I’ve been working on the depression quilt. I’ve quilted the middle, but haven’t decided how to quilt the border. I thought about meandering, but I want something different from the middle. I want to show depression surrounded by no depression. I want something more open, but I haven’t figured out what. I designed this quilt while I was having an all-encompassing depression that would not go away.
My grandmother always had very little money. She sewed her clothes because when she was growing up, home sewing was far more economical than buying ready to wear. My grandmother was good at spelling and won every spelling bee. For one spelling bee, the prize was a length of pink gingham fabric. My grandmother took the fabric home. She spread out newspaper and drafted a pattern. She made a dress from the gingham, and entered the dress in the Erie County Fair. She won first prize – $3. At the time, that was a week’s wages for a woman.
She never threw away leftover fabric. Instead, she rolled the leftovers into a fat roll and tied the roll shut with a scrap of fabric. Ribbon was precious, and she never used a ribbon for fabric rolls. She used to save the cardboard that trim was wrapped around. The cardboard was used as a template for quilt pieces.
We’ve had rain in the desert and there’s enough humidity to trigger desert sage blooms. I played around with aperture. I did a bit with my macro lens as well.
No idea what I was trying to get here, but I like the effect.
I think there’s a drop of nectar at the end of the pistol.
I may try to design fabric with this one.
This isn’t an easy bush to photograph. If I get back far enough to shoot the entire bush, there’s an ugly background. If I use my macro lens, it’s hard to have a subject. The flowers are in bunches and, short of plucking a flower, there’s no way to get a single flower.
In other earth-shattering news…… I had an odd feeling that I needed to check the credit card statement. I check the statements before I pay the bill, but I rarely check the charges in the middle of the billing cycle. Turns out someone has been using my credit card to pay for meals, Starbucks, Lyft and who knows what else for the last month. Jim called the bank, our card was immediately cancelled, and they will send us new cards. Eventually. First, we were told that it would take 8-10 business days to get the cards. We objected to that and the cards, which we haven’t gotten, have been expedited. Meanwhile, Consumer Cellular billed my credit card for the regular monthly bill. I’ve been paying Consumer Cellular like this for about 2 years. Because this is a recurring charge, the bank allowed the charge.
I would dearly love to sit down with this thief after I’ve been off my meds for about a week. Bipolar disorder does come in handy from time to time.
To avoid having this misery happen again, I’m looking into VPN. There are several apps, and I’ve no idea how to tell what I need. Actually, I know what I need. I need to have a 12-year-old kid on retainer to help me with these technical things.
I’ve been manipulating photos and designing fabric.
First, start with a photo. This is part of the mat outside the sliding glass door.
Next, play around.
The editing program I use is PhotoScape X. Much of the program is free. For a one-time payment of $40, the entire program is unlocked.
Once I’m finished playing with the photo, I upload to Spoonflower and play around until I get a design that repeats in a pleasing way. I have to proof my designs before I can sell them, and I’m about ready to have another 42 designs proofed. After that, the designs go into my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
I’m having a rough day. There’s no particular reason for it; it’s just part of being bipolar. I have limited energy, but I seem to be manic. Bipolar disorder doesn’t have to make sense, but I have to live with bipolar disorder. Meds help dull the extremes, but they don’t cure bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is always with me. Sometimes just under the surface. Sometimes exploding through the surface.
Brady, the Australian labradoodle puppy I have, did something remarkable today. She could smell my distress and instinctively leaned up against me – something psychiatric service dogs are trained to do. Of course a couple hours later, she decorated the kitchen floor with poop and pee. It’s not easy being a puppy. Not easy being the puppy’s human, either.
Good thing Brady didn’t like the doggy wading pool Jim found in the garbage. The pool grew legs the other day. Now, there’s a security camera covering the back of the house.
The sciatica is still hanging around. I’m able to walk farther, but farther is a relative term. It means I can walk out the back door with Brady, so 10 feet to her potty spot, and then come back in the house. I need to exercise. Brady gets separation anxiety whenever I leave the kitchen. She’s not ready yet to have the run of the house so I have to keep her in the kitchen. I’m sure the healing process has stretched out because of how inactive I’ve been.
We seem to be surrounded by randy quail. So far, I’ve counted four batches of day-old baby quail. When I shoot quail, I have to do it through the sliding glass door. As long as the quail aren’t aware of me, they don’t run off. While I would have liked to have my 150-600mm lens on the camera, what was on the camera was my 18-400mm lens. Taking the time to change lenses would have meant missing the shots. I played around with cropping the shot when I was editing. The John Prine fuzz on the baby quail’s head cracks me up.
