Trauma!

Tuesday 25th November 2008

10:00pm.

This isn't the post I was planning to publish today. This morning I spent a precious hour between waving the children off to school and me going to work, carefully photographing my latest little craft project for you all. I never got to work.

That was this morning. It's now nearly 10pm. That's 12 hours since I left home, and I know I still have at least another 12 hours before I can go home again. I don't know how many miles we've travelled, but I know we've driven through 3 different counties today. I glance up at the little plain white clock on the grey wall of the hospital waiting room. The handles have hardly moved.

It was exactly 12 hours ago that the telephone rang. I nearly didn't answer it as I was on my way out of the door to work.

"Hello. Mrs Gill? It's school here."

I groan inwardly. Oh whats wrong now, I think. ( Child #1 is a typical teenage boy, not keen on doing homework.)

The teacher continues, "Erm. I've got **** here. He's had PE today and we think he's broken his wrist."

"Oh, okay." I reply. ( I not quite sure what the correct response is on these occasions)

My mind is racing now. I'm so thankful that my husband is working from home. I don't drive. As you know we live in the middle of nowhere, the children's school (the nearest) is 16 miles away in Cumbria and after a first visit to the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, we are now in Lancashire, in the Lancaster Royal Infirmary.

To cut a long story short, child #1 is now tucked up in bed, bandaged, plastered, and drugged up. He has a particularly nasty broken wrist. He has broken the growth plate, which is between the arm bone and the hand, pushing it upward out of place, and broken a piece off the knobbly wrist bone. Tomorrow he will go to theatre for surgery, hopefully in the morning.

So now hubby and I are sitting in the little parents room, a very long and uncomfortable night stretching out before us. The nurses can only provide one bed per child for parents to sleep on and we are very thankful for it, even if we do have to take it in turns. (Usually only one parent is allowed to stay, but as we live a long way away, we are both allowed to stay.) We are so thankful for many things. I'm thankful that it wasn't my child being carried hurriedly, pyjama clad and limp in it's fathers arms, like the one one I stepped aside for in the corridor a few minutes earlier. Ours has only a broken wrist. Yes, we'll have to come back in a weeks time to make sure its healing properly, and yes, it might have to be operated on again and pinned if it's not setting right. But still we are thankful. We are thankful for the NHS. Thankful for the doctors and nurses. Thankful for this little parents room with its grey walls and little clock. Thankful for school friends parents who are taking care of child #2. Thankful for friends who will dash back and forth, feeding and letting out sneaky dog and manky cat. Thankful for so much. But... Am I thankful for another 12 hours all to myself, nothing to do, no cleaning, no work, no TV, nothing to do but wait. Hours that are often dreamed of, longed for, precious hours of nothingness.

No. I am not! Not at all.

Wednesday 26th November 2008

It's now 10:30am.

The 12 long hours have passed. Child #1 went down to theatre and hour ago. Hubby and I are both emotional. I can't wait to take #1 home, and I'm desperate to brush my teeth! I'm sat in the chair next to #1's empty hospital bed. In the bed on my left, a teenage boy is watching Jeremy Kyle on the TV. There are 3 babies in the room and another boy of about 8. I hate Jeremy Kyle.

It's 10:50am. Child #1 is back. Drowsy and pale, name tag and drip needle in his right hand. White plaster covers most of his left hand and arm, up past the elbow.(He is left handed.) He is sleeping. One of the babies monitors starts bleeping across the room. Once again I am thankful that my child doesn't need to be hooked up to monitors.

Evening.After an hour and a half drive, we arrived home at 7pm. All tired and hungry, but so glad to be back home. #1 has strict instructions to keep his wrist elevated at all times for the next 2 weeks. Easy peasy with a teenager eh! Because the plaster has to go so far up his arm, it's important that there is no swelling as this will stop the blood supply to his fingers and in as little as 6 hours the fingers will die. So I have rigged up a strange contraption, consisting of an old pillowcase tied to the shelf above his bed, cut in such a way that his arm can be supported and tied in an upright position while he sleeps. ( I hope the shelf doesn't come down!) He needs more xrays in a weeks time, and will have at least 6 weeks in plaster. I'm not even contempating the chance of more surgery, we'll cross that bridge when and IF we have to. ( I'm packing an over-night bag when we go for the xray appointment, just incase!)

