bee creative

#119 One hundred and nineteen days

Hello, how are you?

It's been 119 days since I started with that question. 

Good enough, not fine. 

I don't say fine anymore.

Sometimes tired.

Sometimes discouraged.

Sometimes happy.

I have been angry.

There have been some really hard days, some of the hardest ever.

And days that were joyful. 

Sometimes I say, "I am really happy to see you."

I picked 119 for the "19" in COVID 19.  At the start I thought mid August, it will either be over. Or not. We aren't even close to over.

This morning I read an interview on NPR with a coronavirus researcher, Vineet Menachery:

"He'd be surprised 'if we're still wearing masks and 6-feet distancing in two or three years' and that in time, the virus could become no more serious than the common cold."

I have a plan for a new quilt:

6 feet by 6 feet in size.

Sort of log cabin type squares. They will be crooked.

A blue square for each center because when I think of a color for breath, I think of blue. 

19 pieces of fabric per square.  The fabric can be repeated in other squares but only used once per square.

There will be hearts in the mix somewhere (19?).

No new supplies other than thread. 

No time limit, but I will aim for one square per week.

Working title for now: "good enough" (for a category).

The colors will be joyful.

 

 

#117 dessert

I am cleaning the freezer out. 

It should have been done in March.

Tomorrow I need to figure out what to do with the frozen cranberries.  Maybe a loaf of bread.  There is a really great recipe in Molly Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

For tonight there is berry crisp with yogurt topping for dessert. 

It will be breakfast too.

Some projects are like dessert.

I started a poncho because I just had to see what this yarn would look like.  (This is why I should never guess how long it will take me to finish a sweater.)

It's going to be sweet...

#110 unfinished thoughts

Another scrappy tank. 

Bottom made from a table cloth with stain. 

Heading for an onion skin dye bath.

I wasn't paying attention.

I felt bad.

Consistently getting good results with the sourdough.

It's been on the to do list forever, fixing the gate. 

I think I am going to weave twine through the slates to hold it together better. 

Pasta + garbanzo beans + veggies from Mom and Dad + veggies from my garden + veggies from a CSA. 

*

None of these are from today...today was not quite as planned.

Yesterday someone told me on the way home that my break lights were out, so that had to be taken care of.

I started reading Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood and spent over two hours pondering the beauty of well crafted sentences. 

 

#104 one day at a time

It has always been true for me.

Past, present, future. 

We live with them all, but one day at a time, the moment is what we live.

She's fine now, but yesterday Lola's heart stopped.

She was at the vet to get her teeth cleaned.  Instead of getting her teeth cleaned, she got her heart checked out.  Everything seems fine, best guess is she had a reaction to the medicines she was given to prep for the surgery. 

Here's the thing I really wanted to share...because it's so strange.  A dog's heart can stop, she can have the dog version of CPR and medications...and can come home the same day. 

Her vet and I are in agreement, she doesn't need her teeth cleaned anymore.

Given all that...today's "get it out of the project pile" project was to to make this pillow:

Walnut and sumac dyed silk for the front, redwood cone dyed silk for the back.

The pillow form was made with thread and fabric trimmings for zero waste.

One day at a time...

so glad this is the post I am writing today.

#103 something to hold

I wove this during one of Jude's classes I think.

The yellow fabric in onion skin dyed cotton.

Yesterday I made it into a pillow.  The strips still need to be stitched down a bit more, but it will hold for now.

 And it is lovely to hold.

#102 make it useful

Once upon a time it was a skirt that wasn't worn much.

And now it's not.

#98 to be honest (I'm going out on a limb)

The most difficult question to answer right now is often, "how are you?" Fine most of us reply, sometimes good.  I think it is habit. Or a fear of upsetting others by being honest. 

I don't think any of us are fine.  We are treading water, holding on, just getting through the day. 

At work (I've been at work all through COVID, essential worker) we've had to remind each other to be gentle with ourselves, to be gentle with each other. 

The "me" that shows up here asks why a lot.  It's hard to hold on to why make? Why share what we are making? How can this be important with everything else that is going on?

Here's my answer...I think many of us that make things do so because we are caregivers. We want to fix things, share things, explain things, make the world more beautiful.

There are so many ways to do this and we need them all. 

 

"Mending hearts" is a phrase that came to me many years ago.  I thought it would be a blanket, thought that I had the foundation for it in a blanket that I cut apart and had stared to restitch.  It wasn't feeling right and it changed directions into a smaller project. 

Sometimes we need to make things smaller.

The first first project with the cut apart blanket is a basket to hold some of my daily sewing supplies. 

As I creep closer to the end of my pledge to blog daily for 119 days I wonder "what next?" It isn't just how often to blog, but why blog? 

I think it is because there are more things that need mending.

Over the next 20 days that's going to be at the back of my mind. 

P.S.  I am okay Mom, really. :)  

#95 fit

This is the place where my bed frame fits together. 

It caught my eye a couple days ago.

There are four corners that look like this and hold the bed frame rigid so that it will stand and support the piece of plywood that holds the mattress. 

Once it had springs but they are long gone.

I've slept on this bed most of my life. It was given to me by my paternal grandparents when I was three. 

Something that had been abandoned and that they didn't need. 

When we were young my brothers and neighborhood friends would fold the top part of the mattress over so that it made a seat. (It was a very thin mattress, maybe 3 inches deep and probably original to the bed.)  We would sit there and bounce up and down pretending it was a wagon and we were off on grand adventures.

*

I am thinking about fit,

how things fit together to make something work. 

Edge to edge.

How things snap together.

How things hold.

#92 fold

Made with the journal entry I wrote on the day I turned eighteen. 

It was mostly a description of the day.

It was a very good day. 

#90 self portrait

I found a box of old journals. 

Read through the one I wrote when I was 17-18 years old.

Cut it up.

Reassembled it.

Thinking about how some things don't change.

And some do.