The original shot. While this is the quail version of Where’s Waldo, it’s easy to see how tiny day-old quail are.
The first crop. Quail are easier to find, but they look bigger than they are in real life.
The second crop. Almost there. There’s more detail, but the edit didn’t seem right.
The third crop.
My Spoonflower order is now about 40 miles away and I likely won’t get my package until Monday. Sigh. I really want to start making undies although my time in the sewing room is limited to when Jim is home. There are too many places in the sewing room where Brady can get into trouble. I’d go into the sewing room, which is off the kitchen, and close the door, but Brady has severe separation anxiety. I’m trying to help her with that, but I don’t seem to have made much progress.
Brady likes to hide out in the pet carrier in the kitchen. I think it’s because it’s dark inside the carrier and she feels safe in her den. She’s not fond of the crate we have for her. I decided to make the crate more den like. I took a sheet, crudely attached the sheet to the crate, and created a darkened den. I put Brady’s toys in her new den. She refuses to go inside the den.
I’ve been playing around with designs that might make interesting fabric. Here’s the latest:
Living with a puppy makes life interesting. Brady has to be by her humans. The sewing room needs to be deep cleaned, but I can’t do that if I’m the only one home. There are way too many places where Brady can hide and leave deposits. Plus, she has only two speeds: Mach III and asleep. Temperatures are hitting 99-104 this week. Brady doesn’t want to be outside when it’s this hot. I suppose if I wore a fur coat, I wouldn’t want to be outside either. Once she has all her shots, I want to get her groomed. I think she would be more comfortable if she has less hair.
Not being able to clean and use the sewing room means binding won’t be put on three quilts and a fourth won’t be quilted. I get spiritually constipated if I don’t make art. Making art without having enough room to make art requires creativity.
I have a sketch book that contains the drawings from a plant taxonomy class I took, reminders for what to put into the novel, and quilt sketches. I’m a multi-media artists, and my sketchbook reflects that.
These are from my plant taxonomy class. I thought they were something I’d never use again until I looked at them today. There are quilts in these.
These are the germination of quilts. Some have been used after some tweaking. Some might never be used.
Ideas for things to put into the novel I’m writing.
I’m still awaiting the arrival of the fabric I ordered from Spoonflower. I took five of my designs, ordered them in a 4-way stretch lycra, and the fabric will be turned into underwear.
I’m also awaiting an order from Nancy’s Notions. The order was placed May 31, and won’t be here until Friday, June 11. Because of the slow shipping, I probably won’t be ordering from Nancy’s Notions again. Pity – I used to love ordering from them.
I had ordered beads fromJL Dream Works https://www.etsy.com/shop/JLDreamWorks?ref=yr_purchases Great service, and the semi-precious gem beads are all good quality and great prices. It’s nice to have another reliable supplier for beads.
I’ve no idea what I did, but I now have sciatica. Again. Bleah! And so I’m pushing around a walker and discovering how many places I can’t go in my home. The door to the walk-in closet is too narrow to accommodate my walker. So is the door to the pantry and the door to the guest bathroom. As long as I don’t want to eat or wear clothes, everything is wonderful.
I have missed about half the blooming season for claret cup cacti. The ocotillo are blooming and the blooms last only a few days. The red yucca are starting to bloom. Yesterday, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed my camera and pushed my walker out the front door. Shooting from a sitting position is interesting. There are 4 hours a day considered “golden hours.” Two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset. Yes, that’s nice light. It’s important to know how to shoot is less than perfect light. Cloud cover. Fog. Middle of the day. That’s why I take advantage of the rare cloudy day and even rarer fog. Now, I’m learning how to shoot sitting down.
Red yucca buds and blooms.
Blooming ocotillo.
I need to make curtains for the bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. Before we moved to New Mexico, Jim worked for Gunlocke in New York’s Southern Tier. Gunlocke makes high end furniture. If a customer wanted furniture upholstered in something other than stock fabric, the leftover custom fabric is kept for a certain length of time and then put in the company store. Employees could buy fabric for $1 a yard. Some of the fabric Jim bought retailed for $70 a yard. That was 22 years ago. Before we moved, Jim bought as much upholstery fabric as possible. If it fit in the truck, he bought it. He’d buy fabric a couple times a week. I still have some of that fabric. We went through my upholstery fabric stash and I found some cream colored fabric for the bedroom and some teal fabric for the bathroom and laundry room. Why upholstery fabric? Because it’s necessary to block the sun in the summer or the house will be unbearably hot. Upholstery fabric means I can have fabric heavy enough to block the sun and I won’t have to make lining for the curtains.