I never thought I'd be so glad to see him playing on the 'all consuming' X box.

Goodies

OOO! Its been very dark and gloomy here over the last few days. Just the odd flash of sunshine here and there, well more there than here.

Sneaky dog follows it around the room, it's so funny sometimes how she'll cram herself into the tiniest slither of sunshine! It's starting to escape from her in this picture, just her nose left in it!

It's been really difficult to take any decent photos, but I couldn't wait any longer, I had to just get on with it.

Here are the goodies I made.

All these new cupcake have cloves stuffed inside them, so they smell foody too.

I must admit I felt like I'd been sewing and crocheting solid for the last three week, but when I gathered every thing up, there didn't seem to be that much! Mind you I have also crocheted myself a hat, knitted a baby cardigan for a neighbours new baby and started a granny blanket! So I suppose I've not done too badly!

I made five little bunnies.

Do you remember Octobers 'friends challenge' to create a Christmas decoration from a felted woolly jumper? Well this is the rest of the felted jumper. I really enjoy hand embroidery, it's so relaxing and of course, there's the added bonus of being able to do it sat downstairs in front of the fire. Aaah! Toasty toes!

I made it into a little bag with a scrummy stripey lining, cut from a rather jazzy men's shirt I purchased from a charity shop. You can't beat a bit of recycling!

And this is the bag I've produced using the felt I made in my felting tutorial.

'Flip', this is the other side. The felt has been embellished with applique and machine embroidery.

You can't tell very well from the photo, (bad lighting, you know) but the lining is a lovely shimmery, rusty, red fabric.

You do realise of course, that I'll have nothing to show you next time! It's all here!

I'd better get on with something sharpish.

Till next time. Fi x

Lovely Day.

OOO! I've had a lovely day today, so I'd like to share it with you, cos I'm nice like that. The weather was lovely today. Sunny, blue skies, light breezes, okay chilly wind, but a gorgeous day. Wonderful man and I wrapped up warm and headed off along the winding roads, over bridges, through green hills, imagine Postman Pats journey through Greendale.

After a bimble around The Station where there was a craft market on. Actually it was more of a squeeze and shuffle. I wanted to take photos for you all, but it was just too busy. Someones elbow or back was always in the way.

(This post has been rather wordy so far, nowhere near enough pictures, so I'll keep you waiting no longer.)

We walked into the town center and visited.... Woolworths. No, no, no, teehee. Only joking! We visited a shop called York House (Antiques) I'm not quite sure how to describe it to you, but put it this way I can't wait to go back. It was another squeeze and shuffle, not because of people, it was because it was absolutely jam packed with scrummyness. Take a look...

Every little room in this shop was packed to the gunnel's. (what are gunnel's?)

Everything was for sale, including the furniture that the displays stood on.

This room had some Christmas goodies.

A corner crammed with cushions.

Another wall wedged with cushions.

Pale pretty things.

My favourite room I think.

Vintage kitchen room.

Do you see the green shelf unit in the center of the picture? Well it's in my downstairs loo now!

This is the alley way outside, it goes around the corner to the right and then straight on till morning!

Going back next week! Teehee! Can't wait!

Things I've been making.

Hello. How are you? Well I hope? Good.

Before I do anything else, I want to say thank you for all you lovely comments. I do love getting comments on my blog, it's so exciting. It's like having lots of friends popping back and forth for coffee and a chat, but without the coffee.

On my last post, Anonymous asked what type of yarn I am using for my crochet granny squares.

Well, after a lot of deliberation and searching of the interwebthingy, I decided I really didn't want to end up paying £80 or more for wool. Definitely not for a granny square blanket anyhow. I've always believed that these were originally made,(much like patchwork) to use up left over balls of wool and old jumpers unravelled and reused. After eyeing up my stash of old odds and ends of wool I decided that It would be a fairly grotty looking blanket if I used them, so I plumped for the middle ground.

