Just the head space I am in

I laid out another quilt last week.  It is really where my head is.  I have been having problems with allergies since Harvey blew through and concentrating is difficult.  Quilts are not concentration for me.  They are color and texture.  Counting.  This one seems to have a bit different feel for some reason.  Maybe I should lay out quilts more often when my head space is strange.

I also have so many nine squares.  Probably enough to make another quilt.  Which is not a bad idea.  It lets me mull over life and sometimes not mull at all.  

My biggest decision right now is trying to decide the color on the edge of the cardigan I am making.  Then it will be buttons.  Where to put in seedlings in my strange garden the city hates.  I do not conform well when it comes to my garden.  I am just waiting until it is a bit cooler later in the week for me to do much work there.  I am ready for cool.  In the evening, I keep working on sweaters.  It will be cool someday.  Or I will head to the mountain!

for a small tree boy

Remember that wedding dress I made last autumn for my Beloved's assistant's fiance.  Where I came to the rescue.  Well, they had a small boy last month.  This small boy's birth did not even go close to plan.  We are grateful that mom and babe are alive.  All due to screwed up medical choices.  Not hers!  

Then, before the small boy had even been in this world a month, this small storm blew through.  Harvey.  Their home is fine.  Some repairs may need to happen but it was not flooded.  

There were a few other things that happened that month for this family.  Not good things but get through things.  In long term, everything will be fine.  Short term, it is hard.

This quilt is going to Rowan.  He likes patterns.  And he will be rolling in the next couple months as well so this could be a place for him to roll.  I took longer on this quilt then I did on her wedding dress.  Because there was not a deadline!

Life is strange.

Good but strange.  

Dad already likes this.  It will be interesting to see what Mom thinks.

chaotic mind revealed in basting

I needed to baste this quilt top to the backing and batting.  Was that an interesting experience!

I do not think I have ever basted a quilt in a more chaotic pattern!  Even when Koda Bear's helps.

My Beloved made the comment that he tells people that he is safe not okay.  I think there is a lot of truth to that statement.  On my walk this morning, one of the bridges moved underneath just from my walking.  It bounced.  No, it was not my imagination.  Once I was on solid ground, I needed to catch my breath and stomp to convince my head that I was on solid ground and everything was as good as possible.  

We are on a flight path for many of the helicopters that are working.  Three Chinook helicopters just flew over the house.  It is not just the walls that shake at that point.  It is not just the wonder if the shingles will shake off.  Things are moving on surfaces and walls.  It is a wait and see if everything will be alright this time.

I am still having a flight or fight reaction.  The rain stopped a week ago today.  I want to go forward into my normal routines but it has been difficult to focus.  Adrenaline is still raised and I am a worrier.  It is going to be very interesting to see how people react the next time there is a threatening weather event.  Or maybe just a thunderstorm.

Today, all I wish to do is sit at my sewing machine and quilt.  Listen to an audiobook.  Instead, I have some computer work.  I am cooking for a friend who is finding it hard to feed herself while she helps one of her friends who flooded.  I need to go out of the house to the post office.  And the library!  The library is open!

 It truly is the simple things.

all put together

As I was putting other things together last week, I got this quilt top stitched.  I am ready to make the back but I am having a bit of problem concentrating on it.  So instead, I keep making bags for my shop.  Or taking silk out of its dye bath.  

I am actually doing a lot but not a lot new.  Or new in old patterns.  But part of that is summer for me.  It gets so warm that I do not wish to cook anything new or anything that needs heat even.  That does not mean I do not bake bread four times a week.  It means it is my go to recipes.  Currently it is oatmeal, walnut cranberry, and cinnamon rolls.  I have been baking cinnamon rolls about once a week this summer.

I could spend all my time making quilts.  Make piles of them and force myself out of my parlor.  But they do not currently sell.  But that is where my head is.  Making things that use little pieces and many of them.  

Or I could be working on that sweater I talked about last time.  I got to where it was ready for sleeves and tried it on.  That was funny!  It was much too long.  So I ripped out half of it and made it smaller.  But I am close to putting sleeves back on it.  I will need buttons and I have ideas but am not sure.  I wish there was a thrift shop or fabric shop around with a bowl of buttons to go through.  That would be the perfect solution currently.  A hodge podge of buttons on my sweater.  Maybe.  Just maybe.  If I want to leave the house, I may go look at buttons.

doing something that makes me happy

I sat in my parlor and laid out a quilt.

So far the quilts have not sold but I need to make them.  The making makes me happy.  It is a good thing.  Especially when events in the United States were what they were this weekend.  I was horrified.  Distressed.  Appalled.  

I listen to a lot of audiobooks when I am working and I have been currently listening to two books about resistance in World War II.  I needed to put them away and listen to something else.  It is much to close to home.  One of the books I was listening to is The Zookeeper's Wife.  It is a biography the Warsaw zookeepers and the choices they made.  Choices that saved lives and resisted.  

I told my Beloved that every time I like something on social media, comment, or post, I wonder now if it will mean someone knocking on my door.  Gestapo like.  I can see it coming.  But I know where I sit.