I’ve developed an allergy to the laundry detergent I was using. Jim brought home a large container of Ecos. It’s a laundry detergent that doesn’t have coloring or scent. It’s a great choice if one has an allergy to laundry detergent. Now, I have to wash all of my clothes and all of the bedding. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could get a basket of laundry outside and hang clothes on the line. It’s tough to push a walker loaded with a laundry basket and almost as tough getting over the step by the sliding glass door. I’m washing, Jim is hanging.
Next, I noticed I’m having a rash where I was putting the electrodes for my TENS unit. The TENS unit is one of the ways I kill the pain from peripheral neuropathy. The rash is on the top of my foot which eliminates a number of places I could put the electrodes. I’m having a neuropathy flare up. Bleah.
I ordered proofs of designs from Spoonflower yesterday. After the proofs arrive, I’ll put 40+ fabric designs into my Spoonflower shop here https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman The fabric the proofs are on is used as the backing for quilts.
Yesterday, I played around with editing and came up with some fabric designs.
This is what happened when I played around with the red yucca flower photo above.
I love working with a positive and negative print. I need to play around more with that.
I got a call from the labradoodle breeder this week. I started picking last for this litter. The litter contains six females and two males. I want a female. I’ve talked with people who train police dogs to sniff out drugs, and was told that it’s easier to train a female and females tend to be calmer than males. This week, I learned I’m now picking fifth so there will absolutely be a female puppy when it’s my turn to pick. I’ve ordered books on training puppies and training service dogs. I will be working with a trainer, but he’s currently got a waiting list for puppy training. I will need to start housebreaking and training to walk on a leash immediately.
I had ordered a print of one of my designs and a collection of 42 of my designs from Spoonflower.
Ketamine Brain.
It will be a wall hanging when it’s finished. I still haven ‘t figured out how I want to quilt it. I had thought about using holographic gold thread or using a metallic thread. I’ve started the quilting on Depression, and I’ve got three quilts I need to make binding for. Designs that I print for my quilts are never put in my Spoonflower shop.
I refuse to waste fabric, so I use the design proofs for quilt backing.
I’ve been experimenting with assorted photography techniques. When photographing flowers, it’s best to get the camera on the level of the flower. That’s not always easy. There’s only so far down I can squat, and Jim has filled the yard with cacti. Someone on the Digital Photography School Facebook page suggested getting the camera, rather than me, down to the level of the flower and use live view to see how the composition looks. That’s what I did with our lone iris bloom. Jim dug up some of the rhizomes and planted then in assorted places in the yard.
Next, I experimented with photographing water droplets on leaves.
My store, Deb Thuman Art is here:.http://www.DebThumanArt.com If you want to see more than just a few of the items in my store, you need to click on “shop” at the top left of the home page.
On March 13, 2020, I got an email telling me the university would shut down at noon. Noon was when my geology lab ended. A few days later, the state shut down.
As difficult as this pandemic has been for mentally healthy people, it has been far worse for people who have a mental illness. Pre pandemic, approximately 20% of the adult population of the United States had a diagnosed mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health). Two months into the pandemic, nearly half of Americans report their mental health is deteriorating (Washington Post, May 4, 2020).
I am bipolar.
Before the pandemic, I was well medicated and about as stable as I could manage to be. Each morning, I traded a portion of my brain for the incomplete promise of getting through the day without screaming.
Once the state shut down, my mental health immediately deteriorated and continues to deteriorate.
I don’t mind describing what happens in my brain, but you need to understand that there are no metaphors here. Here is reality as I perceive it.
I’ve had chronic insomnia since last March. I average 4-5 hours sleep a night. Every couple months, I crash and sleep for 8 hours. I have a prescription for sleeping pills, but I don’t like taking them. I get so little sleep that I’m groggy when I wake up if I take a sleeping pill. I want to go to sleep early, but I don’t get tired. Then I get anxious because I’m not getting tired. Then I don’t get tired, and the cycle repeats itself at least until 3 AM.
Before this past November, I had been on the lowest dose of klonopin since August 2007. I took klonopin when I needed it, and didn’t bother when I didn’t need it. In November, I asked my doctor to raise the dose. My current dose is twice what I had been taking. Sometimes, klonopin helps. Frequently, it doesn’t help enough. I have music that’s supposed to trigger specific brain waves. I’ve no idea if any brain waves are triggered, but the music does help me calm down when the anxiety is severe enough that I can’t calm down otherwise.
My temple has services via zoom. While I appreciate that, there’s no real interaction with others. The High Holy Days services were unsatisfying. I was alone. The rabbi was alone. Everyone who attended the services was alone. I’ll skip the Passover Seder via zoom.
