The Perimenopause Chronicle Quilt Begins

I come from a family with scary uterine history. My grandmother died of cervical cancer in her 30s. My mom had a hysterectomy shortly after giving birth to me. That history also means I have zero recollection of any conversations about menopause within my family. Really though, the world just doesn’t talk it; it isn’t just a thing with my family. More specifically, the world does not talk about perimenopause.

A few weeks ago I had a long conversation with one of my girlfriends about this. Is it squeamishness? Denial? the perpetual sweeping under the rug of anything to do with women’s health? Now that we are in the thick of perimenopause it reminds of when I was pregnant and I kept asking: why didn’t anyone tell me about this? In both cases it might be that people did tell me but I wasn’t looking for/listening to the information before I needed it. Or, it is the reasons listed above? Regardless, I am interested in it a lot now, for obvious reasons - being a 45 year old woman, namely.

So, on our last Virtual Trunk Show (Instagram Live, the second Thursday of each month) we had the theme of Change of Seasons and it gave me a wonderful idea: make a quilt to mark the perimenopause experience! I got the idea from the concept of temperature quilts/blankets. You pick a colour to correspond with the temperature of the day and make a block or knit/crochet a row to mark it. Only I would be marking my flow, moods, pain, and other stuff of my perimenopausal menstrual cycle.

Aided by a few conversations with friends and online about what exactly I should track and in consultation with the Monster and The Evil Genius I planned out the quilt. Fabric selection was a bit tough. I went back and forth between solids and prints until I concluded that neither felt right. A quiet Sunday at home led me to experiment with hand-dyed fabric (with Procion MX dyes). It took a few tries but I am happy with the palette for this quilt.

Each block will include a representation of my flow, or not flow, as well as my mood. I am also including a marker for pain and for what my teen referred to as Random Ass Shit like night sweats, bowel issues, breast tenderness, and bloating.

Here is the legend I am working with:

LEFT PILE
Orange = Random Ass Shit
Yellow = Pain (cramps and mittleschmerz mostly)
Pink/Peach = no flow
Pink Red = light flow
Red = medium flow
Purple Red = heavy flow

RIGHT PILE is for moods
Green = Happy
Turquoise = Content
Blue = Sad/Listless
Purple = Grumpy/Irritable/Annoyed
Black = Angry

My plan is to track things for 12 cycles. That adds up to more or less a year. Nothing is perfectly regular anymore so that is only a guess.

I know that this makes some feel uncomfortable. Oh well. We need more conversations on this topic and I am happy to open the door and make space for that. Yes, the quilt is a selfish reflection but it will serve as a larger conversation starter.

Expect the periodic post here and follow along on instagram with #perimenopausechroniclequilt.

Agathe - October Morning Make Finished

Agathe

66” x 74”

Agathe is a German women. She grew up running the fields of her family farm, hands trailing in the grasses as she eyed the woods ahead. She wasn’t allowed in the woods, bad people could be there. The same bad people that loaded the trains they sometimes saw. The same people who knocked on their door at night demanding food. Agathe was still allowed in the fields though, even if her parents insisted she be in their sight at all times. Not until she’d moved to Canada did she really understand their fear. By then she also understood that they gave her freedom from fear by still letting her run the fields on sunny days. All her life she knew to take pleasures in the feel of flowing grass under her hand, of good pastry, of daily sunshine. Even if life isn’t good around you, to look for the simple pleasures.

October 2020 Morning Make is finished. I named her Agathe.

One improv block a day for the month of October. Composing as I went, playing the entire time. Some days the block related to the day before, some days the connections were harder. Each day was about finding a bit of joy, a respite from the daily slog of life in 2020. And at the end of the month I had a finished quilt top!

Fast forward a few months, one afternoon with my girls helping me baste and 8 spools of thread later and I have a finished quilt.

To quilt her I used my walking foot and creating a map of parallel lines. In spots I followed the lines of piecing, in others I went against the flow. There was a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of threads to bury. (This time I was smarter and buried them in spurts as I went while we watched Brooklyn 99.)

