Entries Tagged 'Other Things' ↓

Once more, just in case you missed it: this blog is continuing over at Today We Made. If you want to keep reading, and you know, I really hope you do, give the little link a click to add me to your reader of choice.

Ok. That’s all folks.

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You know that feeling you get sometimes, when you just know things are changing, should change, are about to change? Yes. Perhaps you are having it right now. It would be appropriate.

To cut a long story short, or shorter at least, after three years this entire blog is moving. My interweb host prompted it, but now it feels like the obvious thing that I ought to have done a good while ago; something that might better fit where I am, if you like.

The new home is still a little bare, but the kettle is on, and the cushions are plumped. I’d love it if you popped over to join me on Today We Made – it’s the same, but slightly different.

Thank you!

Finally…

So work can continue on the boy’s quilt. My original thought was that I’d be finished by March, but here we are in almost June and I am running to catch myself up again. Time is becoming a preoccupation: there isn’t enough, what there is disappears so quickly, and lately I’ve been thinking that I somehow seem to time everything wrong, which is just a way of saying that I feel out of sync. As usual things are afoot behind the scenes but nothing is quite ready for sharing. This long weekend won’t help – we’re off to Anglesey and the sea zoo. Take care of things til I get back.

Which, when you think about it, is logically the next step after reidentification.

Yesterday I met up with Florence, Helen and Lisa, for a long awaited afternoon of tea and chatter. It’s been almost two years since the first time we all met up, and so much has changed for all of us. Little shops have been opened, babies have been/are about to be born, and there’s a whole book on its way. (Speaking of which, we had a sneak peek of Lisa’s bag making book, and oh boy, you are just going to love it. It looks lovely, but even better than that it will be so useful you’ll wonder how you ever sewed without it. Really. Pre-orders in now, I insist…)

As you know, the changes for me have been vast, and though my life feels as though it has always been this way I do have a lingering memory that it once wasn’t. Having tried hard to accept the change, I was finding it harder to reconnect with the other bits of myself, and make them part of my everyday again. I think anything is hard if you are trying to do it through an effort of will, rather than with excitement and enthusiasm.

What helps, of course, is some jolly conversation, to be reminded and told of things you’d be interested in if only you knew about them. (How I missed this Joel Dewberry new line is beyond me, but sometimes I have difficulty breaking out of my old bookmarks. But if you look here I think that dogwood bloom lake would make a very pretty dress. Perhaps this colette dress. I may be punching above my weight with that one, but it looks so lovely.) Then you need a trip to a nice shop, where through gentle persuasion you may end up going home with a new cardigan (I got the light grey, figuring it would go with pretty much anything, and therefore was highly justifiable instead of shopping folly).

And what happened the day after is that I woke up and was filled with energy and decided that today was the day I was finally going to get in those cupboards. We’ve lived here for five years, and since the first days of unpacking, the kitchen cupboards have never been meddled with, so that one thing was being piled on top of another, and getting a pan out to cook dinner was becoming a precarious event. For a few months every time I’ve opened a door to one of my scary cupboards I have muttered the same phrase: ‘I’ve got to get in these cupboards’. It’s become a bit of a joke, but it’s also become a bit of a quagmire too – I could move neither forwards or backwards, because I never seemed to have the will and the energy together to get into the cupboards, and yet the idea of them being so rooted in the past and clutter was, I realise, powerful enough to create inertia where everything else was concerned.

But now the cupboards have been got in, and there is a pile of stuff ready for the recycling centre (well, if you haven’t used a thing in five years the chances are you don’t really need it), and I cleared the sewing desk of things that had been piled onto that, ordered some things for the boy’s quilt, and began to think that I will need a summer skirt. Skirts are good. Quick. Easy. Wearable.

I hope this little burst of energy and enthusiasm continues, but while we wait and see, thanks are obviously due to my dear crafty companions, who proved to be the best tonic. Onwards, to August.

You might have noticed that I had a little blogging break, over Christmas & darkest winter. It wasn’t planned but now that it’s over I see why it happened, and also see that it was entirely necessary.

Since I haven’t had what you might call a proper job for years I haven’t defined myself by my occupation for a long time. This isn’t always easy when you meet new people, who ask what you do in order to begin to give you some shape in their mind. It’s a very unsatisfactory way if going about thngs really, since I bet if you say you work in marketing that’s probably not what you think of as being your core self, but since people are messy and complicated and not ever just one thing it makes the small talk at parties easier, if a little dull. Months down the line, of course, everyone will be very surprised to find out you’re a champion kite surfer, zine writer & amateur shoe designer, and will tell you how surprising and interesting you are, which might perplex you because internally these are the things you use to define your self.

For a number of years I’ve had to go straight to the kite surfing when people ask what I do. I usually ended up apologising in some way for doing things with fabric, writing & cat sitting, because it’s not an easy answer and takes up more than the allotted time for the usual sort of answer. But everyone would say it was terribly interesting & look wistful, or say they wished they could do something like that, all the time forgetting that they were hiding their real self under a blanket marked ‘accounts manager’ or ‘information architect’. Over time it became easier to tell people that I wasn’t in the middle of a real career. I even stopped apologising, and realised I was quite comfortable with the ways I defined my self.