My human contact is with my husband and in classes via zoom. I appreciate classes via zoom, but I miss being with other students. I’m nearly 50 years older than traditional students, so there isn’t much to talk about. I miss those tiny conversations. One way for me to combat anxiety is to bake. Baking is fun when I can bring cookies or other goodies to class. I miss the cookie experiments and seeing other students enjoy my baking.
Frequently, I don’t understand what I’m feeling until the feelings come out of my hand. I’m a multi-media artist. Quilts and clay are how my feelings are expressed. Frequently, my emotional art is dark. It’s art no one in her/his right mind (as opposed to left mind) would want to own. It’s art I have to make the same as I have to breathe.
It isn’t easy to have a mental illness. Mental illness hurts, and it hurts worse than any physical illness I’ve had.
When I made this quilt, I was thinking about a man I knew who killed himself and how he is gone from my life forever. When I look at the quilt now, I think about my loss of contact with others. Zoom is better than nothing, but it’s not a substitute for human contact.
Isolation.
I try to climb out of the box, but I’m not successful and there’s nothing outside of the box, so there’s no reason for climbing out of the box. I still try. I still fail. I’m still isolated.
Because of my age, I’m high risk. My risky behavior consists of: standing in line for more than an hour in order to vote, grocery shopping once, eating in a restaurant with friends and discovering a few days later that one friend and her husband had Covid-19 although both were asymptomatic when we met for lunch. I’ve had my hair cut twice by a hairdresser. Now, I cut my bangs and my husband cuts the hair in back so it’s not hanging down my neck. Now, my excursions consist of doctor visits and going to Starbucks, buying a drink, and immediately leaving the store. Although I want to eat in a restaurant, it’s too dangerous so I eat at home. I want to have a hairdresser cut my hair, but it’s too dangerous. I want to go to Barnes & Nobel, but it’s too dangerous.
Leap by leap, I became more depressed. At first, adding an extra half pill of my antidepressant when necessary was enough to get me out of a depressive episode. My doctor knows I tinker with my dose. She also knows why I won’t agree to a permanent increase in dosage.
Most of the time, art heals. Maybe making art is helping me, but I can’t know for sure. I think it would be dangerous if I stopped making art now. I’d have no way to express what’s inside of me. There’s no one to talk to, so I speak in fabric.
I worked on art because maybe it helps. I worked on art because I had to – the same as I have to breathe and eat. I do photography. I edit the photos and manipulate them. I make quilts. I am still depressed.
This is the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. It once contained the best treatment of mental illness. It eventually contained the worst treatment of mental health. Now it contains a defunct hotel and dust bunnies. I could have been a prisoner there.
Sometimes, I manage to make pretty art. I thought if I worked on some pretty art, I would feel better. This is a manipulated photo that I had printed on fabric and then quilted the fabric.
When I figure out how I want to bind the edges, I’ll finish the quilt.
I tried working on another manipulated photo that I had printed on fabric.
I need to finish quilting this one. It’s a manipulated photo from a happy day. A day when we could go to Bosque del Apache and I could photograph sandhill cranes.
Making quilts helped, but not enough.
I photographed whatever looked interesting in my yard.
Photography helped, but not enough.
I still got depressed. I still had to take an extra half pill of my antidepressant sometimes. That helped, but not enough.
This is what depression feels like. I think that maybe the depression is finite, but I can’t find my way out of the dark space.
The depression worsened until I had a mental health crisis. I had a massive, major, all-encompassing depressive episode. I couldn’t stop crying. Oddly, I wasn’t suicidal.
I considered going to Memorial Medical Center, the only hospital in this area with a psychiatric ward. I’m a criminal defense attorney. So many of my clients have mental illnesses. My clients tell me stories of how they were mistreated in hospitals. Similar stories from a multitude of clients about mental hell facilities across the state. Forced medication. Barring visits from family members. Being drugged into oblivion because that made it easier to control the patients. People obviously needing help, but were considered too unpredictable so they were dumped out of a facility. All of it illegal. All of it happening every day.
I was desperate to the point where I was willing to enter the mental hell system.
I discarded the idea of inpatient treatment when I discovered what my insurance, Presbyterian, and Medicare won’t cover. Presbyterian requires prior authorization for inpatient treatment and inpatient treatment must be approached via the emergency room. Apparently, I need to know about six weeks in advance when I’m going to have a mental health crisis.Otherwise, my insurance covers nothing. Because of the pandemic and because I wasn’t suicidal, I doubted I would have been admitted to the psychiatric ward. Even if I were admitted, I wouldn’t be there long. I’m an attorney. You’ve heard of a jailhouse lawyer? I would have been a psych ward lawyer.