It is no secret that I love a contrasting binding, but this time it didn’t feel right. She got the same black binding used in piecing. It’s actually a tone on tone from my Tag Fabric collection. The other two fabrics are a cream solid that I think came from my Baba’s stash because it smelled like her when I pressed it, and a random white solid I found in the closet. The cream is actually more like a pale yellow, which I didn’t realize until the whole top was done. That’s what happens when you do all the sewing in the dark of morning.

Making this quilt really was an escape. From the piecing to the quilting to the binding. It was a respite from daily life, a moment to give myself where the rest of the world melts away. The grass isn’t green here yet, but the hares are giving us smiles. I even had one check things out as I was snapping pics. Life goes on. Life is beautiful. Finding the simple pleasures.

Mask Scraps

It’s time to make another batch of masks. Between constant wear and loss the mask basket by the front door needs replenishment. That means extra safety for the family as we ride this third wave of Covid AND more scraps.

Not sure why, but from the get go last year I kept the mask scraps as we sewed for ourselves, family, and friends. Part of me wanted to keep things together, as a form of documentation of this time. I figured I would keep them together and could always recirculate them back into general population of the scraps if I changed my mind. It would be harder to locate them again after the fact though.

Then, at one point in the summer we succumbed to the tie dye lockdown trend. I bought the good fabric dyes and we spent an afternoon dying sheets with the kids. I threw in some solid whites I had with the leftover dye. As a result, I have a whole bunch of red fabric that fits the rage mood of a lot to do with Covid. A match made in creative conscious heaven.

You can learn how to make these sweet blocks in the latest Quilters’ Playcation Playdate.

March Morning Make 2021

“You are so creative”

A dear friend said this to me after my first post for March Morning Make. I actually had a visceral reaction to her statement. It’s not that I disagree with her, it’s that she said it with the hanging “and I am not” to it. I was actually upset about it for days. The thing is, I am no more creative than she is, than anyone is. What I am is willing to exercise and explore that creativity in unique ways. She is a mother and works in a dynamic environment. Her daily life requires constant creativity to get through the day. She is so creative.

Scientists and engineers are creative. Doctors and teachers are creative. Maybe not accountants, at least not at their jobs. Athletes surely are. Parents are definitely creative. We ALL are creative. Indeed, we all need to be creative to get through the day. Those who exercise their muscles through creative pursuits like art, music, writing, sewing, and more are the ones deemed creative. No, we are just the ones hitting the gym. Just like an athlete of any sort is the one that devotes their physical and mental energy to a physical pursuit, those of us deemed creative are the ones that devote our extra physical and mental energy to a creative pursuit. It’s a choice about how we spend our time more than anything.

So, for March, I chose to spend my time doing something completely foreign to me - making paper flowers. It made me a beginner again and it was awesome. My creative muscles got quite the workout, not to mention my clunky fingers. Being a beginner at something is amazing. It forces you to slow down, fire the brain up in new ways, and explore in an unfamiliar way. I know that all that terrifies people and it can do a number on your confidence, but I, personally, love it. It’s a good reminder that it is okay to be a beginner, that it’s okay to not be great or even good at something, that trying is as important as finishing.

I based the majority of my flowers on directions in the book The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers by Livia Cetti. Not having a clue what I was doing I definitely needed the structure of directions. So I picked flowers based on their looks and whether she said they were easy or not. Partway through the month I decided I wanted to make some flowers that were not in her book so went to You Tube for instructions. Having some basic understanding from daily play meant that I could extrapolate and make up some of my own things. They didn’t always work, but I wouldn’t know that unless I tried.

Most interesting to me over the past month is my changing perspective on the flowers themselves and how I wanted them to look. I went back and forth between liking the not so perfectly accurate look of the tissue paper flowers and construction paper leaves, some days I preferred the crepe paper and other days it drove me nuts. I quite enjoyed the manipulation of the paper with bleach, that stayed throughout.

Will I make paper flowers again? Probably, if the occasion comes or the mood strikes. For now I have a lot of flowers to deliver to friends. We are at least 6 weeks away from real flowers here and we could also use the colour. Whether or not, however, you can sure that I my creative muscles are in better shape after this month. I hope yours are too.