Wives and Daughters

I got chatting to Robin online today. Robin was one of my first friends in Holland. Her daughter was in the same class as The Little One and we pretty much bonded over quilting, and a shared indignation of the premature adultification of little children. Those two interests don't have a whole lot in common, but it was a pleasure and relief to meet someone else who also wasn't keen for her 7 year old son to attend a birthday party to watch Austin Powers.

Robin introduced me to lovely people. And until I found a full time job, we'd meet regularly to quilt. She credits me with teaching her. I didn't really. The pleasure I used to feel riding Giselle the Gazelle, her basket loaded with quilting goodies, up the road to Robin's house in Blaricum, past farms and quaint houses, is something that has never left me. When we finished the group, they gave me a lovely collection of William Morris fat quarters. I made notebook covers out of them.

Today I got a lightning update on her amazing daughter, about to start grad school to become a professor of biology. A doctor no less.

I keep up with Robin these days on FB. I see photos of her in her various guises, mostly as indefatigable amateur athlete. It's a cliche I know, but it is difficult to reconcile how much life has moved on. I told her about The Sensible Girl getting hitched.
So it got me nostalgic (even though it was only two and a half years ago!) for the quilt I made.

Over the kitchen dresser that
The Little One rescued and renovated.

Diamonds and Stones

  

Some weeks are just shit.

Monday may start out well, but through a complex process of interpersonal interactions, disappointments, reality-checks, injustices and unreasonable deadlines, by the time Friday night comes around, the final assessment can be summarised in that one word. Shit.

I probs shouldn't use the word 'shit' in case my mother is reading. Although I figure I'm pretty safe given that she told me today that her computer's not working. I called in to see her on my way home. I just sat on the sofa that she's had since I was 4, drank the tea she made me, and listened to her catalogue of the week's activities of 'senior citizens' outings, Tuesday club, volunteering at a school and a church, and walks with her neighbour Amy. My mother has volunteered at the same school for fifteen years, ever since her retirement. It's a school for young people who, for a variety of reasons can't be in mainstream schools. And my elderly mother goes and cooks with them, and does craft with them, and goes on their overnight trips to exotic locations like Dubbo. That pretty much blows my mind. Then she showed me the new plantings in her garden and drilled me on when her bougainvillea would flower and what did I think of her new garden edging? It was a nice hour or so. And apart from the fact that the sofa could really do with either re-springing or putting out with the Council Clean-up, it was surprisingly comforting.

And now it's Friday night on my street.

And there's a tangello in the fruit bowl.

So what are you doing this weekend?

In Sydney, it's promising to be sunny. I'm going to the library which is about 100m from my house. I'm going to the library because I figure, if I am every going to counter my weird work-avoidance, that four hours there, will be worth eight hours at home.

And I'm going to eradicate the last remnant of the week from my bones and my being.

Best Laid Plans

I'm studying.
Well. Kind of. 
I am enrolled in a Masters. But I tend to go in fits and starts. Like doing a bit and then taking a semester off and then maniacally undertaking two subjects at once during a busy term at work. That's this term's undertaking. 
I download the readings. I draft beautiful study schedules outlining what I have to do each week. I order the texts and whoop when they arrive. 
But the 'doing' of it does not come as easily as the 'planning to do' it.
I'm not sure why.
I went to university when I had three small children. The Man was working crazy shift hours a fair distance from home. I went to uni every day. I came home. I read, did assignments, prepared presentations into the small hours. I helped teach my own kids how to read, do assignments and prepare presentations too. But it was a juggle. I was usually late for netball/football practice and piano/guitar/violin lessons. There were constant washing crises. I lost friendships. I was stressed and often on edge. But I did it.
So now, when it should come easily, I struggle to settle to it. I do all the self talk, like: You are really interested in thinking about this topic/issue/subject (which I always am). And: This will be really useful at work (which it always is). I have grand plans of reading two hours a day. I'm good at the planning part. 

So now I'm off to make a cup of tea and sit in the sun and do two readings before I'm allowed another (setting myself rules and restrictions is part of the planning-to-study routine I have perfected). I'll let you know what I learn about the Gifted Child in the Mainstream Class.....
Cheers,
GND

Oh. ps. I kind of went off and made sweet little muffins. Packet mix but GF and super yum. But I did read heaps about the ICM - Integrated Curriculum Model...lots of connection to IB.



