Spring Sewing

The world continues to be a crazy place, and it's getting crazier.  Covid-19, and now, protests against police brutality and racial injustice, riots and just a generally unstable and scary feeling in the world have made it a Spring unlike any other.  I don't know what to make of it all.  Nothing feels right, yet nothing feels different.  We finished the school year, still in a remote learning platform.   We have made some small forays back into the real world (back to work for husband and daughter, some shopping trips, some get together with a friend or a couple) but for us, or me, at least the world still feels askew and slower and just...  off.  But then again, this week has felt like the start of our summer vacation, like nothing is different.  I've experienced my usual "I have all the time in the world to do things now, but I can't bring myself to do them." and, "there are 11 weeks that belong to us...but each day gets us closer to the end and it's going to be over too soon!" feelings.  I don't know why I struggle so much with these inner conflicts at the start of the summer.  In some ways, they've been more pronounced this year because the last three months have felt a bit like a weird not fun vacation.  

I have been countering a lot of heavy emotion and anxiety with  my favorite escape:  sewing.  School demands didn't allow me to finish out the Project Quilting Quarantine season, but I've definitely been in my sewing room at least a bit almost every day since March!  A first for me. I like it!

Like most sewists around the world, I've been sewing masks.  They're not mandatory in Wisconsin except for in some businesses but they are recommended by the CDC for the whole country.  And we're trying to wear them in all environments outside out own home.  Paper masks and other PPE are readily available again and we have plenty of those on hand now.  But I prefer a fabric mask most of the time.  I put out a Facebook post asking if any friends or family needed hand sewn masks.  I was surprised to get nearly 30 requests!  So,  that's how I spent our first week of Summer.  Making masks.  

 Assembly line sewing is supposed to make the process go quickly, but this batch felt like it took a week!

First time making kids' sizes.  

In early May, I also finished a project that had been started pre-Covid.   It had been pushed aside for school work and mask making, but I also wanted to just have it done!  I had been asked to make a t-shrit quilt for the mother of a young man who died of a drug overdose late last summer.  It was an honor, to be sure.  But it was also a very heavily emotional task, and that weight seemed to be multiplied by the general weight of the world around me.  When the mom (she's a friend of a friend, so I don't really know her) came to pick up her quilt, I just wanted to hug her.  She burst into tears seeing it, and the key chain I made from a heart shaped hole I found in one of the shirts.  But, we were on my doorstep, in the rain.  She was wearing a mask, and it's really not cool to hug people now, due to Covid.  I cried for quite a while after that.  I suddenly missed that quilt that I had been so anxious to have gone.  I missed the world were I would have shown her some of the little details I'd included (like the WI badgers shirt that was SO full of holes I had to hand stitch it to a backing fabric to keep it from falling apart and the shirt that had the sleeves removed, which I raw edge appliqued to make it fit).  I cried for her.  I can't imagine having only a quilt to hold and not my child.  I don't have great pictures of that quilt.  It's not mine to photograph and the memories aren't mine to share.  But I write about it, because it had a pretty profoud impact on me.  And that, I don't want to forget.  

I also altered a couple of prom dresses for friends of my oldest daughter.  At the time, we didn't know that there wouldn't be a prom this year.  We assumed that the district would have something for the juniors over the summer.  Now we know that they are just being lumped into next year's junior prom.  It's very likely that  these girls will get new dresses. so...the yards and yards of haltered hem line are for naught.  But, I learned a few new techniques, got to creatively solve some problems that I um, created in the course of the alterations, and, got to make some young ladies smile when their dresses, finally, fit just right.  

This dress was a force to be reckoned with!  More than 4 yards around the bottom and 

layer upon layer of tulle!  And a horsehair hem, and I added a bustle!  Oh my!

So. . masks, a memory quilt and prom dresses.  None of that is on the top of my "fun sewing list".  It ALL becomes meditative and stress reducing for me (well. those prom dresses might be the exception) and I love it all.  But, not so fun.  So, I made sure to make time for that too!  

