de Jong Dream House: #tbitempquilt #tempquilt19

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Brain Injury Quilt :: Week 3 (15th Brain-aversary!)

January 21, 2019 marks 15th anniversary of the day I slipped on ice and broke my brain. My hubby wrote a nice post on this blog yesterday about what it's like being married to someone with a brain injury. My own thoughts were a little too jumbled with emotions to write what I was feeling, though I have written about it in the past for my 10th anniversary and 9th anniversary.

It's kind of nice in a slightly morbid way that there is always a week in January that starts with my birthday and ends with celebrating the birth of Jen 2.0.

The boys made me feel loved all day and after dinner, the server brought me a special cupcake.

Of course, it was this milestone of 15 years as a brain injury survivor that inspired this quilt project for 2019. For my January 21st block, I wanted to make something to denote the significance of the day. My free motion isn't good enough to make a brain, so I landed on a brain injury awareness ribbon. Unfortunately, my attempt at using an actual ribbon--only a 1/4" wide!--just aggravated my machine.

Next, I cut out a length of fabric and twisted it into a ribbon. It was pretty frayed given the skinny width, so I tried singe it like I would a ribbon. That was also a fail.

I also tried making cutting a 2D ribbon, but it ended up looking like a stick person with no arms.

Finally, I had the idea to make a binding strip to enclose the raw edges. Success!

I'm not sure how often I will make updates of my year's epic quilt, my TBI Temperature Quilt, but as long as I am making tweaks to the process, or do something new, I will share my thought process with an update. And I will make monthly updates to show progress and give a TBI tally to show how my brain injury has affected my ability to sew and my need to sleep each day. Of course, if our #tempquiltalong host, Twiddle Tails, has a weekly link up, I will do my best to make a weekly post.

Previous Updates:

January 1 :: Introduction

January 14 :: Week 2

As I started my third week of the quilt, I made one big format change that required re-doing some blocks, and I make my first special block.

I started off the week with my 47th birthday. I decided I wanted to denote significant days, particularly ones related to my brain injury. My TBI was not severe that my life was ever in jeopardy, only the quality of my life. Still, I'm pretty happy to still be around celebrating my birthday. There was a brief period during my recovery when I felt like I was losing everything and I wondered what value I could still contribute to the world. I am very grateful that I have made a family with husband, Niels, and our son, D. And of course, quilting has made me a giver in a way that balances all the ways I am a taker in so many ways.

I kept the icon simple. Just an appliqued 47.

While I was sewing those teeny tiny stitches (the width of each line of the letters is only 1/4"!), I realized that I made a mistake in how I arranged the centers of my geese.

This makes a lot more sense because if the center of my goose is gray, it points down, and I can easily see that I did not sew that day. If the center is purple, then it points up, and I know I did sew that day.

Of course that meant I had to redo my birthday block. Did I mention how tiny the numbers are?

The other change has to do with my border idea. I have been the HSTs from clipping the wings and turning them into chevrons.

I wasn't loving the way that looked, so I came up with the idea of sorting them by the center triangle (how I felt that day). Something like this, with a row for each center color, and travel days (not to scale below) on the sides.

So I took apart the HSTs that I had just sewed together the day before and sorted them by center color.

But then, because I changed the centers, I had to redo the light grays and light purples. Argh!!

Time-consuming, but I like this better.

I made myself some reminders so I don't mess up in the future. Even though we usually "high and low" instead of "low and high" when referring to temperatures, it makes sense to me that visually, the low temperature would be on left and the high on the right.

For the border chevrons, I usued the same idea. The higher side of the chevron is the higher temperature and the lower half is the lower temperature,

Here's to good days ahead and no more changes!!

TBI Tally, as of January 21:

Follow along with the progress of this quilt on Instagram at #TBITempQuilt. I'd love the encouragement to keep me working on the rough days! You can use the hashtag #tempquiltalong to see what other quilters are doing. To see what I'm currently working on, follow me at deJongDreamHouse.