Just had to include my sweet tea towel - Cath Kidston of course



Big Apple to Bird-in-Hand to Bondi Junction

Last year The Sensible Girl and I had the best mother-daughter experience of recent times. What began as a wistful chat one afteroon about New York, transformed into a holiday to remember c/o two planning days: one to book plane tickets and NYC accommodation (hello roomarama)and one to buy NYC bike tour, Broadway show, out-of-town transport and accommodation. The rest was planned via a series of frantic texts, emails with attachments and phone conversations.  

Two events of the past day have brought this holiday flooding back...as if the Empire State Building linocut on my computer desktop is not daily reminder enough -

1)I moved house this year and due to lots of reasons, have not really finished unpacking and sorting. My current sorting project is the study bookshelves. I love to sort. I love to discard and rationalise. Last night I said to The Man - I'm just going to sort through my cards. To which he replied - You mean you are going to tidy them and then put them all back. Me - No. I am going to cull. I did too but not as seriously as the night before when I reduced two and a half shelves of quilting magazines to one single lever arch file of favourite future (hopefully) projects.

Anyway, I digress. The Sensible Girl was over to offer moral support of the sorting variety, and we stumbled upon my NYC diary - a little A6 book of tickets, observations, maps, leaves, conversation transcripts, daily schedules and such. I try and do a little A6 diary every trip. A self contained record. Every page is a reminder of the little things that made the trip so great: the happy accidents, the encounters with taxi drivers, guest house owners,hardware store keepers and just real New-Yorkers (to the point that our lexicon is now scattered with Bob-isms, Donna-isms, Vivian-isms and Gary-isms), the hilarity, the loveliness of New York in the Fall, the mania of two women so alike and yet unalike as to be the perfect travelling companions.

Among other things, this diary contained details of our trip to Lancaster County to hit up the quilt shops and get an Amish fix. That was where we bought The Fabric. Travelling home our bags weighed over 100 kgs. Which brings me to the second reason for being in a New York state of mind.

b) Yesterday the stitching sisterhood was in session. While in Bird-in-Hand I bought some French General - 15 charm packs and 3 bundles of 8 fat quarters.

We met at Sooz's and in true sisterhood production-line style began to cut, sew, turn, iron, bask in the loveliness.

Using the Dresden Plate ruler and Jenny's failsafe tutorial, we've started. Deborah on precision cutting, Sooz machining, Annabel and I turning points and pressing and arranging into colour groups. Blades all ready to go - all 1200 of them. Updates as we go.   

 

Scraps - too lovely to discard

What's In A Name?

Girls named Kate/Cate seem to be getting quite a bit of press lately. Posing naked (again) Kate, Marrying for love Kate, Tackling climate change so-she-can-look-her-children-in-the-face Cate. From the sublime to the ridiculous. I'll leave it for you to decide which is which.


The year I was born, Catherine was the most popular name for baby girls, and so naturally, my parents made it my second name. My lovely sisters, were given the number one most popular name the year they were born. As their first name. I went to school with a lot of Catherines, Kathryns, Cathies, Kaths, Katies. I would have loved to be called Cate. So why wasn't I similarly bestowed with Catherine as my primary moniker?


My mother explains it as such: As new migrants, they couldn't quite understand the Australian predelection for abbreviating names as a form of cultural acceptance and affection. As far as they were concerned they had given their two first girls lovely, complete, not-unreasonably-long, names. And yet every Australian automatically re-christened my sisters with a newly shortened sobriquet. My resourceful parents solved this when I was born. Bequeathing to me the shortest of names, four letters, single syllable.


I feel, as time goes on, I am really growing into my name. Only to be expected I suppose, given that it's the name of a ninety two year old. Don't get me wrong. I'm all about tradition and heritage. I buy antiques and quilt-by-hand for goodness sake. But there's old names and there's old names. Mine isn't the good kind. As a middle name, you can't go past it. As a middle name it works*.