In April I noticed a Facebook Posting from a quilt shop in a nearby town - Sew Much More in Waukesha.  I've never been there and I don't know why I follow them.  They were doing a Safer At Home quilt sew along.  The woman whom I assume owns the shop did a series of FaceBook Live posts showing how to make a simple house block.  

I watched a lot of home improvement shows while working on these little houses.  Fitting!

The idea was to create 30 houses for the 30 days of the state''s Safer At Home Order.  That order was extended.  Then overturned.  And I went rouge and added some fences and trees so I don't have 30 houses.  But, I DID finish another quilt top, the third since the beginning of the quarantine!  And I LOVE it!  

 

It's a combination of scrappy, with bits and bobs of mask fabric and other favorite scraps AND some fat quarters that I've been collecting from quilt shows and shop visits.    There's some really OLD stuff in there, mixed with new, and that's my favorite!  I truly love every fabric in this quilt, even the scrappy white on white pieces that make up the background.  It makes me happy and is the first quilt I've made for me!  It will, of course, be used by the entire family, but I made it with ME in mind.  

It was fun to watch this quilt grow!

Since this one is special to me, I decided to go a step further and do something special with the quilting, too.  This will be the first quilt I send to someone else for long arm quilting!  I am SO excited about this!  I have a high school friend who has a long arming business in our hometown, and I'll be sending it to her for quilting . I've already purchased good, quilt shop fabric for the back (also a first...I usually only buy fat quarters or half yard cuts at the quilt shop.  Buying four yards was a bit of a shock to the wallet!!) and it will pieced and pressed this coming week.  Then I'll send it to Angie and wait.  I am already a bit giddy with anticipation!  This one will get a special label, too.  I envision this quilt becoming part of our family history, and my girls using it to help explain to their children what  strange time in history this has been.  

Also in the "fun" category,  I have used this time to check a very long standing WIP off my list.  I have finally finished my "Scrappy Stars" quilt!  According to Google Photos, I pieced this back in April of 2017.  It sat for a long time, and I finally started quilting it last summer.  It's simple straight line quilting, but, I wasn't crazy about the way it puckered and pulled, so I kind of abandoned it mid summer.  It had been literally, sitting in a  heap between my sewing table and the wall since then.  When I picked it up again two weeks ago, I discovered that I actually had only about 30 minutes worth of quilting left to do on it.  Why? Why didn't I just finish it last summer?!?  I remember being disappointed in the quality of the quilting and sad that I would't feel comfortable entering it in the County Fair.  It wouldn't have even placed, and that would have bothered me.  There's no fair this year, so no need to worry about that!!  This summer, I'm quilting just for the joy of it, and WOW do I love this pretty little scrappy quilt! 

 I LOVE the saturated colors, the subtle stars, the blue binding, the fun backing that brings me a happy memory of our first trip to IKEA a few years ago, and you know what? I don't mind the quilting!  In fact, on the back, I really love it!  

I enjoyed the process of finishing the binding by hand, most of it in my new favorite spot - my front porch.  It's not much of a porch, but after 14 years in the house I finally put a chair out there and I've been sitting on it!  We have a deck on the other side of the house, but it's often too windy or too hot to enjoy siting there until evening.  The front porch is perfect nearly all day long!  So, I sat there one morning, and then the next evening to bind this little beauty.  I could look at my flower beds, watch and listen to the birds, and wave to an occasional neighbor.  Exactly what I needed, and what I'll remember when I look at this quilt. 

Looked down and realized that the zinnias in the bucket were a perfect match for the backing!

I sat and stitched until almost 9:00 on the longest night of summer!  Perfect!

 I'm so happy to have it done.  I am not sure what will become of it.  I thought I might see if any friends would like it. But it might just get added to the rotation of living room quilts.  We'll see.  

Happy, Scrappy Stars.

I made a list of all the other sewing projects I'd like to (or need to) get done this summer.  Another t-shirt quilt, at least 10 more masks, a couple of garments...Seems unlikely they will all get done, but, it's going to be fun trying!