month and mostly for the better! This post will not be quilting related as such, more just a quick catch up on what has been happening in my life and my studio.
As I mentioned in a post a few weeks back I had taken a full-time job back in December. I won’t mention the name of the company I was working for, however, some people reading this post will know which company I am talking about.
I put in my notice for April 13 as I had intended however I ended up leaving a week before then as the work environment became intolerable. The company brought on a new account and they had known this was going to happen for months before the April 1 date. Did the company prepare for this happening and have trained staff available for the transition? Nope, not at all! In fact the 1 person they did hire (a week before) quit after only 10 days on the job. That’s how bad the situation became. It was almost laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
This was so poorly planned that the only thing management could say was, we’ll get through it! Really!! Yup, you will, without me! If the remaining staff were smart they would have walked as well. I don’t know as I don’t have any contact with anyone there.
So, Kevin and I took a well-earned break and went to the Dominican Republic for 12 days. It was part holiday and part of a seminar regarding a business venture that we are starting together. We have been back for just over a week now and life is starting to get back to normal.
I have several quilts waiting to be quilted both mine and client quilts and also learning all I can re our marketing business we have started. I am so glad to be working for myself again although that said I may have the opportunity to work part-time over the summer months. That is still up in the air. Either way, I love having the freedom to choose when and for how long I work during the day! I certainly don’t miss sitting in my car in traffic for 45 minutes trying to get home at night!
Happy Quilting
Jul 29, 2017
OK it’s been way too long since I last posted. Life got in the way and not in a good way either. A few weeks ago I decided to move the blog to another site so I can start uploading videos. I was right in the middle of trying to figure it all out when I got sick!
Has anyone ever experienced vertigo before? Well, I wouldn’t recommend it. I had a few warning dizzy spells but nothing serious. I had another dizzy spell one morning but after a few minutes it went away so I went on with my day and hoped it wasn’t anything serious.
Next morning I woke up and the world was spinning and completely out of control. I had my Mom take me to the emergency room where I spent the next 8 hours going through numerous tests and scans to ensure I didn’t have a brain tumour, or suffered a stroke. The good news is that all these tests came back negative. The bad news is that I was still sick.
This lasted for over a week with me barely being able to get out of bed. Not fun. It finally started to get better and then the fatigue set in. You know get up and do a couple of things then go back to bed and sleep for two hours, get up and do a couple more things and repeat process.
It’s been over two weeks now since this all started and I am only now getting back on my feet. I am still not 100% either as I am still off balance and now suffering from bad headaches. Today was the first day I woke up actually feeling closer to my normal self so fingers crossed I am finally on the mend.
Luckily I didn’t have a lot of client quilts waiting. I have been busy and it’s summer so I had wanted to take a bit of time for me so I only had one client quilt on the frame and nothing waiting. That said I wasn’t able to work on that quilt for over 10 days as I couldn’t stand at all let alone make it down the stairs to my studio. As soon as I could stand though I was downstairs working on the quilt even if it was only for 30 minutes at a time.
Here are pictures of a client quilt I finished before I got sick.
The other thing I was working on before I got sick was a knitting project. I picked up some wool last August at the annual fiber arts festival here in Victoria called Fibrations to make Kevin a hat for working outdoors in the winter. Well, last winter has come and gone and we were cleaning up and I found the skein of wool I had purchased.
I have now finished the “beanie” it was a free pattern I found somewhere on the internet however I still have to photograph it so that will have to come next post.
The wool was 70% Alpaca and 30% merino hand spun and hand dyed locally. It was wonderful and soft to work with. It would make an awesome sweater but the cost would be insane as one skein was $35.00.
Ha, as I was writing the above, the price of fabric and how much it costs to make a quilt just flashed in my mind so I guess it is all relative as the sweater would be beautiful, soft, warm, fairly waterproof and one of a kind so …..
Well, that’s about it. I will have pictures of the finished client quilt quilted (so much for quilting my own quilts although that may still happen yet) and of the finished hat maybe I can even talk Kevin into modeling it for me.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
Oct 19, 2016
Quilting is finally getting done! It feels good to get back at the longarm machine. I really needed to take that week or so off though. I think everyone sometimes needs to step back from things, regroup, and seriously think about why they are doing something. The opportunity I mentioned in my last post really made me think about that. I haven’t heard whether anything has come of it or not, but either way I have a much clearer idea of what I want my life to look like.
It’s funny how life goes, I had a lull in my quilting business and this opportunity came up so I decided to look into it. Nothing ventured nothing gained type of thing. The very next day after a meeting I had, I got called asking if I had time to quilt a quilt! Wow OK yes. The day after that another client called asking the same thing and then the third day this happened yet again!
So now I have several quilts waiting to be quilted. I guess the universe was trying to tell me to just slow down and stop worrying, things will turn out the way they are supposed to and it is all good. Patience my friend. New businesses take time to grow.
What the lull I had also taught me though is if I intend to continue down this path I also need to diversify so I will be putting some thought into what I want that to look like.
There is a mantra that I started using about 3 years ago, I sometimes forget to apply it though. I think it’s time to pull that one out again and pin it to my wall.
Meanwhile I finished one client quilt and need to get back to work now quilting the others.
This is Over the Pond an older pattern from Quiltmaker magazine. My client did it scrappy and it turned out well. It was just quilted with a very simple “water” design as we didn’t want anything to interfere with the pictures. I used Superior Threads So Fine 50 in a soft green that blended well with all the different colours going on. I think it was a good choice of design as you just get some nice texture without overpowering the cute frogs, bees and butterflies pieced into the top.
Happy Quilting
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