Because I couldn’t go to the hospital, I increased the dose of my antidepressant to two pills. That worked. Sort of. After three days, I turned into a zombie. The Zombie Apocalypse is over rated. I tried to find a schedule that would allow me to stop crying but not turn me into a zombie. I took two antidepressants on one day, and then two days with my usual dose, then back to two antidepressants. Repeat until oblivion. I wasn’t a zombie, I was more or less functioning, and I was still severely depressed. Rather than a more or less steady state of mood, I had wild mood swings between all-encompassing depression where I could minimally function and severedepression.
I was in such a deep mental health crisis that I considered electric shock treatment even though I know better than to agree to electric shock treatment. Electric shock is barbaric. The victim is given a sedative so the psychiatrist doesn’t have to hear the victim screaming in pain while the psychiatrist fries the victim’s brain. The victim is given a muscle relaxant so the psychiatrist doesn’t have to watch the victim have a grand mal seizure. The theory is the brain frying must continue until the victim has a seizure for electric shock treatment to be fruitful.Electric shock causes memory loss. Sometimes, the memory loss is permanent. I know of one victim who forgot he was married. I have an Advance Psychiatric Directive. One paragraph states I absolutely do not agree to electric shock treatment.
I watched One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I almost felt better.
I considered and researched transcranial magnetic stimulation. It’s effective for depression and migraine relief. Because it can also cause worsening of symptoms for people who are bipolar, I rejected that idea.
I considered ketamine infusion. In desperation, I made an appointment to discuss ketamine. I also did research on ketamine infusion. Ketamine blocks the NMDA receptors which, in theory, should reduce brain activity. In real life, ketamine does block NMDA receptors, but it also causes new neural connections to form and increases glutamate. Ketamine is a hallucinogenic and highly addictive. I was warned that the hallucinations might not be pleasant.I’ve had hallucinations during withdrawal from an antidepressant. I learned that if I let myself look at the hallucinations, and recognize the hallucinations weren’t reality, the hallucinationswere enjoyable. Until I kept trying to kill an imaginary spider that was crawling up the bathroom wall. That wasn’t enjoyable.
I agreed to try ketamine.
I watched Easy Rider.
During the infusion I had hallucinations. I saw colors and shapes although the colors and shapes had nothing to do with one another. I heard sounds that no one else could hear. I watched a long, stringy, multi-colored blob come down from the ceiling then recede and melt into the ceiling. I felt that I was turning my head left and right although my husband, who stayed in the room with me, told me I didn’t move my head. When I thought I was looking to my right, the colors were brighter. When I thought I was looking to my left, the colors were darker. The hallucinations were neither pleasant nor unpleasant. They were just interesting. I kept waiting to see purple because when I see purple, I know that healing is happening. I waited to see the brilliant, golden white that I interpret as the presence of the divine. I saw fleeting bits of purple. I didn’t see the brilliant, golden white.
After the infusion, my brain felt full and I could feel something that was almost a buzzing sensation in my brain. I felt almost happy. I also felt a craving for more ketamine. I’ve been through withdrawal from psych meds several times. I’ve had to do a step down to get off some antidepressants. That involved cutting pills into halves or quarters and relieved most of the withdrawal. I had never before experienced a craving. Ketamine works, but it terrifies me.
That’s about how my brain felt. I haven’t had a chance to have this printed on fabric. If I can figure out how to quilt it, I’ll have it printed on fabric. I’m thinking quilting with holographic thread might show what I felt.
The customary protocol for ketamine infusion is two infusions per week for three weeks. I know I cannot tolerate ketamine that often. My brain would explode.
A week after the infusion, the depression is still almost gone, although I can feel the effects of ketamine dissipating. I fear the return of the massive, all consuming depression. I’m considering having an infusion once every two to three weeks.
Right now, people know what it’s like to be depressed. People know what it’s like to have anxiety. People know what isolation feels like. Right now, it’s okay to be depressed, anxious and isolated. Eventually, life will return to what it was before. People will go back to being normal. I will still be bipolar. There will again be people who think they are better than me for no reason other than unlike me, they don’t have a DSM-5 label.
I will remain screaming in silence. My screams cause the air to vibrate, but the vibrations never reach ears.
March 13, 2021. Exactly one year ago today, I got an email telling me the university would shut down at noon. My geology lab conveniently ended at noon. Four days later, New Mexico shut down. Since then, I’ve had chronic insomnia, extreme anxiety, depression so bad I couldn’t stop crying, and I’ve gained weight. I got my first covid vaccine shot on March 7, and the second shot will be March 28. I miss eating a meal in a restaurant, but it’s too dangerous to do so. There’s outdoor dining, but that’s also dangerous. It’s spring, and we’re having WIND. The kind of WIND that picks up dust, sand, pollen, small children left unattended, and blows them around and causes an allergic reaction in my nose. Today, the high temperature will be 52 degrees. Not picnic weather.
