Hand – Work

I just noticed another month has evaporated since I last wrote a blog. Where have I been? inside, outside, and eating fruit. My strawberries are still producing nice, good size berries, my refrigerator has a tray of plums from my tree, and the white nectarines are just about ready to come off their tree.

Outside I’m still cleaning up debris from my huge sycamore tree, which is now in the stage of shedding bark, huge pieces of it. The ivy beds around the house have gone into their normal overdrive to cover every inch of ground, and I’m cutting them back as quickly as I can. But this week will do little of that due to near 100 degree heat each day.

Last week, the mixed media group that normally meets twice a month in a member’s home, but has not met since March 5^th, had our meeting in my yard. There were six of us and we spent the time catching up with each other, and having show and tell with the art we have been making. It was so wonderful to see my friends. Perhaps at our next meeting we will find time to make a little art together.

After participating in two online collage workshops in April and May, I decided to take a break and attend to some household activities that had been waiting for my attention.

I had a lightweight summer jacket that I like to wear in the morning when the house is cool which was shredding apart. I drew a pattern from that jacket and made a replacement. Since the sewing machine was open, I noticed some other items that could use some attention.

I’ve discovered that as I get older my clothes don’t always fit the same way they did before, or maybe I’m just not willing to put up with things that aren’t comfortable. I have two other lightweight jackets that I used to wear to work, but now the sleeves were constantly sliding down my arms and getting in my way. They must have come from that fashion statement where women had their jacket sleeves pushed up and bunched up by their elbows. I never did understand that.

So, I shortened the sleeves to suit me now. And so it went, altering those clothes I had put on in the morning and by the time breakfast was over I was changing into other garments for one reason or another.

The sewing project I’m most delighted with is a bit of an archeological rescue. Years ago when I was moving my mother, she mentioned that in her cedar chest were some things my paternal grandmother had made. When I had to sort out her belongings, I looked at them briefly and saw they looked like quilts. A year ago, when I was donating clothing I never wore, I looked at them more closely, but didn’t know what to do with them. They were quilt tops, with unfinished undersides. I put one of them at that top of the cedar chest, in case I got an idea of how to use it.

In the hot summer months, I like to use a bed cover that is light weight, rather than the comforter I use all winter. I took a queen size flat sheet that I had not used much, which was a few inches larger that the quilt top, and sewed them together on the edges to protect the unfinished edges on the backside of the quilt.

One of my fond childhood memories was studying a heavy quilt this grandmother had made, seeing all the different fabrics she used and repeated randomly in different blocks. Now I’m doing that again, searching for matching fabrics in different circles. Such simple things that engage and delight us.

I do hope that in the midst of the craziness around us, you are finding things that engage and delight you. Be careful and stay well.