Helping Hands

It has been a busy, rather challenging week! In summary I have:

• Spent 5 days training to learn the kidney dialysis machine
• Got lost either on the way to the dumpster, returning from the dumpster, or both .... twice I tried to take the rubbish out and failed. It's frustrating how apparently simple things can be hard and take so much time :(
• Booked a bus to take me to the supermarket today ... I will actually post this when I return so should be able to relate how I get on!
• Met Cindy from Bird Brains And Dog Tales, a local quilter and blogger and we enjoyed good food and conversation at Cheesecake Factory!
• .... and went to the pet store afterwards, which helped me get Maggie cat stocked up for a couple more weeks! :)

Dialysis was as fun as learning a new medical procedure is ever going to be! I like learning new things, machines especially, so that was good, challengingg, and I picked it up pretty fast, with the aid of some improvised guides (made by janice the extremely helpful nurse, out of a chopping board from Wegmans spermarket!) ....

The staff and doctors were very doubtful that a blind person could manage a machine with touch screen keys and on-screen alert messages ... but they've not met this Lert before, and I quickly demonstrated that with the help of my magnifying glass I could read what I needed to read, and with the cutting board additions I could connect up all the tubes in a safe manner!

So on Monday I am expecting delivery of a house-full of dialysis supplies, mainly bags of sugar solution which I will ratttle through 3 per day of the 3 litre size (no I'm not going to be drinking them!) Numerous other paraphernalia such as masks, gloves, yards upon yard of disposable tubes and bits and bobs for the machine, soaps and bleaches and gels to kill all known germs beyond an inch of their little lives ....

Then I get to meet my doctor, whose bedside manner I am already less-than-impressed with, and finally my machine will get delivered Monday afternoon.

.... then on Tuesday it's a final morning of trainin at my apartment, during which time my machine will get set up and my apartment inspected .... I expect a list of recommendations on how to improve my safety and clean conditions while doing dialysis! I've finally made a start shuffling things around so the machine will fit in nicely and not be too accessible to the cat!

.... it is mostly just a case of washing hands and keeping things clean, but the times where I have to connect to, or disconnect from the machine are times where the tube going into my stomach is open and all those nasty bugs and microbes have an expressway into me ... those obviously have to be done in sterile conditions, hence the multitude of antibacterial soaps and gels and bleaches! ... the cat will also be bannished from the room at those times! (she doesn't know this yet, but i softened her up with a sachet of smelly mackeral food which she devoured with gusto, so hopefully she'll accept the new rules!)

Right now I'm just trying to mentally prepare for the challenge of my first solo grocery shop .... the store say somebody will be able to guide me around so I can find what I want ... I just have to get there and back and know what foods I want! Sounds simple ... but then you'd have thought taking the trash out would be too!

But to round off last week, after a successful week of training it was lovely to meet up with Cindy and talk about all things quilty and cat related. Aparently questions had been asked of other quilters who she knows that go to my quilt group, and the consensus was that I am very shy and quiet! LOL, as far as I know that was the worst that was said about me! Quilters can be terrible gossips! ;) .... depending on any plans for going back to the UK, I may go to one of Cindy's quilt group meetinggs in Fairport just for a change!

I did also find out about some local services that may actually be able to help with things like shopping .... I will find out more about their services and costs when I speak to them, but it was encouraging to know there might be some ways to make life more manageable!

So that's it ... not much quilting unless you count talking about it! but it has been a hectic week with lots of new things to grapple with .... I can only hope the grappling gets easier and the challenges less mountainous in the coming weeks! .... at some point I have to get the cat to a vet for her rabies shot so she can travel .... that is going to be a barrel of laughs ..... oh yes, she's going to love that and no amount of smelly mackeral food will placate her for that one!

And now finally, as if this post wasn't long enough already, I got to and from Wegman's supermarket safe and sound! i can't praise the store highly enough for making it a painless trip! it was easy to speak to somebody to make the arrangements, the girl who guided me round was really nice and I got everythin I had on my mental list, and then after waiting for my bus inside I headed out to be there as the bus arrived ... as I was battling with my mountain of shopping bags another employee arrived out of nowhere to give me a hand onto the bus with my bags! So i have enough food and milk to last me another week or two, and the cat should be catered for too, so now I've just got to remember to go back to work on Wednesday!

Sizing Up!

