I'm working 4-5 nights a week, mostly 12 hour shifts. I'm getting crazier and crazier patients. I'm probably getting about 4 hours of decent sleep a day and I spend my off days trying to catch up on sleep. Thank goodness for autocorrect here bc my eyes are crossing just trying to type this out. I'm exhausted and worn out and just tired of everything.
Did I mention I have two quilts to work on during this exhausted period? Bc one is due next week.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Real life
It would be so nice if I could just sew, cook, be with my cat, etc everyday, but unfortunately-living costs money. So I have to work.
I started a new job in a hospital 2 weeks ago. I stay in a patient's room to keep an eye on them, keep them from falling, pulling out IVs and other distractions to the nursing staff. The twelve hour shifts overnight are draining, as are the patients-they're confused, suicidal, non-verbal/unintelligible, belligerent. I overscheduled myself these first few weeks, so basically I've worked & slept. That's it. My "time off" was spent in the boonies-so not home. Someday I'll be at home with Kaden and my machine again (I hope).
The most draining part (besides the hours and patients) is feeling so left out of everything. My sister has to arrange my mom's appointments, go with her-because I'm asleep. I'm trying to coordinate all the thanksgiving cooking I usually do in the days leading up to Thursday bc I'm working every night. Overnights don't bother me-except that I'm in dark rooms & not allowed to do much of anything while I'm with a patient.
***then I have nights like tonight where I get yelled at and I have to see him exposing himself trying to fix the diaper that's on him again bc he has to pull it to use the urinal he insisted on***
I'm hoping that I'll get to be in a "virtual sitter" room more often. It's less hands on, but I think that's what I need sometimes. I need to be in a lit room with someone to talk to that isn't gonna yell at me for trying to keep them safe. But I'm worried that their first fall will happen on my watch :|
This one is restless & belligerent-guess I should put this away. These are the nights I wonder wtf happened with my life that I'm in here doing this.
I started a new job in a hospital 2 weeks ago. I stay in a patient's room to keep an eye on them, keep them from falling, pulling out IVs and other distractions to the nursing staff. The twelve hour shifts overnight are draining, as are the patients-they're confused, suicidal, non-verbal/unintelligible, belligerent. I overscheduled myself these first few weeks, so basically I've worked & slept. That's it. My "time off" was spent in the boonies-so not home. Someday I'll be at home with Kaden and my machine again (I hope).
The most draining part (besides the hours and patients) is feeling so left out of everything. My sister has to arrange my mom's appointments, go with her-because I'm asleep. I'm trying to coordinate all the thanksgiving cooking I usually do in the days leading up to Thursday bc I'm working every night. Overnights don't bother me-except that I'm in dark rooms & not allowed to do much of anything while I'm with a patient.
***then I have nights like tonight where I get yelled at and I have to see him exposing himself trying to fix the diaper that's on him again bc he has to pull it to use the urinal he insisted on***
I'm hoping that I'll get to be in a "virtual sitter" room more often. It's less hands on, but I think that's what I need sometimes. I need to be in a lit room with someone to talk to that isn't gonna yell at me for trying to keep them safe. But I'm worried that their first fall will happen on my watch :|
This one is restless & belligerent-guess I should put this away. These are the nights I wonder wtf happened with my life that I'm in here doing this.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Bye-bye, Kitty :(
My Brother XL-2600 officially kicked it tonight. In the middle of quilting Juliana's quilt, it jammed. Fix the threads, it jammed again after 3 stitches. Take it all apart & clean out the bobbin case & feed dogs, change the (new) needle-got about 10 inches of stitching before it jammed again.
I cried. I cursed. I slammed my hand against it & begged it to work. I noticed the arm that holds the needle/foot would shift forward & that would cause it to hit the throat plate & jam. At one point, I had a strip of flannel tied to it & attached to the thread guide from the back (desperation mode). Few more lines before it hit the plate again-flannel tie be damned.
I cried more. I cursed more. I was about 2 seconds from throwing it through the wall.
Only thing a manual check would tell me is I need a new bobbin case. On a 7 year old machine, that case is more expensive than the machine is worth. My friend (who is much more experienced in diagnosing sewing machine issues) couldn't figure out the whine it's been making-I toughed it out because I had no other real option. My aunt's machine needs servicing. The one I got off of Craigslist a few months ago is having issues (and i don't know who serviced it for the seller).
Sooooo-another machine is on its way from Amazon. Basic, supposedly heavy duty. It drops the feed dogs, which I'm excited about (all of my machines have required a darning plate).
Since I haven't had enough stress of the mechanical kind today-I pulled down my serger from storage. No manual, I had to find the pedal. It's a Pro-Sew, which is apparently ~non-existent~ as far as online manuals. I found a Singer that looked similar to figure out how to pop open the front for the looper threading-and.it.worked. (haven't used it in 10+yrs)
Exciting, yes? :)
Well...I started monkeying with the thread tensions & now they're breaking constantly. At least I'm getting good practice, I guess.
My new machine should be here Saturday. Until then, handwork it is. I (hopefully) start a new job in early November, so I really wanted to finish as much of my Christmas sewing as possible before orientation.
I cried. I cursed. I slammed my hand against it & begged it to work. I noticed the arm that holds the needle/foot would shift forward & that would cause it to hit the throat plate & jam. At one point, I had a strip of flannel tied to it & attached to the thread guide from the back (desperation mode). Few more lines before it hit the plate again-flannel tie be damned.
I cried more. I cursed more. I was about 2 seconds from throwing it through the wall.
Only thing a manual check would tell me is I need a new bobbin case. On a 7 year old machine, that case is more expensive than the machine is worth. My friend (who is much more experienced in diagnosing sewing machine issues) couldn't figure out the whine it's been making-I toughed it out because I had no other real option. My aunt's machine needs servicing. The one I got off of Craigslist a few months ago is having issues (and i don't know who serviced it for the seller).