Linked to:
Temp Quilt Along (Week 3) @ Twiddle Tails (click here to see other temperature quilts)

Tuesday
Color & Inspiration Tuesday @ The Clever Chameleon
Linky Tuesday @ Free Motion By the River
To Do Tuesday @ Stitch All the Things

Wednesday
Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts
Midweek Makers @ Quilt Fabrication
Wednesday Wait Loss @ The Inquiring Quilter

Thursday
Needle & Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation

Friday
Finished or Not Friday @ Busy Hands Quilts
Off the Wall Friday @ Nina Marie
Whoop Whoop Friday @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Saturday
Scrappy Happy Saturday @ So Scrappy
Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She
UFO Busting @ The Madd Quilter

Sunday
Oh Scrap! @ Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Brain Injury Quilt Update: First Two Weeks

Sometime last year I realized that 2019 will mark the 15th anniversary of my brain injury. No pun intended, but I've been having a hard time wrapping my brain around that fact! I decided that I would honor the anniversary with a special quilt. I love the idea of temperature quilts that so many fiber artists have made for years and when I noticed that Twiddle Tails was hosting a temperature quilt along, it was just the motivation I needed to get started. You can read about my initial ideas in my original post.

As you can see from the photo above, January started strong as a new year always inspires me. But the last few days have been pretty rough with three gray days pointing down. Yesterday was particularly bad as my headache worsened into what I call electric headaches where it feels like I'm being shocked as I feel a current moving through the back of my brain. The only time I was up was when I went to get my mammogram. Pretty bad when that's the highlight of the day. I was home by noon and didn't get out til this morning.

Today is my 47th birthday! Waking up to my boys singing happy birthday, giving me cards--D's was written in invisible ink!, receiving my gifts of a new dust buster and a pack of purple pens, and of course a flood of birthday wishes from Facebook friends around the world was just what I needed to give this headache the heave ho! MAYBE I can sew today, but first, I want to give an update of my quilt now that I'm two weeks into the project and have had time to working on the project.

To review.

I am making one flying goose for each day. The wings will denote the daily low (right) and high (left). I have prints picked out in 10 degree (F) increments, which everything below 0 and above 100 included in the outlier colors. I live in Ohio where those extremes are rare. For consistencies sake, I am using weather underground for my daily temperatures at our local airport, regardless of whether I am home or not.

The center triangles of the geese with indicate how my brain injury affected me that day. There are 7 options (slightly modified from my first post). Each brain injury is different. My brain injury affects my vision and causes headaches daily, the only difference is severity. When I am symptomatic (due to being in situations that cause my brain to flood, such as loud places, blinking lights, stress, lack of sleep, busy places, too much going on, multi-tasking etc.), I am prone to aphasia (where the words I want to say don't come out right), stuttering, and an inability to take in information or respond. When I am symptomatic, Niels sends me to bed, makes sure the room is dark, gives me the meds I try to avoid, sprays peppermint everywhere, and makes me rest. He is a wonderful caretaker. D, newly 10, also recognizes the signs and knows when to send me to bed. He's a little overzealous at times because my bad brain days mean extra tech time for him!

That said, I defined my brain day categories like this:

Dark Gray - arrow points down - Bad brain day. Primarily stayed in bed. New sewing or other household activities.

Medium Gray - arrow points down - Painful day. Needed a nap, and not able to rally enough to sew.

Light Gray - arrow points up - Didn't take a nap, but no time or energy to sew.

Light Purple - arrow points down - Took a nap, but still able to sew a bit.

Medium Purple - arrow points up - No nap, but was able to sew a bit.

Dark Purple - arrow points up - No nap, and was able to sew at least four hours. A rare, really great day.

Purple & Gray - arrow points down - Travel day. I may have napped or not, but I didn't sew because I wasn't home. For example, we will be going to the Netherlands to see my in-laws this summer. I know I won't sew while I'm there, and will have good and bad days, but it's a different animal than when I am home.

In short, if I was able to sew, the arrow points up. If I don't sew, for whatever reason, the arrow points down. I also decided that if the only sewing I do is the five minutes to make my daily goose, that won't count as a sewing day because unless I'm feeling exceptionally bad, I can make that happen.

As I've started this quilt, I'm also finishing the latest Bonnie Hunter Quiltville Mystery Quilt, Good Fortune. One of the tips I learned from heris to save the clipped triangles from my geese to make half square triangles.

I can't believe I found all the little pieces in the tote when I had the idea nine days into the year!

I'm thinking about using the HSTs to make chevrons for the border.

Another idea would be to put all of the like colors together at the end of the year to show how many of each type of day I've had. I'm leaning towards that idea at the moment. I've sewed together the chevrons I have so far, but they can easily be undone because I've written each day on the back of each flying geese and HST chevron.