Being in the midst of a massive, severe depressive episode and being desperate, I had a ketamine infusion. It was interesting. After a half liter of saline mixed with ketamine finished dripping into my hand, my brain felt full. It felt like a lot was going on in my brain. I felt almost happy. Four days later, I still feel the effects, but I also feel myself sliding back into severe anxiety and depression. The customary protocol is two ketamine sessions a week for three weeks. There’s no way I could have ketamine that often. My brain might explode. I’m considering having an infusion every couple weeks until I finish six infusions.
I’ve tried again to take decent photos of the socks I’ve made. I’m getting closer, but still not completely happy with my shots.
I like the composition of this one, but I didn’t pay enough attention to where the edges of the felt were. I couldn’t crop out all the cardboard without cutting off part of the socks.
Finally, there are signs of life in my yard. The buds on the claret cup cactus should open in a few days.
The buds on the claret cup cactus should start opening within the next week.
I finally figured out how to do free motion quilting without the thread breaking. I used the FMQ foot that came with my machine, Pfaff Quilt Expressions 4.2. Thread broke. I change to a 90/14 topstitch needle which Superior Thread recommends to use with King Tut thread. Thread broke. I cleaned the machine. I rethreaded the machine. I tried a Superior Thread titanium coated 90/14 needle. Thread broke. Having run out of ideas, I tried the spring loaded FMQ foot that’s made by Pfaff, but didn’t come with my machine. Finally, no thread breaking! It shouldn’t have been that hard to find a solution.
I need to come up with something spectacular for an assignment in my neurobiology class. I’ve decided to quilt my mental health as it deteriorated in the past year.
Isolation. I finished the quilting and the basting stitches have been removed. I had problems with the binding and needed to rip out part of the stitching. Except I can no longer see that well up close. I plan on cutting off the binding and putting different binding on the quilt.
Depression. This one gets quilted after I finish the quilting on the crane quilt.
I had something different in mind when I made this quilt, but now I think it works for the isolation I’ve felt.
I started the free motion quilting on a quilt last week. I had all sorts of problems with the thread breaking. I cleaned the machine, which I do every time I sew. I rethreaded the machine. I adjusted the tension. I’m using King Tut thread and I was told that thread is a touch thicker than regular thread and I need to use a topstitch needle with it. I’m using a Klasse 90/14 topstitch needle which is what Superior Threads recommends on their website for quilting with King Tut thread. I watched a video from Pfaff about free motion quilting on the Quilt Expressions 4.2. I searched the manual for any hints. The tension is adjusted properly. I’ve got the machine set for the free motion quilt foot. I’m using a Pfaff foot. I’ve unthreaded the machine, cleaned the machine, put a new needle in the machine, rethreaded. That’s supposed to solve almost all problems and if it doesn’t solve the problem, it won’t make the problem worse. I switched to a regular foot, regular straight stitch, and gave that a test run on the quilt. Works fine, no problems. I give up. I’ve written to Superior Threads and asked what I’m doing wrong.
This is a manipulated photo of a sandhill crane on one of my trips to Bosque del Apache. I had Spoonflower print the photo on cotton. Maybe I’ll play with different quilting in different parts of the sky. I’m not about to rip out all that free motion quilting. I don’t see well enough to be able to do that. I meet with an ophthalmologist to discuss cataract surgery later this month.
I sold one of my designs in Spoonflower. This was the first time anyone had one of my designs printed on wallpaper. My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
I’ve been working on knitting tube socks using some interesting variegated yarn. Once I figure out how to take decent shots of the socks, I’ll put them in my store, Deb Thuman Art, http://www.DebThumanArt.com I chose tube socks because I don’t need to know how long the customer’s foot is which is what I’d need to know if I were putting heels in these socks. With hand-knit socks, the part that wears out first is the heel.
With other variegated yarns, the color changes are more frequent. This is Lion Mandala yarn and the color changes are far less frequent. I’m assuming I’m not the only person who loves funky socks. And if I am, because they are tube socks, they will fit my feet and I’ll happily wear out 11 pairs of tube socks.
I’m still having problems with depression. I can take a double dose of antidepressant and be fine for a day, but the next day I have to drop back down to my regular dose or I’ll be walking into walls. I have my first ketamine infusion on Tuesday. If it does nothing for my depression, at least I’ll have been able to enjoy the hallucinations. I grew up in the ’60s and never did drugs. Not even pot. Now, I have a medical marijuana card, THC infused chocolate in the refrigerator, and I’m about to embark of a magical mystery tour. I never thought my life would be like this. Becoming a geriatric pothead and taking hallucination-inducing drugs wasn’t on my list of life goals.
