Keep Calm and Carry on crafting!

From the start of the lockdown period I resolutely decided that I would get up at the same time every day, get dressed, exercise and be ready for the day whatever it held. This was a practise that I learned after my father passed away, I chose to still go to college in the September after he had died in the August and I had to look after myself, do my college work, earn money and self manage.

What I have found most difficult recently is having been furloughed from my job and all my self employed work had dried up because it was community based. My husband could still carry on working and I have spent many days at home with only myself and the radio or ipod – I don’t watch TV until the evening. There is a lot to be thankful for but I was still struggling.

Zoom has been another contradiction for me, my mother only has a landline so I could see all of these other people face to face and as I don’t live close to my mother I couldn’t pop round to wave at her though the window or have a socially distanced cup of tea. I felt guilt at socialising with other people even by screen. In the end I thought well, people used to only communicate by letter before landline and didn’t used to hear each other let alone see each other if they lived the other end of the country or in another country.

Anyway, as a person used to being busy after a few weeks the long stretch of time appearing to never come to an end started to take its toll, I like deadlines and lots of work to do. If I only have one thing to do I might do it just before I need to get it done and if I have hundred things to do I will priortise, delegate, time manage and still have time to spare.

I got myself a whiteboard, wrote a daily timetable and signed up for a fantastic course on messages and symbols used in textiles through out history. I have time blocked out for a maximum of 30 mins for social media per day and I decided to film some IGTV videos.

Through out the period I have on and off done bits of sewing, which made me really anxious. Should I be doing business stuff, sewing for others, is simply sewing for myself okay? So many questions and too many hours to let them get out of control in my mind.

Now, I have landed on my favourite kind of sewing which is by hand. I make a hexie block once a week with my chosen word of the week on it and eventually I will put them together to make a quilt top.