This is probably why I imagined that having Fitz would have less impact on my sense of self than it would if I’d had to stop trotting into an office. After all the things I did I did at home, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I would still be me, but there’d be a baby.

Which is true.

And yet…

The first six weeks are like living inside an explosion that is still happening. Everything is moving, nothing will settle and you get so little sleep you can’t see straight anyway. You also have to keep this little person alive, and you don’t even know who he is. He is familiar and strange, all at the same time, and speaks a language you don’t yet understand. Then he begins to smile, and interact with you, and you start to think that it’s ok, you can do this.

The next six weeks are a little easier, but he’s changing so fast that you still have to run to keep up. You know him better now though, and you can see patterns emerging. The days become a little easier, if still all encompassing, and a bit of your brain starts to think that something like normal might be possible in the near future. Without quite knowing it, you begin to wait for things to even out, and be as calm as they were before.

And sometime in the fourth month it truly dawns on you that the old normal is not coming back. You knew that when you signed up for this, but there is still a part of you that hadn’t really grasped what it would mean. This is the new normal – taking care of this little person every day, making sure he’s happy, and warm, and fed, and rested. There is still room for you, and the person you are, and the things you want to do, but the balance is different. Your days will always look different. Your plans will always be different.

And the next thing you realise is that you really don’t mind.

I thought I might resent the fact that I couldn’t wake up and make a spontaneous plan for the day, or have hours and hours to sit and sew, or read, or write, or wander into town on a whim and have lunch. True, it is frustrating sometimes that a task like slicing the fabric for the quilt squares can begin at 1pm and not get finished until 10pm, because it must be slotted in rather than just done when I feel like it, but this is a choice I am making.

I don’t know if this is a one time thing for me, but I know that Fitz’s babyhood is a one time thing for him, so I’m there. I can still fit in all the other parts of me that existed before, but they fit around the newest part of me, not the other way around. I define myself with reference to him, before all other things, and I wanted to take some time out there in the real world to understand what that means.

The new normal. It’s a fabulous thing.

In the week leading up to the big weekend I spent a good deal of it worrying. Would I have enough to put on the table? Would there be enough for Fitz to eat in my absence? Would he manage ok with just his dad for company? Would I be be ok without him? Of course, it was all unnecessary worry, but no one ever knows when worry is unnecessary beforehand so I don’t really regret it.

I absolutely didn’t need to worry about the first question – this is the beauty of sharing a table with your chums. We had more than enough to fill the table, and in just one hour of frantic unpacking we had a full fabulous display. Since things were quite bonkers in the run up to the fair I was thrilling myself with the idea of catching up with Helen and Florence while we manned the stall, rather than the idea of selling oodles of things. As it was I sold enough to cover my costs, and was given cake for us to share by the caterers so had an almost free day out, with the added bonus of meeting lots of new faces, including Mary and her lovely girl. To top it off Lisa came too, and it was so good to have all four of us in the same place again after such a long time, giggling like loons. (There are photos but not on my camera…)

As for Fitz and Mr J, they had a very nice morning together and then came to join us in the afternoon. Fitz had lots of smiles for everyone, and enjoyed his day out so much that he rewarded us by sleeping through the night for the first time. It would have been blissful for me too, if I wasn’t well trained to wake up at 4am…

I am finally feeling Christmassy now the event is over, and have pulled the decorations out so that they’ll be up by the weekend. It all seems to be rushing up so fast that I’m simply not prepared at all. Today I took a walk through the park at dusk, pushing Fitz home in his pushchair. As the light faded the birds began their evening song, nestled safe somewhere in the silhouetted branches of the stripped trees. How much the park has changed since we began taking walks together, him and I, and how fast this life changing year has gone. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Is it time to confess that I owe Tim Berners-Lee an awful lot? More than that – pretty much everything, if I’m honest. If he hadn’t invented the internet, then I would never have been building a website for my boss in ‘97, and I would never have got chatting with Mr J, who lived far away, and there would never have been a meet up and I would never have met best friend Jo, and we would never have persuaded Mr J that moving to London was a good thing, and then we would never have got together, and moved in together, and got married and bought a house and got cats and had Fitz. I also would never have been able to connect with all the lovely crafty people, who have been so kind in sending things to celebrate Fitz’s arrival. Time for some public thanks…

Susanne sent this beautiful little jacket all the way from Germany, which she’d knitted by hand of course. It got great notices when he wore it for our trip to the cinema. Susanne’s been commenting on my blog for good few years now, and has an interesting, thoughtful blog of her own: creative.mother.thinking, where she talks about being a mum, musician, crafter, spinner and woman with wonderful honesty.

The Queen of Applique sent a little collection – lovely things for the boy decorated with beautiful playful cats. This one playing with a ball of string is one of my favourites. Since Fitz gets very happy when he sees our black cat in particular already, I know he’ll be happy. Of course as the mother of two little teacakes herself she has been very wise and sent things for 6m+ so it will be a little while before Fitz is in them, but he’ll look wonderful in them.

