The universe does have a sense of humor or maybe some kindness. When I purchased my frame end of November 2017
my thought process was that I would have a hobby and a little income once
retired but it still seemed so far in the future. Now that time has come and the people
responsible for carrying my accounting program over from the office to our
house arrived much earlier than anticipated on Monday. Caught me somewhat off-guard as we still had
a couple of things to finish up but grateful for the help, I couldn’t really
complain.
I packed up
the last bit of my office stuff and arrived home just before 10am, barely put
the parrot outside when my phone rang and by gosh it was a quilter wanting to
bring a quilt immediately. Now, not a problem, previously I could only receive quilts after 2pm but I found it funny as the moment I entered the retired status I got what I envisioned all
along.
This
quilter has made (and quilted) this specific pattern many times before but she
says with this one, she only used every scrap she had or what she had in her
stash. Initially, we talked about where
and what the quilt will be used for and decided on an all-over pattern but the
more I looked at the quilt, the more possibilities came to mind and I phoned
the quilter asking if I couldn’t do just a bit more than an all-over pattern
and she didn’t mind but gave me a budget.
Now, this will be the first time that I had to work within a budget but
once I divided her amount by the amount, I charge to see how many hours I’m
allowed to spend on the quilt, I thought it would be more than sufficient. Had to wait and see though but it is always
interesting to be challenged on a different level.
Have to
interrupt myself here, the first days as a pensioner was hellish, to say the
least. I didn’t know where anything was,
couldn’t find anything, my e-mail broke down (refused to send, can only
receive), things the new owners were supposed to have in place were not done
yet, and to top it all, I went to renew my firearm license and got the rudest
female police officer ever. Was so upset
when she sent me home to complete the forms, whereas in the past you could
complete it there and then, that I screwed up most of my own info. I also now feel that I work twice as hard as
before. I get up rather early and
already then start working and when hubby gets home at night, it
continues. So, the quilting did not go
as fast as I would have liked it.
Finally the weekend I put my foot down and continued with this quilt and sadly I could not
stay within the time frame for the budget but then again, I had fun doing the
quilting and it was my idea to do a little more than an all-over pattern;
therefore, not the quilters' problem.
I am
however extremely satisfied with the outcome and I am glad I didn’t go for an
all-over pattern.