March 5 was the nine-year anniversary of finally having an accurate diagnosis – bipolar disorder. I knew from representing clients charged with assorted crimes that I would have considerable misery unless I accepted my diagnosis. Which I did. Right after I stopped crying. Suddenly, my life made sense. Finally, there was an explanation for why antidepressants alone were not solving the problem. I’m on an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer. I discovered I’m a nice person. I discovered I can be happy. It only took 35 years to get an accurate diagnosis and two psychiatrists missed my diagnosis. It’s not as if bipolar disorder were difficult to spot. My experience with psychiatrists is that they don’t listen. Instead, they grab a prescription pad and proceed to overmedicate me. That’s why I refuse to see a psychiatrist.
I had a massive depressive episode on 2/19/21. I had to go up on my med dosages in order to be able to stop crying. After three days, I had to return to my usual dosages because I was becoming a zombie. That led to another massive depressive episode on Thursday. After making sure Jim could drive me to my appointments on Friday, I went back up on the dosages. Friday morning, I had to force myself to take my meds. I knew I was over medicated, but I thought if I didn’t continue on the higher dosage, I wouldn’t be able to stop crying. I was incapable of driving. I couldn’t understand the instructions for filling out the forms for sending something certified mail, return receipt requested. I tried to read about the latest upgrade to Affinity Photo, but I couldn’t understand anything that I read. My brain did not work. Frustrating and terrifying.
On Friday, I met with the anesthesiologist at a local pain clinic that uses ketamine. I can’t live like a zombie. I need my brain. I can’t function if I can’t stop crying. I went back to my usual dosages today. My appointment for using ketamine is in two weeks. I may have to spend the next two weeks crying. Already, and it has been less than 12 hours, I’m irritable and unable to control myself.
I wanted to try working on a quilt today. The theory was I’d feel better if I made some art. Except I couldn’t. I was measuring different widths for a border. I think I found a width that works, but I don’t trust myself to be able to cut strips the right length and width. So much for working on a quilt.
I tried to do a little photography thinking that would cheer me up. It probably would have if Affinity weren’t the absolute worst photo editing program. Turns out a whole lot of people are having the problem I’m having with this latest upgrade – I can’t save a photo to the desktop or anywhere else and I can’t export a photo to the desktop or anywhere else. I sent an email to “customer service” but I don’t expect an answer back from them in less than a month. I tried looking for YouTube videos to explain how to save and export in the latest version. No luck. The Affinity videos are confusing and overly complicated. Just tell me how I can export the photos to my desktop like I’ve been doing for the last several years. There are lots of questions about this lack of ability to export or save on the forum, but no answers. Any company that offers real customer service, with people whose native language is English, who don’t try to hide the fact that I’m calling someplace in India, is going to be wildly successful and profitable. Apparently customer service is now on part with quality control. Not much of either.
I tried doing a bit of experimenting with deliberate motion.
I have cataracts and need the surgery. I can’t see close up. I’m having problems with distance. I can’t do much sewing. And I’m high risk. I’m extremely nearsighted – can’t see the E on the top of the eye chart. I also have issues with the retina in my right eye. I was told several years back that if I have cataract surgery, I have a 25% chance of the retina in my right eye detaching. And so the last couple days, I was severely depressed. I tried art therapy and went outside to do some photography. Except this time of year, the desert is brown and dead.
These are new leaves on a Mexican bird of paradise bush.
I’m not sure if I like this shot. I had to remove a few offending twigs, and I can see where they used to be.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a seed pod.
Today, I discovered I can sew if I wear my computer glasses. At least I could finish the quilting on this one. I haven’t decided if I want landscape or portrait orientation. I also haven’t decided how much of the white border to keep. I don’t want binding to cover any of the quilting. This is a photo I took, manipulated, and has Spoonflower print. Because I wanted to turn this photo into a quilt, the design isn’t in my Spoonflower shop. Plenty of other designs are there, though. You will find them here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
I didn’t notice that shadow until I started editing the photos.
I’m making progress on the depression quilt. I’ve figured out the fabric combination. Now, I need to figure out how wide a border I want.
