Dealing with things

This is a difficult post to make. I never intended this blog to be anything other than quilt-focused, with a little bit of holidays, family and food thrown in. However, my life has completely changed over the last four weeks and I cannot go on with the blog without mentioning it.

My MRI revealed that the pain in my rib was from advanced metastases from an unknown tumour. Health care is very good here in Germany and I spent the next two weeks doing every test imaginable to try to discover where the tumour was. Eventually, a form of breast cancer was diagnosed but still no evidence of the guilty tumour. I was admitted to hospital for a mastectomy and the doctors hoped to find the tumour in the tissue which was taken. The pathology lab worked on the results for a week and eventually found two tiny tumours of a very powerful and aggressive nature. These had sent metastases through my spine. After leaving hospital three days ago, I am due to begin a strong course of chemotherapy next week in order to treat the metastases. Then will come some radiation and any other therapy thought suitable to keep me going as long as possible.

I feel well-looked after, have good medical support and great friends and my husband has been with me at every appointment and completely there for me. After the terrible black hell of the initial shock, something in the human spirit seems to let in the light again and I am able to look positively at life again.

I just want to make clear that I will not be giving a blow by blow account of how I am all the time - this is still my quilting blog and I want to keep it that way but over the next few months I might not be getting much quilting done or anything else to show. I will, however, have even more interest (and time) for reading all my favourite blogs. I have given up my part-time job and am going with the flow.

Slow but steady.

This is my progress so far - I like sewing by hand but am hampered by not being able to sit upright so this is going slowly. I am enjoying it, though, and it is proving a great distraction. I now have to make up the pumpkins to go at each end, then borders and prairie points. I also will have some small pieces of fabric from the kit left over and I think I'll make some matching coasters. Don't know if that plan can include the little triangles below, but if not then they will go into my 'little triangle' box for use later (Bonnie Hunter has made me feel so responsible for fabric that I can't throw them away...)

And here is my little friend, Logan, watching over me - since I've had this back problem, he has stayed close unless he is on his walks with Stuart. He doesn't understand why I can't play with him at the moment but in his own way, he's looking after me.

It is Stuart's and my 35th wedding anniversary today. Unfortunately, because of me, we can't go out and celebrate or go away for the weekend but it doesn't matter. The real celebration is our recognition of how far we have come together and that we are happy to carry on. Good things.

New Quilt beginning.

This is the start of my new quilt but it is not one of the big quilts with my new fabrics that I was mulling over. I'm still only comfortable when lying or half-lying on the sofa - otherwise big pain. Only three more days until my MRI and then I'll know what the problem is. I hope. So I can't sit up or use the sewing machine, which most people would take as a disincentive to quilting. At first I was reading and watching movies etc. Then my hands got fidgety so I managed to do some embroidery. Then yesterday, knowing that the quilt group was meeting and I couldn't be there, I decided to adapt to my situation. Amongst the fabrics that Renate brought back for me from the US when she moved countries was a Thimbleberries Halloween Pumpkin table runner kit. I've never bought a kit before and I don't like Halloween so it was a weird thing for me to buy. However, I do like eating things made with pumpkin and I love Autumn, so I decided to see if I could hand-sew without sitting upright. Well, I can and here is one of the first completed blocks. I feel I'm back in the human race even if I can't work, walk the dog, go shopping or any of the things that make up a normal day. Anxious about the MRI but so much more cheerful being distracted by this!

Almost finished.

Above is the Provencal table topper that is almost finished. One row of machine quilting on coloured blocks remains to be done but I have no idea when I can manage this as I have injured my back and am out of action for a while. I am pleased with the quilting as it was only my second attempt at machine quilting and although it was laborious to keep turning and shifting the quilt while going round the flower petals, I really like the effect and also the look of the back (below)

I have not pulled the quilt straight enough for this photo and it looks wonky but it is, trust me, straight in real life - it is only cyber-wonky!


Am having an MRI next Monday to find out exactly what is causing my pain but until then I am only comfortable when lying or half-lying down. This means I can still manage to embroider a bit but quilting is out of the question (although I do have a little halloween quilt kit packed away, hmmm, maybe I could hand-sew it?) My husband is looking after me wonderfully and I am so glad that he is only travelling once a week now and is able to work from home more. There was no quilt group meeting last week and I know I cannot go to this week's as I cannot sit at all. Thursday isn't Thursday without the quilt group! Thank goodness for BBC Radio 4 and thank goodness for Youtube, where I am watching old episodes of Family Ties (I know it's dated but still so funny and my daughters and I have always adored Michael J. Fox, so I'm on a nostalgia run and it keeps me amused and is non-demanding).

Back again.

Above is the small top I made from the Provencal charm squares. As I said before, totally outside my comfort zone and I found it quite exciting to play with bright colours and not quite know where I was going with it. I'm not usually so adventurous (although a lot of quilters would not see this as particularly adventurous!). If I were making a large quilt I know I would not have been able to go without a plan so this is the second time that charm squares have freed me up to be a little bit looser.

I cut all 42 squares in half and used eighty of the eighty four rectangles. I saved four rectangles, one of each primary colour, to make the flower middles - this left me a little short in the strips but I just filled in with a few white blocks. Then I drew very quickly and loosely the petals and backstitched them. I did feel the temptation to use a symmetrical petal template but gritted my teeth and resisted. I do like the result as it is bright, happy and naïve in a childlike innocent way. I've almost decided that my next quilt is going to be a 'tree of life', very traditional, so you can see I'm already reacting against my phase of relaxation. I think there are just two sides of me, one that adores Handel, Mozart and Haydn with their beautiful symmetry and sense of order in the world, and then a side that loves the wildness of Cajun music and (some!) improvised jazz. In my quilts, it's Haydn who wins nearly every time.