I know, I've been a bit quiet lately! more on that in a moment, but first I have a couple of big thank you's to make!As I have talked about lately on here, and with several of you by email, I've been deliberating over rulers that I might be able to use. The main issues are that not being able to see the markings, I'm somewhat left needing a ruler in different widths, one 6 inch wide to make blocks, a 2 inch wide for strips ... and every width in between that I might need!

In one chat about this problem, my new(ish) friend Patricia showed me this ruler by Guidelines for Quilting. It sounded rather fine but we didn't know how much it cost. Unbeknown to me she spoke to the company, asked the price and whether they thought a blind guy would be able to use one ... they did, and very very kindly said they'd send me one, complete with a seam allowance addition that also performs as a finger guard ... this is super helpful since I don't think my braille reading would be helped by the loss of a couple of digits!

So here's a photo of mine!

Now I'm not certain I've actually got it in the picture, so here's one from their website!actually I can't figure out the URL for the image so here's the page about it!

I've been taking my time getting to know my new ruler! I can adjust the size,which is currently at 5.5 inches. I can add or remove the seam guard, and I've discovered that on the underside there is a railway track style ruler in 1/8 inch increments and markings at 1 inch intervals, and I can trace those with my fingertips and count to determine the size setting of the ruler ... this is very cool for a blind person! :)


Next important announcement: I have noticed a nice handful of new followers recently too! Hello!! Please do leave me a comment if you're reading this, because I have not figured out how to go from your name in my list of followers to your blog, so I have no way to follow you back except if you leave me a comment! So please do - I'm thrilled to have new followers and would love to follow you back! The same applies to anybody who has followed me and notices I haven't followed you ... I'm not trying to snub you, I just can't get to your blog! sometimes I feel so dull when I can't figure out how to do some things on Blogger!!

So what has been keeping me away from blogging? Well, a move back to the UK is on the cards, probably in about a month. So I'm trying not to do much other than preparing and thinking about what I might be able to bring back ... this is why I haven't done any quilting at all of late ....

I do hope to bring my fabric stash, main tools, in fact pretty much everything except the sewing machine, which I'll probably try to sell and replace when I get back ... it's a stressful time, but I am looking forward to being back in Wales. I'll certainly miss my American quilt friends who I won't see anymore, and those who I hope to meet in the short time left here ... but being blind poses challenges that I feel I'll cope better with back in the UK!

bout a week ago I had minor surgery to ex-plant the catheter that I had implanted back in October. This is for my dialysis which I am due to start in the next week or so, at least due to start training! I've still got a small amount of life in my kidneys (at best 5%) but I'd like to get going with the training so I'm getting familiar with the new routine!

So that's what I've been up to. Those of you who live nearby, do let's see if we can meet up at least once before I go, and for those in the UK I hope to see y'all soon!

Go get yourselves one of those super cool rulers, you know you need one, every quilter should have one! :)

Weekend Wonderfulls

I am very pleased to announce that I have been chosen by LynCC to receive a Liebster Award . You can see it here: http://whatahootquilts.blogspot.com/2012/02/liebsters.html (I think that's the post I'm supposed to link back to!)

The award is for blogs with less than 200 followers, and the recipient should pass the award on to 5 more bloggers... so here's my list. I must say that this was hard because I love reading all your blogs, and many of you are already way over the 200 followers mark (and a couple of my nominees are pretty darn close!) ... but these are 5 people who have been great friends and entertain me with their comments, their own blogs, and by email where they converse about all manner of crazy things!

In alphabetical order so there's no whiff of favouratism!

• Archie The Wonder Dog for posts chock full off hexagons and super cute photos and a good dash of humour too! I look forward to Helen's updates and love chatting to her!
• Bird Brains and Dog Tales is one of my newer followers and a close neighbour. I have never worked out what I'm supposed to do to follo a Wordpress blog, but maybe you can figure that one out and follow this lovely blog! I stop by regularly to catch up with the goings on!
• Magpie Mimi for wit, style, creativity and determination, she's got the lot! You might discover some must-have things in her etsy shop too!
• Narcoleptic in a Cupboard I know a lot of you follow Sarah already, but for those who don't, get on over and follow this blog because she lives in a place with no trees and a cute cat called Ellie ... and she sleeps a lot so knock on the cupboard door before entering! She's also got a stained glass quilt tutorial that you need to check out!
• P.S. I Want to Quilt Too! is another newish follower who I've greatly enjoyed chatting too lately! I couldn't quite figure out how many followers there are, but a few more would be well deserved! Susan has given me lots of great tips on all kinds of quilting matters!