I’ve known for years that I have cataracts. At my age, everyone has cataracts. I’ve also known for years that because edged of the retina in my right eye being glued down with a laser twice, I’m at a high risk for having that retina completely detach. Because I’m severely nearsighted, I can’t see the E on the top of the eye chart, cataract surgery is high risk for something going wrong surgery. For years, my eye doctor has been tweaking my prescription so I could put off cataract surgery for as long as possible. I get to see well for a few months, than my vision gradually gets worse until after six months I can’t read street name signs and it’s harder to see close up. Naturally, my vision insurance will only pay for one eye exam a year, one pair of lenses a year, and a pair off cheap frames every other year.
This week, I discovered I can no longer see close up for more than about 20 minutes. After that, whatever I’m looking at is a blur and everything I look at will be a blur for about a half hour. I’m having difficulty reading. E-mail. My text book. Anything where I can’t get the text size increased significantly. After much mis-information from my HMO, I had Jim call. For some reason, he gets accurate answers. I have an appointment with an ophthalmologist next month. Maybe there’s a way I can have the surgery I need without going blind.
I had said I wasn’t going to have cataract surgery until I needed a dog. Last week, I sent in an application and deposit on a future Labradoodle puppy. The breeder thinks that she’ll have a litter ready for permanent homes in the fall. First, the doodle dog gets puppy training. Don’t pee on the rug. Don’t eat the furniture. The cats are not chew toys. And later, the doodle dog gets trained to be a psychiatric service dog for me.
I can only sew for brief periods of time. I’m working on some echo quilting, and I had to stop. I know I’m not going to remember the settings on the sewing machine. So I used my phone to take a photo of the settings.
I’ve been battling depression lately, and I decided that if I can’t see to quilt, I can see to pick out fabric. Nothing really jumped out as the perfect combination, so I laid the possibilities on my sewing table yesterday. In another day or so, I’ll look at the selections again. Maybe one of the choices will be right.
As for the depression, I’m above suicidal but well below center. I’ve had my psych meds tweaked and tweaked and tweaked. The ideal is to have a high enough dose that I stay stable, and a low enough dose to keep from being a zombie. I’m not screaming and I’m not suicidal, but I’d like to have more stability than that.
I watched the inauguration on Wednesday. It was cold, and the women (and some men) wore coats that had the first button around waist level. That’s not a winter coat and it won’t keep anyone warm. Surely there’s a designer out there who can create a warm winter coat that’s also stylish. Bernie Sanders may have had the best idea, and the best mittens. He needed a hat, though.
There are two things Lady Gaga can do very well. She can make an entrance and can make an unsingable Star Spangled Banner sound beautiful. I loved her dress and the dove. Only Lady Gaga could hold her skirt up while walking down stairs, and still look fantastic.
J Lo, if you’re going to sing This Land is Your Land, sing all the verses. Especially the final verse:
Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me.
Woody didn’t write songs to be pretty. He wrote songs to make a point which J Lo clearly missed.
Monday is the yahrzeit of the deputy who killed himself. This year is easier than last year, but it’s still a sad, confusing, emotional time for me. I’ve quilted about his suicide. I’ve written about his suicide. It still tears me apart.
This is the second quilt I made about his suicide. Only the bottom half is quilted. We know what happens when we are alive. We may have beliefs about what happens after we die, but we don’t know what happens.
I’ve been working on two other quilts.
I had a manipulated photo printed by Spoonflower. I’m quilting via machine around the circles, and that’s when I discovered the cataracts have gotten bad enough that I’m limited on what close work I can do. I can’t have cataract surgery because there’s a 25% chance of the retina in my right eye detaching. A souvenir from growing up in a house run by a violent, narcissistic drunk and her violent drunken husband. Once it’s safe to travel again, I’m going to have to start looking for someone who can do high risk cataract surgery.
This is a manipulated photo of a sandhill crane at Bosque del Apache. I had it printed by Spoonflower. I haven’t started to quilt it yet.
Looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? Please visit my store, Deb Thuman Art here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I am fighting with quilt batting. Normally, I work with fat-quarter size quilts. This quilt is 30”x45” not huge, but bigger than I’m used to. Because I’m tired of fighting quilt sandwiches, I bought fusible batting. The batting is large enough for a quilt for a queen-size bed. I had to unroll the batting, unfold the batting, and try to cut out a piece the proper size. I tried working on the floor, but that didn’t work. I tried folding the batting so I could cut on the folded edges, but that didn’t work. For so long, I worked on dark, emotional quilts. Now, I have a chance to work on a happy quilt. This one is from one of my manipulated photos that I had printed. I need to make some happy art, and this batting is keeping me from doing that.
I took some photos of jewelry I’ve made so I can put my latest jewelry in my store. Valentine’s Day is coming up and the mail service is still slow in some places. Order now to be sure your jewelry will arrive before Valentine’s Day.
Deb's Art 