I may have loved the hangie uppie tag on this bathrobe, and the fabric. But the love hasn’t extended to wearing it all the time. And I know the reason why, and what I could do about it. So that’s on the list in my head of Things I Will Get Round To One Day.
I had somehow ordered a shorter length of fabric than I needed, and only noticed when it came to cutting it out. As a result, the robe is shorter than I want… What I should do, is use a matching / clashing fabric to add an 8″ or so border along the hemline. It would immediately turn this into something that I’d wear OFTEN. One day.
I have a lot of these One Day projects, that swill about in my head and will get done eventually. I also have a lot of reasons (ok, excuses) as to why they have not been done already.
Today, I’m determined to get through a great long list of rather boring work tasks before I allow myself to do anything else. I’m feeling pretty positive that I do, at least, have all the tasks now written down in one comprehensive list. I just wish it didn’t look quite so impossibly long though.
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Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches.
And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
I did some different sewing today, if only so I could dress MaDolly. MaDolly is my early birthday present from The Captain and I absolutely love her!
My sewing project is a bathrobe which I’ll finish tomorrow, and I’ll give you all the details then.
The next picture shows you The Captain’s project – a barrel converted into a table with a fridge! It’s off to a new home though so I’d better not get too fond of it.
Weren’t we productive in those balmy late summer days of 2021?
Occasionally as I write this blog I go back and look at WhatsApp (other platforms are available) messages from the time to remind me what I was talking about, as well as what I was taking pictures of. Those pictures are the curated version of my life. The WhatsApp is more the real me.
I was going to go down to Gatehouse that coming weekend to see Mum, but a member of staff at the home got Covid so the place was in lockdown again and no visitors were allowed. I told my friend, J (who has a difficult relationship with her own mother).
Me: I’m not going to Gatehouse now, as no visiting due to Covid
J: Oh that’s pants
J: I wish I could gift you my Mama time (J had plans to spend time with her mother that week, though was considering cancelling it)
Me: It’s ok. I have mixed emotions about seeing her these days so I’m partly relieved.
Me: I wish I could gift you my relationship with my Mum
J: I wish this too
Me: there’s been enough goodness there to share around
So, there we were – J was going to cancel seeing her mother with whom she had a difficult (and that’s me being generous) relationship. And I wasn’t able to visit my mother with whom I’d had a very close relationship. If only we had been able to share the good bits of each of those situations. I so wish this was possible.
I’d forgotten about the time when I had such mixed feelings about seeing Mum. My brain has chosen to forget that bit, for which I am grateful. But as I think back, I can recall how it felt that each time I left Mum I knew I would come back to a ‘lesser’ version of her next time. I often cried after seeing her. Sometimes only momentarily, sometimes great big oxygen-sucking sobs and gulps. I guess it was good to let it out. And then that anticipation gnawed away at me, like some hungry tapeworm inside of me. And during this period Mum was not only random, which I found remarkably easy to cope with, but also frequently upset and sad. Sometimes this was caused by a UTI, but there also seemed to be times when part of Mum was genuinely struggling with her situation. It was difficult to know, as conversation was already somewhat limited.
To this day Mum has always recognised me, for which I am endlessly grateful (see the wee crumbs that we are thankful for!). But there were certainly times in those first months when Mum didn’t always immediately trust me, in that she seemed not to trust anyone any more. There was a lot of talk of certain people being ‘on the other side’ which may have referred to the war, but not necessarily. We tried not to analyse the content of Mum’s conversations too much – it was more important to get a sense of the essence of her when we visited. And there were, as ever, good days and bad days.
Let’s hope that today is a good day – I find the criteria for good and bad have changed dramatically in the intervening months… I have grown to appreciate a couple of hours of quiet sleeping, with perhaps 5 seconds of waking up and smiling that it is me, her favourite daughter (as I tell her).
***
Trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches. I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.
And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
You were just wondering what 62 freshly laundered hankies would look like, hanging to dry on a whirligig weren’t you?
Well here you are.
This is the ‘mostly white’ collection and it includes some beautifully embroidered hankies, probably first owned by my great grandmother. They are the softest, finest cotton although many are past their prime and will be repurposed – I have a plan!
My plan, involving lavender and embroidery swirled about in my brain for months (and months) as a thing I might be able to do. I was hesitant though. I had forgotten how delicate old hankies can be, the cloth is soft and oh so thin, reminding me of how fragile Mum’s skin had become, how easily it broke if she knocked herself at all.
But, when you have so many hankies, what’s the worst that can happen? You end up with one in the bin because you messed it up? That would hardly be a disaster.
So, in time, I embroidered on a number of hankies, and created bespoke lavender pillows out of them.
On the first, I embroidered the foxgloves that Mum had painted in Summer 2020 as part of the 100 Days Project; and on the reverse I embroidered a beautiful Mary Oliver quote for my friend Juliet. After that first ultra delicate hankie, I chose a more robust one, and stitched simpler designs – for Mum (Alix), for her sister (Jen) and for Fenella’s mother (Brenda).
Mum loved to hold the lavender pillow to her nose, to breathe in the sweet scent of those lavender flowers. Latterly she couldn’t remember what the smell was, but she knew she liked it. I do wish that I had made the wee outer covers more like a pillow case so they could be thrown in the laundry and washed as they do get a bit icky with bits of food dropped on them! But hey ho, we live and learn.
These lavender pillow hankies were a labour of absolute love and delight – quick wee projects that gave a second life to some old well-loved hankies. There’s another hankie project that you’ll read about in the future, filled with even more love.. but you’ll have to wait for that one.
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I started writing this series of posts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.
Before that I blogged about whatever I was cooking and you can find my recipes here.
Shewolfinthevalley 