Liebster Conventions:
*Thank your award presenter on your blog {thanks Lyn!}
*Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award
*Copy and paste the award to your blog
*Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have fewer then 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized
*Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog


And in other news, I won another giveaway recently, thanks to #Talknt on Twitter, and a couple of days ago this lovely collection of hundreds of MODA prints and solids arrived. It's sure going to be a challenge keeping track of what's what, and I think I might need some kind of organisation to my quilt drawer .... rather than the chaotic heap that currently masquerades as my stash pile!

I'm unsure to whom I owe thanks for sending this lovely present, though everybody who sponsors the Twitter chat is fantastic and the fabric giveaways add greatly to what is already a superb community of quiltobsessives and sewaholics!

I'm also sporting a new haircut, but since it's exactly the same as my usual haircut I won't post a photo here! If anybody sees a photo they think the style would suit me, do share the link so I can suggest it next time I need a trim! (serious suggestions only please since I can't see what you're recommending and I don't want to end up with the comedy haircut from hell, no matter how funny that might seem! ... not that I don't trust you all and your whacky senses of humour or anything!!!!!!) :)

Grotty Knotty

Friday night was sew night at quilt club, 2 hours to finally do some sewing ... something that's been sadly lacking since Christmas! I managed a grand total of 3 squares ... the very observant amongst you may notice a conspicuous correlation between that and the number of needles I managed to thread in that same 2 hours!

I had arrived full of optimism, having found my new self-threading needles quite simple to thread in a recent blog update. I was also armed with a nifty Clover tabletop needle threading device, very thoughtfully sent by Quilter in the Gap, who happened to have a spare one and saw a comment from Susan suggesting I might find one useful.

So I sat down to thread my first needle of the evening, and promptly discovered that getting the thread through the eye was easy, but lining up the two ends of the thread ready for knotting wass less so! To cut a long struggle short, next time I tried knotting the thread first and then parting the thread so I could slide it into the eye of the needle (remember these needles have a tiny slit by the eye so this is possible) ... however it took me an age, well about 30 mins, to accomplish this .... and when I tried to repeat the trick for needle 3 I gave up! it doesn't take long before you find yourself wondering if you actually just knotted the end of the thread and didn't get the other end into the knot, and therefore whether you're trying to separate a single bit of thread!

Now you all probably well know that I take a long time to ask for help! I did have a willing helper this time but I had to try on my own so that I can find a way to master this without depending on somebody to help! I did ask for help figuring out the mechanism for the threading machine, but neither of us got very far with that, so I have no success to report there either! .. before giving up on that though I will try with a conventional needle and also by looking for instructions online ...

I also have to report no success grappling with the sewing machine today. Having had trouble pushing the fabric through past the needle in a straight line and without any bunching, I thought I'd turn the machine around so I'm sitting behind the needle as it were, and therefore would be pulling the fabric through which would hopefully avoid the whole bunching problem .... well I struggled to work out exactly where I'm lining up the fabric under the needle ready to start, so I definitely need to play around with some scraps before ruining any of my rainy day quilt squares! ... I'm not too hopeful because all the controls are now facing away from me (the needle raise button and the dials etc) but we'll see, it might still work!

So that's my dismal sewing update! At least I got 3 squares hand sewn on Friday night, but it'll take me a lifetime to finish my second quilt at this rate! ... I have had a lot of other things going on though so it's not all been my lousy skills that have been getting in the way of my stitching!

Not giving up yet though .... and I'm determined to get going on my Hanuary quilt block (an asterisk and a wonky pound sign) for the Craftsy.com tutorial I've signed up for! I've even been thinking about how I can embelish it to make it a nice little mug rug style affair!

Resolved To Sew, 2012

When I saw Manda from Quilty Moments post about this, I knew I had to enter ... obviously I did necause I'm a hopeless fabric addict and there are some delicious prizes on offer of a fabricatious nature! ... but in all seriousness, this really struck a chord (or should I say cord? you know how I love my cords!)because if there's one overarching aim I have for 2012 it's to resolve to sew more ... and I do mean I need to be resolved to do so, not because I lack the desire to sew, but because I let everything else in life get in the way, and especially the little obstacles that I let become barriers, like threading needles, needing to master the sewing machine, getting the mobility van to and from quilt club sew nights .... as you can imagine, I'm not short of excuses for why I have nothing for show and tell week after week!