Because I have the basic template for the quilt decided, I am sewing together each days block after I make it. The quilt will have 12 columns with the days of each month making up the rows. Each column is staggered to indicate the day of the weeks on which the month begins.

January starts on a Tuesday, so there is a 4.5" square block at the top of the column.

I also decided to set off the weekends with 1.5" x 4.5" strips because I want to see if there is a difference when my boys are around and we may or may not be out and about.

The one thing I haven't quite figure out yet is how I want to indicate special days. Like today for example. I'm thinking I will either applique or hand stitch a 47 on today's center triangle. And the on the 21st is my big brain anniversary so I want to do something special there too. I have lots of special days, but I will limit to ones that affect my brain injury and quilting. So maybe I will find an icon to use when I finish a quilt. Any ideas?

A few tools that are going to make this project go smoother.

1. Ultimate Flying Geese Tool. I bought this awhile ago and I am finally able to make perfect geese every time.

2. Craft Mallet. Not only is this a great tool for smoothing out thick seams, but it's also cheap therapy!

3. My chart! I keep this chart with my pre-cut fabric and color guides. I know that there will be times I get behind and between weather underground and this, I will be able to easily catch up.

TBI Tally, as of January 14:

Linked to:

Monday
BOMs Aways @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Small Quilts & Doll Quilts
Main Crush Monday @ Cooking Up Quilts
Monday Making @ Love Laugh Quilt
Moving It Forward @ Em's Scrap Bag
What I Made Monday @ Pretty Piney

Tuesday
Temp Quilt Along @ Twiddle Tails (click here to see more temperature quilts)
Color & Inspiration Tuesday @ The Clever Chameleon
Linky Tuesday @ Free Motion By the River
To Do Tuesday @ Stitch All the Things

Wednesday
Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts
Midweek Makers @ Quilt Fabrication
Wednesday Wait Loss @ The Inquiring Quilter
WIP Linky @ Silly Mama Quilts
WIPs on Wednesday @ Esther's Blog

Thursday
Needle & Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation

Friday
Of the Wall Friday @ Nina Marie
Whoop Whoop Friday @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Saturday
Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She
UFO Busting @ The Madd Quilter

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Brain Injury Quilt :: My Epic Quilt to Honor 15 Years of Living With a TBI

January 21st marks the 15th anniversary of the day I fell on ice and broke my brain.

Fifteen years! It's now been nearly 1/3 of my life that I have lived with the unique limitations that come with being a brain injury survivor. Each year, it gets harder and harder to remember my old life. It's hard to remember what it was like not to consistently monitor my surroundings and measure my activities in an attempt to last through the day.

Quilting has been a life-giving hobby for me. Before I started quilting in 2013, I struggled with my self-worth. I could no longer write professionally, as I did before my accident. I didn't have the stamina to do any job. I felt (and feel) incredibly blessed and lucky to be a wife and mom. In 2013, my son was started pre-school. Many of my mom friends were returning to work and I felt left behind and left out. I was looking at a lifetime of filling my days while my son was at school and Niels was at work.

So I started quilting. And I realized that quilting made me a giver again. For so much of my life, I need to be cared for. I rely on my husband and son and neighbors and friends to help me when I run out of steam. I ask for more than I offer. But with quilting, I have a tangible way to show my love and appreciation to those who make my life work better.

credit

Last year, I learned of a fun epic challenge many crafty folks undertook: temperature quilts and blankets. I've seen both fiber and fabric versions, and they are all fabulous. The idea is that one creates one block or row for each day based on the local temperature. Some use a high temperature. Others use the low. Still others use both.

credit

For my quilt, I am going to track the weather highs and lows at our local airport, using Weather Underground as a consistent monitor.

In addition, I'm going to track my brain injury. I always have a headache and vision issues, and while they vary to some extent each day based on what's going on in my life...and the weather, I decided I would track how my brain injury affects me based on how much I am able to quilt on a daily basis.

The outside squares of the flying geese will indicate the daily lows and highs. The center triangle color and direction will reveal the effect of my brain injury. I'm still mulling over how I will deal with travel days when I won't be able to sew no matter how I feel. I'm leaning toward a special travel print with purple, gray, and white, and will use the arrow to indicate how I was feeling.

I made a chart that I can use to keep track of my days. I've asked Niels to make sure I write down the day's assessment before we go to bed, at least until I get into the rhythm.