It’s been a while…
It wasn’t my intention to take such a long break, but I guess I needed it. I can’t even say I got much done in the past nine months, especially quilting-wise, but sometimes that’s just how life goes.
It has never been a secret, but I haven’t openly discussed all my health issues here on the blog. My first battle with breast cancer was in 2015, which played a big part in my decision to become a professional quilter and pattern designer before it might be too late. Then, in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, I was diagnosed with NLPHL, a rare type of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had to go through chemo again—yes, all the fun stuff, including losing my hair for the second time. During the scans to figure out what was happening, a lesion was found on one of my ribs. It was biopsied and turned out to be metastatic breast cancer. I was actually very lucky to have had NLPHL because it meant the metastatic cancer was caught extremely early
I have been pushing through with determination—writing patterns, drawing BOM blocks, and quilting for customers. I even went to counseling and thought I was doing enough for my mental health, working through all these issues. But apparently, I was wrong. It took me half a year of not touching my patterns and barely sewing anything other than customer quilts before I finally started to feel better. I even decided to quit the guilds because it all just became too much. Sometimes, all you can do is lie on the couch and drink tea, and that’s okay. For someone as driven and organized as me, that was a hard pill to swallow.
In July, I finally felt the urge to sew again and finished almost all of the UFOs I had lying around. I will share those in a separate post later on. I even had an idea for a new BOM project and spent some time working on it. Then, I received a notification from my website hosting company saying that my website code was outdated and couldn’t be updated to the latest PHP version. When I first set it up, my son created a WordPress theme for me based on my wishes, and of course, it hadn’t been updated since 2016. So, once again, I had to take a detour and set my patterns aside. Instead, I gave the website a facelift, chose a new popular theme that gets regular updates, and customized it to my liking.
I also moved the pattern store over to Square. The automatic system with the download links had been causing more and more issues, and I ended up emailing many patterns anyway, so I don’t think this will make much of a difference. Square does offer a category for digital items, but there is no way to give customers automatic access to the digital files. For now, I will just keep sending them via email. I haven’t been able to update all the links in the blog posts yet – that’s a huge task and will take some time. The easiest way to find a specific pattern right now is to go to the pattern store and search there.
Anyway, I am going to get back to working on the new BOM idea, and I will try to get back into the habit of posting regularly. I do have one request, though: Please don’t leave any comments about how sorry you are or that you are praying for me. I have been living with this diagnosis for almost four years now, and I am doing okay. These days, it feels like I end up having to comfort people, and I just don’t have the energy for that. I know you are all sorry to hear this, but I am not looking for sympathy. I just wanted to let you know what is going on without beating around the bush. So, if I have to drop off the face of the earth again with little or no notice, I will – even if it means postponing the publishing date of BOM blocks.
I am glad to be back, and next week I will start sharing more about the past few months, including our fantastic trip to New Zealand in February, my annual visit to see my mom in June, and all the quilts I finished this summer.
