Month: April 2019

Post Easter Vibe

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

Well as usual when there is any disruption to my routine I am really thrown. Like I have said before and in the blog post Upheaval I don’t do well with change. Easter always throws me out as do any bank holidays, it can leave me unsure of what the day is for a week or so. I know it’s not just me everyone is thrown when there routine is altered. So for this week I thought I would just update you all on the sewing and embroidery projects I have been working on recently.

I have been making a lot of cushions. I like making cushions as it combines using my embroidery machine, sewing machine and overlocker. I have also been using my embroidery machine to embroider motifs onto sweatshirts. However my latest make only used my sewing machine and it was nice to get back to basics. I made some bunting, 10 metres of the stuff to go in the garden once the revamp is finished. (currently being held up waiting for various different parts to arrive)

The bunting has been made out of various scraps of material I have had lying around for a while and some fat quarters that I didn’t know what to do with. I can’t wait to have it hung in the garden this summer. It’s the first time I have made bunting and I am very pleased with it. I don’t know why I haven’t made it before.

I really love using my embroidery machine, it gives me another way to express my creativity and also make items that are personal to the gift recipient. I am in a cushion making phase at the moment, which I really enjoy because it uses so many skills. Here are just some of the ones I have made in the last few months.

I love the ones with the Deer on they are my favourite. I also really love the Llama one and the Lion head. Embroidery always cheers me up when I am feeling low, it’s been really hard since Molly and Frankie passed away, even though I have Dembe it’s not the same. I wouldn’t be without him and he is enormous fun but it is a massive change to my routine with him being a puppy.

I have also really enjoyed learning how to embroider sweatshirts. I buy plain £10  unisex sweatshirts and then embroider a nice design on them. It has been a case of trial and error getting the stabilisation right on these. I am much happier with the last three I have done, although I still wear the other two that I did before Christmas.

What is even better with this design was that it was free one month. I am also starting to now get adventurous and changing up the colours from those that my embroidery machine says to do it in. It is important when you do that to write down what colour you are using instead of the one listed on the screen or you can get yourself into a bit of a pickle.

 

I wear this sweatshirt a lot as it is totally me. Whenever I am stressed or anxious I try to sew as it keeps me focused on the task at hand rather than worrying about something I have no control over.

 This is a terrible photo but this is my favourite design that I have embroidered onto a sweatshirt I call it Chinese Chrysanthemums. I bought this sweatshirt especially to embroider this design onto it as I felt it was so dramatic it needed the black background to really pop.

What I love about embroidering clothing is that by changing the colours, placement etc you end up with a totally unique piece of clothing. I am going to try some more embroidering onto t-shirts for the summer. I will use a few of my old t-shirts to practice on to ensure I have the level of stabilisation right so there is no puckering or distortion of the design.

I think I love my embroidery machine ( like I love my sewing machine ) because I have to use the old grey matter and solve problems. It was nice making the bunting recently as it was going back to basics and just doing something that wasn’t too taxing but still needed thought about. 

I also made a peg bag recently, which has made me chuckle as it is like I am doing my sewing journey in reverse. Last year I was making quilts and bags, designing my own patterns etc this year I have made some bunting and now a peg bag. Both though are good basics to master. The peg bag I made my own hanger from wire as I didn’t have a small enough hanger and then made my own pattern. I used remnants from another project to make the bag. Now I can’t wait for my washing line to be back up ( once the garden is sorted ) so that I can see my peg bag in use.

I like using my sewing skills not just to make decorative items and gifts but to also solve problems. So recently I have made us a beautiful front net ( type ) curtain from a Broiderie Anglaise panel I was given. It is brilliant as it stops the light glaring onto the TV during the day but doesn’t impact the light levels in the house. It also provides us with some much-needed privacy. It looks really nice from outside the house as well. The problem with our lounge window is that it is south-facing so we end up with the light streaming in which is lovely but can also mean you end up all summer long having the curtains closed whenever you want to watch the TV. With the panel being denser than net it gives us privacy which we both value (I know that may sound odd from someone who writes a blog). It’s also had the added bonus of stopping Dembe looking at the window and barking at everyone who walks past! 

Off Topic

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

I know some of you are going to think I have well and truly lost my marbles so please feel free to skip this post if you hold no truck with the supernatural / ghosts / spirits what have you. I have to write about it due to what has just happened and I can’t ignore it any longer.

Ok so regular followers of my blog will know that we lost Frankie and Mollie within 7 days of each other ( 29th Dec 2018 and then 5th Jan 2019). Jay and I are not religious, although he was brought up in the Catholic faith, I guess he is atheist or agnostic. I have never asked him. I was brought up without faith and am atheist. However I do believe that we don’t just cease to exist when we die. Which I know for some atheists will be difficult to get their head around. The thing is I have seen too much, heard too much and had premonitions of events that I couldn’t possibly known about months or sometimes days before they have happened. That I just know that there is more to this world than what many of us see and hear.

For example for the month before my A-level results came out every night without fail I would dream about the letter C. Like on Sesame street this letter C would be huge and there would be 3 of them. It was bizarre and whilst dreaming I would try to change it to 3 B’s as I knew this dream was telling me what my A- level results would be. Low and behold exam result day I get 3 C’s. Pure laziness on my part, preferred earning money and going out to actual studying!