And Helen, despite being terribly busy herself, sent this wonderful knitted jacket, with funky fabric insert. He wore it out to my NCT meet up yesterday and had lots of nice compliments on his outfit. I’m so glad I leave the knitting up to other people – they’re so much more talented than me.

Kyoko is not someone I’ve met personally, but I’m convinced she’s delightful, and as if to prove it she sent me something for the baby that doubles as a treat for me. The book is full of baby patterns all for the overlocker (or lock machine as they call it in Japan) – all deeply cute and practical. Unfortunately it makes me want to go back to Japan, and also start studying Japanese again since I’ve realised I probably don’t even know the 103 kanji I knew for level 4 anymore. That’s all beside the point. The book is gorgeous, and so is the fabric she sent with it, which I keep picking up just to look at because it’s lovely.

Lastly, I should point out that this post has taken days to put together, what with trying to manage photos, and get ten minutes together to write it. While I try to snatch time for the next post you can find me more frequently twittering away, because this is much more easily achieved with one thumb and an iPhone.

Anthropologie are opening a shop on Regent Street. That’s all I’m saying…

Technically I did split the day in two by having an unscheduled nap, and I know you can’t have more than two halves, but allow me the cultural resonance, do.

I made another wee trip to Ikea today, for boxes. Having lived with the cupboards for a little bit I knew exactly what I wanted but it’s the sort of thing they won’t let you buy online. A few small adjustments later and my overlocker can live in the cupboard, not on the floor, and I still have plenty of boxes to construct and fill with the stuff that’s upstairs. So much stuff. Here’s a resolution I’ll never keep – I should properly spring clean every year and chuck out stuff I haven’t looked at in twelve months.

After the nap and a bit of box construction I did a spot of sewing (todays televisual accompaniment was the rather fabulous 30 Rock). Mr J very kindly did some more manly drilling yesterday and now the thread holder and  little drawers are back beside the table where they belong. And how is the room working out? Well, I’m glad you asked, because it’s working out very well indeed. Granted it’s not ideal to have to stash things away when I want to change from doing my tax return to cutting out to sewing, but it is making me work neater in all respects. Long term I’ll thank me for it, because having the extra room upstairs pretty much meant that the room was a tip.

I also spent some time today with a cup of tea, some custard creams and an inspirational book, Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth, which has some very positive things to say about the whole business. It’s a nice counterpoint to the horror stories people insist on telling you – why do they feel the need to do that? It’s not as if I can get out of it at this stage, but I’m fairly certain fear and trepidation are not going to be helpful bedfellows. I’ll carry on going to my yoga class and cultivating an open mind, I think, and focus on the fact that the best outcome is a healthy baby, however it happens, but hopefully not with me feeling tense and afraid about his arrival. (Apologies to those who only come here to read about the crafting, but you might forgive me for starting to be a little preoccupied :)

Lastly today I was very touched by all the nice things Kyoko said today about my little shop and my blog (and I’m sure I don’t deserve half of them), as we, me and my furry friends, are the latest participants in Feline Friday. Thanks for asking us to take part, Kyoko!

It’s a little bit like suddenly discovering a secret door at the end of your house, and when you walk through it you discover a little room that you didn’t know existed. After four years of sighing at it, we finally did it. The funny junk room at the back of the house is transformed…

Hard to believe that this is taken from the same spot as the photo in the last post, but it’s true. We got rid of the junk, tore down the shelves and then filled holes for all we were worth. After a weekend of redecorating we went off to the swedish giant for some new shiny cupboards and spent the next weekend assembling and transporting things from one place to another. There’s still some of that to do (that shelf won’t stay empty for long) but for now it’s enough to slide the door across -

- and see the fabric.

That’s so satisfying.

The room has to do double duty, posing as an office for some of the time, so I had to make some choices and compromises about desk space, and mostly it involves me vowing to be a little tidier in either incarnation. I’m not one of the world’s natural tidiers, but it’s the only way it’s going to work. I also have a secret weapon to help me – I hired a cleaner. Actually I hired two cleaners, since they work as a team and do it in half the time, but for their first visit they had to spend so long deep cleaning my house that I’ve felt compelled to keep it pleasant ever since. Is this the sort of thing one should own up to on a public space? Do I mean the cleaner or the fact that I became very disinterested in cleaning things below waist height?

So we have a desk that can be an office type of desk, for sorting out bills and paperwork, and doing shop maintenance and all of that. The PC also houses all of our photos and music and documents from the last decade so it has to stay. Besides, there are some things you can’t do on a mac. Appallingly.

And then magically it transforms into a craft desk. Wips pulled off the wip shelf, Janome lifted onto the desk, tools pulled out from the drawers. Since the room is so small, and desk space is at a premium, we wall mounted the monitor, so it can be pulled out or pushed back as required, and I can either fiddle with iTunes or watch box sets while I sew. (That’s Mad Men, just in case you needed to know.)

Now I’m going to sit down for a week at least, before we think of doing anything to the room formerly known as craft and here on in known as nursery. I might only rouse myself in order to make a cake for Mr J, who is heroic, and put this all together single-handedly. He might say I helped but really all I did was the driving, and handed him some screws, so the least he deserves is a Victoria Sponge.