The original post is here on Very Bery Handmade One of the rules is that I have to name my preferred prize from the list .... I think my number 1 choice would be the lifetime's supply of Christmas cake, delivered at monthly intervals until there is a world shortage of almonds with which to make the marzipan to go on top of the cakes, or the world supply of brandy that moistens the cake and plumps up its pretty little raisins hits drought levels,or I end up in a diabetic coma, whichever comes first ...

... oh,maybe I imagined that prize! OK, my next number 1 choice is ... (7 FQ) from Dan Bennett’s Premier Lord collection from Eclectic Maker
www.eclecticmaker.co.uk

and I think I can name my other prize preferences too, so second and third choice would be:

2. Fat quarter bundle (3 FQs) of polka dots from Lake House/Tanya Whelan from Quilt Me Happy
www.quiltmehappy.co.uk ... polka dots are one of few patterns I still can see quite clearly ... they litterally jump off the shelves at me in the quilt stores!

3. Fat quarter bundle (4FQs) from Kate Spain’s Terrain collection from Gone to Earth
www.gonetoearth.co.uk

So here they are, my resolutions for 2012. I've focused on half a dozen "aims" rather than projects, which you can find a plethora of in my "Between Now And The End Of The World" post back in December... these are skills I want to work on throughout 2012, and that list of projects will hopefully be the nitty gritty way in which I accomplish my resolutions!

1. I am not going to let every little thing stop me from doing *something* with a needle and thread each week
2. I am going to learn as many of the "basics" as I can, primarily through Craftsy.com where I've signed up for aa 2 blocks per month challenge.
2b. ... I will make as many of those blocks as I can without any assistance, no matter how clunky they turn out!
3. I am going to try and fit in learning some Free Motion Quilting, using Quilter in the Gap's very helpful introduction video tutorial, and Quokka Quilts's recently started QAYGFMQAL which I know several of you are also doing!
4. I hope to hold my own challenge midway through the year, with more than a little inspiration and help from Quokka Quilts (her again!) ... the plan is for a tactile quilt challenge though the details are still in deliberation ... more later!
5. I will have a giveaway myself too, having been the very happy winner of several over the course of 2011. Having just passed 50 followers I would like to celebrate that, and will do so as soon as I think of what would make a nice prize!'
6. I will try and respond to more comments and get to know my new followers, even when their blogs aren't on Blogger and therefore aren't part of my update summary list ... I'm bad at forgeting to stop by their websites and I must do better! I hope you do know how much I appreciate your comments, whether you comment on every post or just once or twice .. they all add up to a great bunch of happiness and I know I don't tell y'all enough!

So that's it, my resolutions for 2012. You have my permission to come round my house and take a handful of my stash mountain for every resolution I fail to keep ... I'll even make you a cup of tea and a cake before you leave.

Easy Camel!

Right back when this blog began I mentioned I needed help threading needles. I tried a weird and wonderful contraption that worked but which more often than not left me tangled up in thread and the needle laughing at me no closer to being threaded! Then there was a needle designed to have an opening alongside the eye, with a little notch which the thread would catch on and slot into the eye ... that worked but the needle itself was so blunt my poor little fingers cried at pushing it through even a single layer of fabric.

So for the last 6 months I've largely been dependant on others to thread needles for me, and my evenings at Quilt Club were constrained by how many needles i could take with me (not being the sort of guy who likes to ask for help with something as basic as threading a needle at Quilt Club!)

Then I discovered a different design of self-threading needle. This one has a groove right on top of the needle, above the eye ... I tried and made no progress trying to even fathom how this mechanism worked, and so I quickly gave up. Then this weekend I've started reading the Elm Creek Quilts books, beginning with The Elm Creek Quilt Sampler, the first 3 books in the series. I enjoyed the first 2 and was reading book 3 today ... I was certainly inspired when I read about Sylvia having a stroke but working to recover her ability to quilt ... including threading a needle by moistening the eye of the needle instead of the thread ...

So, feeling brave I got out my needle and thread and moistened the eye and waved the thread in the general direction of the eye ....

no luck! You need to remember that when you can't see the thread and can't really feel it between your fingers, you've no way of knowing how close or far you are from getting it through the eye, so it's a case of 100 or more attempts and sheer luck whether you get anywhere!

