Quilting as a metaphor.

A is for not following the instructions.

B is for basting and other boring activities. Or maybe that should be D for discipline?   A quilt is made of three layers: the top is the pretty bit, the middle is the filling or wadding – normally wool or polyester, the backing is more, slightly less pretty, fabric.  Basting is the pinning together of these three layers in readiness to sew or ‘quilt’ them.  Basting is boring. The three layers must be laid flat on the carpet and not move as I pass especially curved safety pins through. Even with a talking book or Netflix binge this is dreary work.  Distraction can result in mistaking the carpet for quilt and pinning the whole thing to the floor. And then the dog walks in.  And lies down on it.  Leaving out this stage not only results in immediate execution by the quilting police and hours of sobbing at the sewing machine as the different layers drift into separate universes that once again highlights my lack of discipline and inability to follow the bloody instructions.

S is for sewing groups. What?  Nice middle-class ladies making skilfully crafted soulless quilts, spouting mildly racist memes from Facebook and wearing Daily Mail knickers. Ok, so that might be a generalization. Not all their quilts are skilfully crafted. #just-because-you-sew-a-nice-quilt-love-doesn’t- mean-you’re-not-a-Nazi.

Do: mention benefit scroungers, refugees, poppy selling, young people challenging climate change

Don’t: sit with your scissors gripped quite so tightly in your hands or mention the women’s liberation embroidery you are working on.

C is for cutting. Essentially quilting is about cutting up fabric into tiny squares and then sewing them back together again. Cutting requires precision, order and very sharp blades. Cutting is also what will happen if I find someone used my sewing scissors to open a box from Amazon.

F is for fabric and fat quarter.  Fat quarter - A measure of fabric, a square quarter of a meter. Normally priced at pocket money level, it is easy to get carried away and arrive home having spent all the money and needing to feed the kids beans for the rest of the week. Never mind, they will be able to snuggle their shivering malnourished little bodies under a beautiful handmade quilt if you ever get around to cutting, finish basting or actually sitting down to sew the damn quilt.

Some fabric, it should be noted is not for cutting. It is only for looking at, cooing over and possibly stroking and then putting back into the box because it needs to be saved for a mythical project known only as ‘something special.’

Fabric curation is a separate hobby, requiring at least one extra room in your house so you can sit quietly and admire all the pretty colours without the distraction of sobbing starved children. Or better still sell the children and use the money to buy more fabric.

 The soaking of the fruit 

It is in rituals that we weave together our lives, our histories. The creation of our own myths and legends stirring through time. 

It begins the day before. No, that is not quite accurate. How many times have I believed that only to find the cupboard, well not bare, but lacking in one item or other, loads of this but not quite enough of that. But in myth and legend nobody shops so lets just agree that it begins the day before.

It begins the day before on hands and knees, head buried up to the shoulder in the back of the cupboard searching for the right bowl. Dusty and always with a mysterious crust that has somehow survived sloppy dishwashing. It is seldom used now, though there was a time when it sat proud and gleaming ready for twice weekly action. Brownies, Battenberg, peanut butter buttons all began here. Small sticky fingers griped small sticky spoons, fighting over who will lick the bowl. Now it is washed clean for its annual outing, with no more tiny mouths to feed. 

More searching in cupboards for newly purchased packets and leftovers from last year. Moving and sorting, sure you’d seen an extra pack here somewhere. The scales sit at the ready, still dusted and crusted with years of cake batter and neglect. I like the weighing. It marks the beginning of things, the potential. Though with dried fruit I’m less than precise. A few ounces extra of cherries here, means a few less of dried peel later.

Some years, the dried fruits are a lavish affair. Fat sticky figs, squat with little stalk hats spilling their seeds at the slightest squeeze.  Glossy jet prunes soft and slickly black.  Golden sultanas. Sweet un-sulphured apricots. Wine deep glistening cherries. On other, more leaner years, when life has swallowed savings for new tyres, or shoes or a forgotten school trip, it’s an altogether more raisins, currants and sultana’s affair but even in the leanest of years never ever savers mixed peel. 

So back to the weighing. First the easy things, the simple judging of weight and tipping into the bowl. Then comes the processing, begun enthusiastically with scissors in hand, each fruit snipped to size. Snip snip snip. This lasts until impatience and cramp in my hands results in less than precise quality control. Ultimately impatience wins out and the rest are just tipped in whole to be chopped later, or maybe not. 

Spices are added, cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice and the pinch of deep warming black pepper. Oranges and lemons are zested and squeezed, and their oils fill the air, visible as a film across the edges of the bowl. Next is the alcohol, again a roulette of finances and planning, it is most likely to be whatever is lurking in the back of the pantry. A miniature of whisky, calvados bought back from holidays, a dust crusted bottle of cherry brandy. One year disastrously and in desperation Snapps that gave a bitter aftertaste to each sorry bite of cake. This year it is heavy on Cointreau, deep tones of bitter orange and spice. 

 The air sparkling with citrus scents, the careful turning and blending and coating of winter fruits can begin. There is alchemy in baking, and it is never more potent than in the making of Christmas cake.  Not something to be eaten immediately, not something to be consumed all in one go, not even something you can be sure will be just perfect on the day. Soaking the fruit, making the cake, is a trusting in the recipes handed down to us. It is the marking of those traditions that came before us, the readying of festivities, the passing of another year. The passing on of those myths and legends that are stirred though out our life. 

Pinch Punch first of the month and no returns

I'm not sure if this is what I am meant to be writing. But here I am. Writing. And here you are reading. So I guess one of us should do something. 

So what shall I write about ? Not covid, not the new new-normal, not the early onset of Christmas tree decorating. 

I am distracted by four sharp stubbly hairs that seem to have sprouted on my chin, intent on stopping me writing. 

How does that happen? 

How do I go to bed baby-faced and wake with a full beard and tash that nothing short of a Flymo will resolve.  

Am I destined to become a bearded lady overnight? 

Not that there is anything wrong with being a bearded lady if that is your choice but a little bit of notice might have been nice. 

I need my eyesight tested and I wonder how many stray beards are escaping my notice simply because I cant see them? 

I had a deal with a friend that should we become hairy old ladies then one of us would epilate the other, standing, ever on guard, with a pair of Primark tweezers. The only flaw in our plan, aside from it being 2020, is that now neither of us can see and we are both convinced we look fine.  

All this despite her sporting a rather fetching plaited goatee beneath her facemask. 

What we need is a younger plucker.

Is 4 too young to teach my grandson to wield a pair tweezers, do you think ?

I had considered teaching him to shout out if he noticed a stray hair on my chin, like an early warning system, but the time he would spend shouting would breach child labour laws. 

I'm also not sure about the social etiquette of teaching a small boy with a Glasgow accent to shout out 'Sprouter's' every time he sees a lady with a stubbly chin... might make a terrible scene at nursery. 

Anyway, enough of this. I am meant to be writing something and you are meant to be reading it, not faffing around with tweezers. 

Though I will just mention the benefits of a one sided fringe for hiding the eyebrow you cant quite see to pluck. One eyebrow is fine but the other is like some mad Picasso-gone-rouge and seems to have blended, werewolf style, with my hairline. 

So there you have it.  A picture of me as a writer. A bearded, lopsided eyebrowed, werewolf, lady writer. 

Lady, my arse. 

But this is creative writing, so its all right.