But as a first name it's frumpy and uninspiring.  Through work, I've met people face to face that hitherto I had only communicated with electronically or over the phone. More than once I've been greeted with: Oh, you're younger than I had imagined. Stupid name. No one else has it. Well, no. That's not strictly true. There are others. Mostly alice-band wearing religious zealots. Or old ladies. Evidenced by the fact that it was in the Top 5 most popular names...in 1911.


I like old ladies. I hope to become one. Perhaps then I'll like my name.


*So much that The Man gave it to The Little One as her middle name. Unfortunately, as the children have my surname as a second middle name, smack bang between her cute first and charming last names, The Little One has my whole name. Oh and that's her lovely Double Irish Chain I made her way back. Fabric from the quilt show in Brugge. Hand quilted with cross hatching, Irish tulips and Celtic knots.

Keeping The Boy Warm

This is the latest of my finished projects. It's a quilt for The Boy with Dutchman's Puzzle blocks combined with a Flying Geese border. It's hand pieced. Hand quilted. Started about six years ago on a school excursion to Canberra. The Dutchman's Puzzle, chosen by him, with its centres reminiscent of windmill blades, is a nice nod to our love off all things Nederland.

His dad and I had kids when we were just kids ourselves. While our friends were spending their youth in nightclubs, The Man and I were spending it on nightfeeds. Friends did the post-school European adventure; we did Wiggles concerts and holidays in Huskisson. And so, when I'd finally got my degree, ten years after leaving school, with the promise of tulips and cheese, we packed up our children, our furniture, our lives, and relocated to Holland for a European adventure of our own.

We got jobs, we found a house in a village of thatched rooves and cobbled roads. And yes, it had a working molen (windmill). The children started school. There was only one moment in the five years that I doubted the decision to become 'het meisje naast de deur".  It passed. We began to build a little life there.

Everytime I get on my beautiful fiets with it's large wheels and touring comfort, I am back in Holland. And I hope that's what this quilt does for The Boy. The quilt's on his bed. He lives in Sydney's Inner West; a sharehouse, architecturally vintage, with detailed high ceilings and explansive hallways, with lovely housemates who set each other baking challenges. I sent him a text to tell him the quilt was ready. His reply? Can I come over now?

It's a lovely quilt. His colours, his design. His quilt.

Family, Choices, Motivation and Acupuncture

A lovely long FB chat with Chris tonight about family, choices, footy tipping, motivation and acupuncture got me in a reflective mood.
I'll introduce you to the girlfriends who fill my life with joy and challenge and fulfillment. What is the collective noun for girlfriends? A giggle of girlfriends? No, not enough. A grace of girlfriends seems more apt. 

I'll start with Chris. Not for any reason other than she was the last girlfriend I spoke to. And, along with Cathy, if I don't count my sisters, Chris is pretty much my oldest friend. I've known her so long that I still inadvertently call her by her pre-marriage name.  

Chris is a thoughtful, reflective, problem solving girlie. She wonders about the events in her life and the lives of others, and sets about searching for answers. Her candour is confronting but empowering. It cuts through. Chris surrounds herself with beautiful things; humble, charming, effortlessly chic things. And she has made beautiful babies. But Chris has a clutter to contend with; worries  and trauma buzz around, threatening hope, stealing peace. I see Chris's passionate drive. A calm grace.

Staying friends with childhhood friends is tricky. A bit like a marriage; reinventing the relationship at each stage to keep it relevant to what is real at that time. Chris and I have undergone a bit of a reinvention too. Despite years of travel, living away from each other, consumed by careers and day-to-day family diversions, I have always felt her hand on my life. Her laugh and particular cadence of speech (!). And now, we both quilt. Not often or very purposefully. But it's a little thread between us. We sew together when we can. We chat about it. And we chat about more besides. It's our little bit of lovely in a year that has seen a lot of un-lovely.

My kids adore her. The Little One wants to live in a House That Chris Built, all French Provincial chicness. The Boy feels appreciated and listened to. The Sensible Girl loves her so much that she was a 'must invite' when she married her own Man. By her interest and humour, Chris has shown them that they matter. I'm a sucker for anyone who loves my kids. It's like they've joined my secret society.