With the blunt needle design I also had trouble because I couldn't easily line up the 2 ends of the thread to knot them (blind people find it much easier when the thread is knotted so that it can't pull out of the eye again when you drop the needle ... I think the correct term is double threading but I might be wrong about that!)

Anyhow, refusing to give up, thanks to Sylvia's storyline perceverance, I kept trying different ways to figure out how this groove on top of the needle was supposed to help the thread through the eye ... and hey presto!

I didn't even think I'd be able to line the thread up with the groove (remember, I can't see the thread!) ... but I found that by pulling the thread (still attached to the reel) so that it is taut, then it's surprisingly easy to get the needle to rest with the groove on the thread ... then it's just a question of wiggle wiggle jiggle so the thread angles to the side ... and at one side you find there's a little slit and the thread just pops into the eye! :)

Congratulations you have threaded your needle!

And the extra benefit is that the thread can be pulled to a good length before you start, then you can make it taut just next to the reel, and when you work at that taut part you can ignore the rest ... just get the taut bit into the eye and then you can run your hand along to the loose end, grab it between thumb and forefinger, bring it towards the reel and your right to cut and knot it ... all done and no more stress!

I should add that this design of needle has a much sharper point which is why I wanted to get it working, so now I'm happy and my fingers are happy too!

There have been a few people interested in my experiences with these needles, so if you want to know more - instructions or just makes / types, then leave a comment or email and I'll happily go into more detail!

I'd had to give Quilt Club a miss tonight because, quite frankyly, I'd forgotten it was the third Monday of the month already! I therefore hadn't booked a bus, and with more snow in the forecast i decided to stay home. However, with this minor success with the needle, hopefully this opens the door to a lot more sewing!

World's Strongest Quilter

I spent an enjoyable weekend watching World's Strongest Man. This is an annual event usually shown around New Year time. It was postponed from New Year's Day this year and I've been eagerly waiting for this weekend since then!

If you haven't ever seen it, WSM features incredibly large men doing implausibly stong things, like pulling fire engines, throwing heavy barrels, and running with huge balls made of stone!

So wouldn't it be fun to have a World's Strongest Quilter competition! Each year the best of the best gather to compete against fellow quilters in battles of fabric, thread and sheer stitchery.

World's Strongest Man	World's Strongest Quilter
log press	hexagon fabric pressing
truck pull	Tug of War with Aurifil thread
Fingle's Fingers	Needle threading
Dead lift	Sewing machine carry
Barrel run	Fastest bias tape making
The Atlas Stones	Speed FMQing

photo of Fingal's Fingers


The Haxagon Press favourite will undoubtedly be Archie The Wonder Dog who has been practicing this event all weekend I believe. I am not of world class standard at any of these events (except perhaps if there's a bonus for how many times you prick your fingers in the needle threading event!) but I'm one of the best at making cups of tea so I'll be in charge of refreshments between events! Yes, this will include biscuits!

Suggestions for future events are always greatly appreciated, just leave a comment with your suggestions!

Meanwhile although I haven't managed to actually do any quilting this weekend, I did receive a lovely package from the equally lovely Magpie Mimi, containing some "not very fat" quarters (Mimi's description! I gather they're some kind of new fangled meters or something ... since moving to America I've gone all imperial in my measurements so it's yards and inches all the way!) ... there's a couple of really nice fabrics and I already am forming plans, including maybe doing some applique raindrop shapes for my Rainy Day quilt with one of them! The package also included a couple of lovely leaf hanging decorations that I shall promptly hang somewhere, and a key fob that I shall also attach to something, most likely my keys since that's what it's designed for! I definitely recommend you check out her blog and from their her etsy store as she adds more and more things to it! ... you definitely all need some of her leaves and key rings ... here's a photo to illustrate! (sorry if I've missed anything off the photo or placed it back to front etc ... I can't really see what I'm taking photos of anymore!)

... and finally the package also included a yummy bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate and 80 Yorkshire Teabags! I'd gobbled a couple of rows of the chocolate and had the kettle boiling within 2 minutes of opening the parcel! :)

Meanwhile I've also been reading some of the Elm Creek Quilt novels ... I found an audiobook on the Blind service at the Library of Congress, containing the first 3 books so I'm listening to those and am currently starting book 3! Really enjoying them!