I went along to my local Boyes Store (cheap and cheerful for those of you who don't have one) and bought balls of Sylecraft Life 100g, dk, 75% acrylic and 25% wool, for £1.99. It's a good all-rounder, washable, tumble dryable, soft and with that little bit of wool, it'll be warm. All in all, I won't be too precious about it costing the earth, and everyone will like using it.

Here is some other stuff I've been making recently.

This is my new hat.

Brown because I've just bought a brown winter coat.

Woolly because I had 2 balls of rather nice wool from the charity shop.

Crocheted because I've never crocheted a hat before and I like a challenge.

Bobbly because... well, like I said, I like a challenge.

Itchy as hell, because it's all wool and now I need to make a soft fleecy lining for it!

Bunnies.cupcakes.

Till next time. Fi x

Seduced

Well it's happened. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist for long.

I've been seduced by all your crochet blankets. I could resist no longer.

I WANT TO MAKE ONE TOO!

Ripples, granny squares, Babette's, you name it; I've been watching all your blankets grow. Ripple by ripple. square by square. Now I want in!

Let me at all that woolly, hooky, goodness.

I'm not exactly new to crochet blankets. My mum and dad are both able to crochet, and for as long as I can remember as a child, we always had a special crochet blanket that was brought out for us to snuggle under on the sofa when we were ill. As soon as I married and had a home of my own, I asked my dad to make me a 'sick blanket', and he did. Here it is; made from left over balls of wool. Each colour change reminds you of a hand knitted jumper or cardi you or someone else in your family once had.

Then a couple of months ago when I was still fighting off the urge to start one of my own, I bought this one from a table top sale at the local market hall.

Mmmmh! Cosy and snuggly.

But... the urge was still there.

So I gave in a graciously as I could. I purchased six colours that I hope will look a bit retroish, a'la Cath Kidston. I could of course use up some of my wool stash.

But I really want to like it when it's finished, not have to hide it in the stair cupboard!

So here it is.

The start of my granny square blanket.

One more thing I want to add; Jane at Posy and Lucy at Attic24 you are both the main culprits, it's you two that have got me hooked!

Easily lead, that's me!

Friends Challenge

I'm a little late with this post, but hey, better late than never!

As you already know, each month my lovely friends, Lesley and Sarah and myself take part in the 'Friends Monthly Challenge'. It's a little textile challenge we take in turns to set for each other. There is no pressure to take part, but its a good way to try something that maybe we have never done before, and also a good way to keep in touch as we all live miles and miles apart.

This month the challenge was to make a Christmas decoration using a felted woollen jumper and some jingly bells.

So, thinking cap on.

Firstly a trip to the charity shop for a wool jumper to felt

Then give wool jumper a couple of boil washes in the washing machine, incorporating sneaky dogs new rubber ball for a bit of agitation. (sneaky dog not too pleased about this)

Thinking cap starting to feel a bit tight now.

For months now I have wanted some bunting, you know the stuff, pretty floral triangles strung together. Well being a Yorkshire woman, I wasn't going to buy any when I could quite easily make some myself. Only, you know what its like, I've never actually got around to it.

Thinking cap really squeezing now.

I know I'll make some Christmas bunting with my jumper. See sketch book page below.

After a lot of procrastination and a little doodling, I decided that one jumper wasn't going to make much bunting and if I made individual decorations instead, they could go to the craft stall at the school Christmas Fayre. Feeling quite smug with myself now for getting ahead with school fayre stuff, it's usually a last minute, night before rummage for something passable to send; I removed the thinking cap altogether.

So here are my felted jumper decorations.

Only three I'm afraid.

I've thought I'd have a bit of an American Primitive theme.

Please note the use of jingly bells at the bottom of each heart.

Oh, I nearly forgot, each one is stuffed with cloves to smell Christmassy.

I might just have time to make a couple more before Lesley sets the next challenge.

You can see Lesley and Sarah's challenge decorations here and here.

bye for now.

Fi x