Letters from Wetville

Twelve months ago I was jumpy and scared.  My thyroid bulged, I was tired despite being on holiday and being very well cared for.  I snapped at the children and sometimes consequently burst into tears. It wasn't nice. Today, I'm not jumpy and I'm not scared.  The medical peoples were useless but thankfully I did find some other things which helped.  I did three months without any alcohol and then was mostly alcohol free for another three months.  After that I had maybe one, occasionally two glasses of alcohol per week.  It helped.  I took increasing care about what I ate at night before bed and that helped with insomnia.  I cut my sugar intake back.  I set out to cut my bread intake back but that is always my health-kick nemesis.  I'm not sure if the alcohol elimination  is specifically a "cure" for the thryoid difficulties - I suspect that my liver is challenged because of haemachromatosis and this is linked to the arthritis (s...

Today we wept.  We wept for Lesili Langi, 15 years old, and his mother Lavinia Manui Langi, 43 years old, who died in a car accident earlier this week.  In a beautiful service at the local high school hall, hundreds of people from our small wet town honoured two short and beautiful lives. I wept for the challenges of their lives.  I wept to hear of Lesili selling his fish so he could buy a loaf of bread so his little siblings could have lunches for school.  I wept at the honouring of Manui's efforts to have the seven children looking beautiful for church.  Her dear friend Atu spoke with grace and power of Manui's secret - she went to the Salvation Army and then she took home the clothes and washed and ironed them so the children had nice clothes for church. Frankly, I felt profligate with my takeways and fancy foods and the material wealth of my children's lives.  Afterwards, Brighid and I went home and chose some pretty dresses and also black clothes f...

Tonight we all went to the ballet.  The Royal New Zealand Ballet right here in our small wet town. It was magic.  I felt so very lucky that we could afford tickets - if it was the only thing we did for the Christmas spending season, it would be the best choice. I just want to record the magic, even if I don't stay up long enough to try and recreate it in words here.

I had banned myself from sewing.  I have deadlines spilling out every corner of my life and the only way to get the book chapter done was to ban myself from reading novels or sewing.  Or so I figured.  But this weekend my superwoman cape fell off.  It lay in a puddle somewhere near me for most of the weekend while I worked out how to manage without it. I've written to the editor of the book my chapter is for and explained just how much extra responsibility I have taken on at work since we were last in contact.  I can get the chapter done close to the end of November, I explained, but not by the end of November as originally agreed.  He was fantastic.  I don't like the extension of deadline route as everything has to be done some time and more deadlines stockpile behind the first very easily until everything is out of control.  But paid work has to take priority over unpaid writing. Handling the line between home life and work life has been qu...

I only bought 1.5 metres of this fabric, which starts out pale paisley and moves to bold paisley colours across the width of the fabric.  I originally planned a hummingbird top, but decided the crossover was a longer lasting option - I think the peplum will be a one season wonder and I already have two wearable hummingbird tops (and one unwearable first make).  So this is a Cake Tiramisu pattern, with the skirt pieces cut shorter for a top.  I like it, and wish I'd bought enough for a dress.  I've got it on with the skirt I wore to work today, but it does need something narrower underneath it ideally.  I think I've got the best first up fit with the neckline and this is my fourth Tiramisu make.  This time I stretched the band tightly the whole way along and snipped the excess off at the end. I think more dresses are in order.  I have the Cake Red Velvet pattern on order, and fabric ready to go.  I've got plain black for the trial, and a soft b...

Above: big flax.  Very big flax.  We were so excited when we were gifted these little flax bushes six years ago.  We were broke, the fence was ugly and suddenly we had attractive vegetation. Six years later, they had overtaken the area and were so big that we only got them out through the kindness of a neighbour and his crane.  Down at the recycling centre, the second load was do big we couldn't even slide it off the trailer yesterday.  Today we came back armed with forks, a machete and a hatchet.  We won!  Even better, the neighbour helped us get them out as he wants to change and paint the fence.  Birthday party season continues.  Brighid models today's birthday present, which I made for her friend who is teeny tiny and quite a bit shorter than Brighid.  I didn't have enough bias tape to do the hem in one colour, so the front is navy and the back is red.  The fabric comes all the way from Brixt...

I made a successful top out of my black merino fabric.  It isn't the pavlova top, which is sitting in disgrace back in its box after I triple stitched the neckband on backwards.  It is the hummingbird peplum top which I made from the leftover merino fabric.  Without another layer, then it's a little thin but this afternoon as soon as I finished it, I added a lovely wrap top I was gifted which is also not quite enough clothing on its own and now they work together just fine.  I do need to make the neckband smaller.  I thought I did this time, but clearly not smaller enough to help it lay flat. No photos.  Some days, I can pretend this blog communicates to a world beyond my own head.  Others, like today, it's my personal journal working at its most basic level - completed a top. There is lots more sewing I would like to do, but there is the smallish (maybe not so small) matter of a chapter for a book to finish, so I may have to ban myself from the se...