Little wuns

New chums! Awww just how cute are these? Do you follow @bettisstitches on IG? She makes the cutest little animals ever. I ordered a mouse from her, then also fell in love with a Llama, she fell in love with the wolly pigs we saw in Orkney and Bob wolly pig was born. They now all reside in the sewing room with mini Bud who is busy prodding me with a big stick to make them liberty bean bags!

Spot the difference!

Ower Scoobs

For some reason bloglovin seems to think all my posts are from 48 years ago?? Some weird thing happening there! So this is just really to test and see what's going on?

But it's also to celebrate my husband, Ower Scoobs (he does a mean Scooby Doo impersonation)

I just simply couldn't do this without him. Here he is spending his Sunday afternoon putting up a chandelier in the sewing room because he knew it would make me smile. And it did.

When it became apparent in May this year that my aches and pains could not be wished away as menopause side effects, this was the birthday card he gave me. He is quite simply the loveliest of men. My Scoobs.

Woodland quilt along

So apparently I'm in the prednisone holiday ... A lovely physio at work has been so kind and given me so much advice. It will take months to see if the methotrexate works. Meanwhile the prednisone gives me a holiday ... From the pain 😂😂😂 I will find out if the methotrexate works when the prednisone wears off and if the pain comes back .... If it comes back they try something else. Ach I can do this, I'm sure as hell not waiting around feeling sorry for myself. Watching a good chum loose the battle gives you so much perspective. No time for feeling sorry here, there is life to be lived.

All advice on quilting has made me think that mainly small with a little large is the way forward, with that in mind I'm picking up this again!

So on a scale of 1-10 how stinking cute are these 😊 I'm playing along with the tartan kiwi woodland 2 quilt along on IG. I have these all done, now want to make the smaller first quartet to finish using my my zen chic globe fabric.

 

FOQ 2017

 I have the most wonderful chum who always sends the best cards and she sent me the one above many years ago. I see it every day. I cant moan about RA, I'm loosing a chum to pancreatic cancer. Just been told he has two months, thats brutal, i have nothing to complain about. So i am going to live every day.

But its been a strange old time! 6 years to the day, almost to the hour i sat in the same outpatients dept where i was told i had cancer and was told i had rheumatoid arthritis ... i went to the hospital shop to buy chocolate to cheer me up and was greeted by the consultant who had discharged me from oncology a mere six weeks ago ... life is bold sometimes very bold!  Six years ago i went to the FOQ a week after diagnosis and bought all the fabric. This year a week after diagnosis, history repeated itself!! So FOQ 2017 then! It was good, it was grand. I spent the night before on the phone to NHS24 as i had developed an allergic reaction to the drugs and  developed a really sore jaw ... it took till   Midnight to say ok i wasnt having a heart attack! Look what the Lovely Ruth made me!!! 

Look at my post for last year if you dont know the cineworld unlimited card story! So me and lovely Ruth set off on the red eye on friday morning. I couldnt buy too much as i was having to carry my bags a bit at night, the meds hadnt fully kicked in and i was still in a fair bit of pain.
Two talks on the friday, interesting and Jenny Rayment stripped off in hers .... highlight of the day was an instagram impromptu meet up with the lovely Mary, Di, Trudi and Hazel. Lots of catching up, lots of hugs then off to look at Trudis quilt.

And here is the woman herself giving us the low down on it. Totally gobsmacking quilt.

Saturday was a funny old day, i got an attack of the collywobbles and convinced myself i would have to give up quilting. Total nonsense and maybe down to the meds? I got so much love on instagram when i asked for advice on RA and sewing and i know i just have to be careful but i sat in the concourse with tears streaming down my face. What an eejit. I soon made up for it by going to japan crafts and buyjng ALL the fabric.

How flipping gorgeous is that! I may have gone back once or twice ... and Alice Caroline ..... there were classes too! Julia Gahagan mini Alpine Village.

Fun to make but too fiddly for my knobbly fingers! Then me and the lovely Ruth did a class with Catherin Nicholls i try to do one with Catherine every year, she is just so nice!

Dont kill me lovely Ruth but here she is in action.

And here is what we made, well my version.

Saturday night was spice buffet night!! Three heaped plates of the best buffet ever!

Last day was two more classes, Julia Gahagan again with beach huts, again fun but my wonky old hands couldnt do much of this.

Finishing off with handstitched notebook.

A few modest purchases were made along the way 😂😂😂

It was a good FOQ, different and a bit more reflective but good.

Reviewing, the situation

I have Rheumatoid arthritis, there I said it out loud. To be honest I've known for a while, so much pain, killing pain, but the confirmation just floored me. It also made me re think a whole load of 'stuff' I have a hugely demanding job, yet again I am a team member short for the start of term so I am covering that and implementing a huge project with tough KPIs .... So things have to give. I gave up the blogging for the Edinburgh Modern quilt guild, I loved doing that but it meant I couldn't blog here so much and I realised this is where I create my memories my happy things to look back on. And I need that now more than ever. I have given up the muckhart quilt group, lovely ladies but the travel and organisation was too much. I signed up for a whole load of retreats this year, which is good, I hope I can still carry that on next year but who knows, I'll make the most of it while I can.

So for now I am being more selfish, it's out with anything or anyone who sucks joy or happiness from me. I just don't have the head space for it. I have deleted Facebook, Twitter I need for work and Instagram is my happy place, that can stay.

I know this can be controlled but I also know I face a rough three to six months while they figure out which drugs do and don't work. I'm struggling so hard to come to terms with this. I do hope I look back on this post at about Christmas and smile and think I got through it, but change is inevitable and this is a biggie, even if the drugs work etc etc I know I can't do what I used to at the pace I used to so I'm just letting that settle in just now.

Right that's the last self pitying post!! I just needed to get that down and out of my head. 

 

Sew together bags

First tick off the Q3 FAL list!! Number 6 a sewtogether bag made with leftover Japanese fabric scraps. I love making sewtogether bags. 

I love making them so much I made two! I have a sooper luffly chum who does so much for charity, free motion quilting for Grenfell quilts, linus quilts. She broke my heart at the Zen chic class we did together when she looked at everyone setting up their tables and said wistfully that she never made small things or did swaps so she didn't have a sewtogether bag.

She does now though!! And she loved it, Liberty no less 😊😊