Before my driving test I repeatedly dreamt that I would be in a part of Plymouth called Little America and I would be asked to perform a reverse around the corner. As I was undertaking this the driving examiner would tell me to stop as he had under estimated how close the white car behind us was. Low and behold on my test – I am driving through Little America and I am asked to do the reverse around the corner. As I am doing it, just as had happened in my dream the driving examiner called a halt to it as a white car was too close.

I could go on and on and that would either serve to bore you rigid or for you to believe I am totally bat shit crazy. My premonitions come and go, I can go years without them happening. The last time it happened that I can remember was when Jay had his car crash in 2011. For around 3 months before I had the same dream over and over that Jay would be in a car crash and that our car would be written off. As I had dreamt it Jay did indeed have a crash ( caused by a drunk driver in a stolen car) and our car was written off.

So that’s the premonition side of things, I also see things. Not hallucinations but spirits / ghosts etc. I wrote extensively about the flat Jay and I used to live at in my post entitled “Haunted” (link here ). I can have feelings about places / people also. I also can hear things not as in voices but as in I can hear things like a dog jumping off the bed upstairs when Dembe is downstairs with me and the only dog that used to jump off Jay’s bed was Mollie. I have also heard a dog shaking his head and the collar jangling with the ID tag but Dembe is fast asleep next to me. 

The first dog I saw that had passed was our first Weimaraner Travis. The second litter of puppies had been born in 2007 and I had come in from work and was upstairs checking on them. I heard a dog behind me, I turned to look and assumed it was Mollie. I still remember what I said ” are you going to take care of these puppies or will I have to do it?” As I said those words I had turned my head back to the whelping box, when Mollie didn’t walk past me I just assumed she had gone back down stairs. I went down stairs and walked into the kitchen to find Jay in there with all 3 dogs. I was confused so asked him ” have these three been down here the whole time?” to which he replied “Yes”. I nearly fainted with shock, I knew that I had just seen Travis, a full body apparition of a dog that had passed away over a year ago. 

I am not the only person to have seen Travis. A delivery driver and his mate was bringing in some furniture and told me one of the dogs had escaped from the kitchen. I said no they are all in the kitchen. The guy went white and said I just saw a dog on the stairs . Travis used to sit on the bottom widest step and we had nicknamed it the sulky step as he would sit on it when we went to work. 

My mum has stepped over a dog in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom when she was staying with us and then realised all three dogs were in my room. There had been no dog in the hallway.

My cleaner ( years ago when I could afford one!) said she had felt a dog brush past her on the stairs as she was vacuuming them. When she looked into the lounge ( our stairs are in the lounge and have an open banister) she saw three dogs sprawled over two sofas all fast asleep. No dog had gone past her, well no earthly dog. 

So strange goings on in my house have happened for years. When family members or close friends pass I have problems with the electrics, things turning themselves on and off without us touching them. Since one friend passed last year my hallway light at the top of the stairs flashes on and off. It’s just flashed whilst I am proof reading this. Initially Jay never noticed so I thought I must be imagining things. Then one day the light went off completely for several seconds and then came back on again. It can go days even weeks without the light flashing and then all of a sudden it is doing it every time the light is on. I acknowledge my friend in my head but I have to tell you out of all the stuff that has happened here, that’s the only thing that can scare me. Especially if I am in the house alone.

 That brings me nicely up to what happened today and surprised me so much I said “Oh my god” out loud and Jay said “did you hear that?” I was sat on the sofa that is opposite our stairs. Our stairs has three mirrors going up the side of them so I can see in the mirror opposite me the top of the stairs. What had caught my attention was the sound of two steps at the top of the stairs. I looked in the mirror as I always would have done when the Weims were alive only to see the back-end of a Weimaraner disappear into my room. I then said “oh my god” because I was taken a back not frightened. Jay had heard the steps but due to where he was sitting he couldn’t see the mirror. When I told him what I had seen he wasn’t surprised as we have both seen and heard our babies since they passed. It provides us with a level of comfort knowing that they are still with us, even if it’s in spirit only. 

Dembe has also seen them, I say this not because I pretend to know what he is thinking but because of his reactions. He has play bowed ( stuck his arse in the air and bent with his front legs on the floor) and rolled his ball to nothing. I was sat across the other side of the room and watched him do this, not just on the one occasion but on many occasions. He has taken toys over to what we have nicknamed for years the sulky step because that is where Travis and Frankie would sit sometimes. 

Jay has heard Mollie, Frankie, Willow and Travis accompanying him on his walks up the common when it has just been him and Dembe and not another soul in sight. Some days it is a comfort other days it just reminds you of how very much we have lost. Of course we wouldn’t be without Dembe but at the moment it still feels like we are all still getting to know each other. With Mollie, Frankie and Willow we had been with each other for years and we know all their little idiosyncrasies. So although the house doesn’t feel as empty as it did in those six days after Mollie passed whilst we were waiting to get Dembe, it still feels pretty empty compared to how it used to be.

I think that’s why what happened this afternoon really sort of shocked me. I wasn’t expecting it. It was nice to know that they are still around and they don’t feel pushed out with Dembe around.