Sooooo-another machine is on its way from Amazon. Basic, supposedly heavy duty. It drops the feed dogs, which I'm excited about (all of my machines have required a darning plate).
Since I haven't had enough stress of the mechanical kind today-I pulled down my serger from storage. No manual, I had to find the pedal. It's a Pro-Sew, which is apparently ~non-existent~ as far as online manuals. I found a Singer that looked similar to figure out how to pop open the front for the looper threading-and.it.worked. (haven't used it in 10+yrs)
Exciting, yes? :)
Well...I started monkeying with the thread tensions & now they're breaking constantly. At least I'm getting good practice, I guess.
My new machine should be here Saturday. Until then, handwork it is. I (hopefully) start a new job in early November, so I really wanted to finish as much of my Christmas sewing as possible before orientation.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Because...
what good is keeping all the "precious" for yourself? :) I can spare 7" of the pretty birdies for Olivia...
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
So predictable :)
Why do important projects seem soooo boring & stuff you *probably* shouldn't do tease with fun?
Progress on Geeky Christmas is going well. I need to start pulling for Olivia's back (her top is still pinned to my design wall, but I'll take it down soon), I'm about 80% done with the blocks for Jaylen's, and all the squares for HSTs have been cut for Gabe's. We found the perfect main fabrics for the back of each boy's quilt (even though it required my sister to restitch 2 of the blocks). Zach's is stalled out & I *really* need to get going on Jackson. SO MUCH WORK.
So, of course...
I'm experimenting with improv blocks,
I'm making pink charm stars,
I'm trying an idea for a strip quilt that's pretty on-the-fly-designing.
While looking for pink fabrics in my stash, I pulled out 3 large print florals and lamented not knowing what to do with them. I saw someone's charity quilt that consisted of chunks of a floral separated by thin bars of sashing. All the chunks were uneven length, but the width was consistent. Seems easy enough, yes?
I pulled aside an almost 2yd piece of bright floral on brown, my favorite teal and white dot print, and a scrap of an orange circle print. The teal is supposed to be the sashing with the orange thrown in here and there...
I added some green strips.
And yellow.
Pink looks very tempting.
I can't keep anything simple :)
So the plan has changed again. The first cut is 6.5in wide and it'll be as long as the pieces I have allow. Then I'll subcut it into 50-55" lengths, then further subcut to add white sashings. The teal doesn't have enough contrast, so there will be white.
How long it'll take me to make this is unknown. I guess it won't be a quick overnight project, but if I like the end result, it'll all be worth it.
If I don't like it...well, my sister is always looking for another quilt ;)
Progress on Geeky Christmas is going well. I need to start pulling for Olivia's back (her top is still pinned to my design wall, but I'll take it down soon), I'm about 80% done with the blocks for Jaylen's, and all the squares for HSTs have been cut for Gabe's. We found the perfect main fabrics for the back of each boy's quilt (even though it required my sister to restitch 2 of the blocks). Zach's is stalled out & I *really* need to get going on Jackson. SO MUCH WORK.
So, of course...
I'm experimenting with improv blocks,
I'm making pink charm stars,
I'm trying an idea for a strip quilt that's pretty on-the-fly-designing.
While looking for pink fabrics in my stash, I pulled out 3 large print florals and lamented not knowing what to do with them. I saw someone's charity quilt that consisted of chunks of a floral separated by thin bars of sashing. All the chunks were uneven length, but the width was consistent. Seems easy enough, yes?
I pulled aside an almost 2yd piece of bright floral on brown, my favorite teal and white dot print, and a scrap of an orange circle print. The teal is supposed to be the sashing with the orange thrown in here and there...
I added some green strips.
And yellow.
Pink looks very tempting.
I can't keep anything simple :)
So the plan has changed again. The first cut is 6.5in wide and it'll be as long as the pieces I have allow. Then I'll subcut it into 50-55" lengths, then further subcut to add white sashings. The teal doesn't have enough contrast, so there will be white.
How long it'll take me to make this is unknown. I guess it won't be a quick overnight project, but if I like the end result, it'll all be worth it.
If I don't like it...well, my sister is always looking for another quilt ;)
Friday, September 28, 2012
Friday Night Sewing
I planned to get more done today, but you can never plan when your body just says "NO"...
I'm playing with some charms I found chopped into log cabin style segments. 16 of them have been pieced and joined into a large square...
Other pieces will be joined into borders or used for improv pieces, probably.
But...I did get something done for Geeky Christmas! I sketched out Jaylen's layout and experimented with a block for his.
I don't remember where I saw this block (I looked in my saved posts), but it's pretty common :)
I'm playing with some charms I found chopped into log cabin style segments. 16 of them have been pieced and joined into a large square...
Other pieces will be joined into borders or used for improv pieces, probably.
But...I did get something done for Geeky Christmas! I sketched out Jaylen's layout and experimented with a block for his.
I don't remember where I saw this block (I looked in my saved posts), but it's pretty common :)
Random
Cleaning and reorganizing a bit after I had a drawing/painting spree for the end of the baseball season (got 6 drawings signed :D). When I was putting up some random rulers I have, I pulled out some 4 patches-and a green cutting mat that had a charm pack cut into a log cabin type set. I also found some offcuts of Aster Manor (I think), that probably was from a EPP hexi project. While trying to get sleepy, I decided to try this improv piecing I see on a bunch of blogs. The block is destined to join my other misfits, but it was kind of fun and I didn't add much to my "pillow stuffing" tin! It's not terribly creative, but it's pretty :) 
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