Haven't been posting mainly because I've spent the summer holidays enjoyably wasting time, doing chores and looking after guests; youngest daughter, two of Stuart's oldest friends from Scotland, and eldest daughter and partner. Naturally, I put on some of the weight I lost because I was cooking for them and eating out as well. I'm back on my 'good' regime this week but we have more guests coming up; Stuart's brother and his new wife are coming next week - they are about to begin a two-year part-world-tour in a yellow Unimog (like a cross between a four wheel truck and a camper van) as an early retirement venture.
School starts this week, too.

We had beautiful weather in May and June, indifferent weather in July and pretty awful weather in August. I am wishing for an Indian summer to please all my sun-deprived friends.

No picture day

Have just started a small quilt, probably a table-topper, from the Provençal charm pack I had. No photos today as I have been too busy to get the camera out but will do soon. Dental check today ('Perfekt, Frau Johnstone!') and had to rush to buy a new hoover before my appointment as the old one blew up yesterday (probably my fault). My youngest daughter is visiting from England for a few days so I might not have much time for sewing. I decided to keep the quilt very simple as the fabrics are so bright and busily patterned - quite outside my comfort zone - and just cut them in half and did chinese coin strips alternated with white. I plan to use the very few (5) half squares left over to make some applique flower middles and then embroider the petals and then, Horror of Horrors! - machine quilt the lot. I hardly ever machine quilt and I know my hands will be itching to quilt something so small scale and easy to manipulate. However, for once I want to do something seasonal and use this tabletopper while the weather is appropriate. It makes me feel happy to look at it and very summery so I hope to get it finished and on the table very soon in order to enjoy it.

I think then I will finish the two unfinished quilts I have which only need binding and do a bit of my Kaffeerösterei embroidery before I start another quilt. Ideas for the next one are shifting around my head but haven't settled yet so this will give them time.

Have heard quite a few stories about other people who have had a taste problem after a heart op - in some cases it can take months for the problem to disappear; am hoping that my husband does not have to wait that long.

This is the first week of my long school summer break and I have that luxurious feeling of abundant time to do wonders before school starts again. Let's hope I get at least some of the things done around home that I've been postponing until just this time!

Finished and unfinished...

Above is the finished quilt for my sister-in-law, Helen (who doesn't know I've got a blog so will not find out about this).



By doing simple quilting from point to point on the tumbler shapes, quite a nice geometric result happened on the back, and I really enjoyed using the figure 8 template for the bands and borders because it had no stop and start points except for the floral corners, so is a quick pattern to use. Miind you, for some reason, this is a heavy quilt and the quilting was quite hard work. I think it is because I used an iron-on batting and the weight of all that glue stuff seems to make quite a difference.



Logan, the Quilt Policeman, on duty inspecting my stitches and finding a few knots on the back from that awful King Tut quilting cotton I used (King Tat, I call it and will never touch it again, however pretty the colour might be).

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I tried to enhance the colour of this photo as it came out rather dark but although it has left the cream border cream, for some reason it has changed our grey/beige carpet to vivid turquoise. Still, you can see the lovely corner pattern of this nice template.



And the finished article, just needing to be washed (christened) and labelled and then Stuart will take it with him to Scotland on his next visit as it is too precious to post.

Don't know what to work on next. Really want to use my Jane Austen-ish fabrics and my Civil War reproductions, all of which have remained untouched since I got them. But as we have had such warm weather, and it doesn't look like we'll be having a holiday this year, I'm tempted to do something sunny and holidayish to keep in cheerful mode. I have a charm pack of French Provencal fabrics and just might play with them for a bit...

The unfinished thing is my poor husband, who is now home from three weeks' rehabilitation but still not feeling too great. All is well with his heart, everything fine there, but he is having difficulty putting on weight after having lost 11 kilos in the last couple of months. The altered taste problem, which probably came from the anaesthetic or from his antibiotics before the op, has prevented him from eating much. It is getting better and now he is home I am able to cater more specifically for what he thinks will taste okay, rather than having what was given in the clinic (very little choice). So things are improving but slowly and he is an impatient man (probably how he got to be heart-stressed in the beginning) and wants to get back into his life and feel normal again. He is still not supposed to drive his car (but has been as there was a problem with mine this week), NEVER EVER supposed to lift anything above 10 kilos again (he is not a weightlifter or anything but this news has depressed him and made him feel old) and he is still not supposed to sleep on his side for another week. Poor lad, he is therefore underweight and sleeping badly with many interruptions, still taking a load of drugs and on top of that he has given up smoking. So he is dealing with a lot of frustration with no help from a cigarette. He's using an electric vapour cigarette to calm cravings and give him something to wave around - it's an excellent idea and contains no nicotine, just a flavoured vapour, battery-operated. So he is doing really well, considering. Not the easiest person to live with at the moment, however!! He has decided to go to a business meeting tomorrow (something else he shouldn't be doing) but I think it will be good for him to see clients and colleagues and feel he is needed again. It is in Frankfurt but he intends to go by train and stay overnight before the meeting tomorrow, which is a gentle approach.

Well, no quilting group today, so I need to look over some ideas for those provencal prints.