Sewing for stress relief

I woke up this morning, knowing my weekend was over and that I had to return to work.  But, wanting to relive the whole weekend in my mind.  I was very confused at first, trying to reconcile the peacefulness of the weekend with the first day of a new and stressful work week.  I hate that I couldn't remember every second of the weekend, but in those few minutes between waking and having to rise, I went through every moment I could remember and smiled at how delightful it was. 

On Friday, we had a small family crisis, which Rob handled extremely well.  And, having done such a wonderful job of it, he was definitely in line for big rewards on Father's Day.  But, the rest of our weekend was kind of spent in shell shock and by this morning, felt sort of unreal and distant. 

Saturday, we were shooting for the feeling of normal, so I got up and started to sew and got those last two Linus quilts bound.  After that, we ran errands in the morning and had lunch out.  I dropped off the Linus quilts; one infant, one juvenile, four teen size.  After that, a trip to JoAnn's was in order and I picked up thread and found some $2 per yard fabric for another shirt.  I think I'm trying to collect all the shirt fabrics out there, but I don't know when I'm actually going to sit and sew all these shirts.  Anyway, what's one more, right? 

And, if I don't, there's enough fabric for a good sized quilt back.

After lunch, we got back home and it was hot as the 7th gate of hell (not the 9th gate that it will be in August, but the 7th gate that it can be in June, when the humidity is really high).  Anyway, I pulled out a box of quilt fabrics I'd recently been gifted and I started to sort and wash and edge.  I spent about 4 hours playing.  I serged everything that could be washed in the machine, cutting off the juts and points from garment making scraps.  And, I pulled out the little scraps to hand wash.  I hand washed in Oxyclean to get out age stains and the damage done by the cardboard box it had been stored in.  I washed and I washed and I washed.  It was too late to set up the clothesline.  If I'd thought about it, I would have waited until the next morning when I could hang it all out, but I didn't, so I hung it over the top of every door, cabinet door, towel rod, and drawer handle in the house and by the next morning, it was all dry and ready to iron.  Oops, didn't think of that.  All that ironing...

I don't know anything about this box yet, except it said "Sudie's quilt scraps" on the outside.  I'll be asking about it today and figuring out who I need to send the thank you card to, because it was full of lovely, lovely, lovely, loveliness that you are going to drool over.  When I can get pictures up here. 

Anyway, that was very stress relieving fun, even laundering it all and folding several yards of new to me vintage fabrics.  Some of these are old enough to be 36" from selvage to selvage, which I haven't seen in many years on commercially woven fabrics.  And, they're heavy cottons and several are prints that I've seen recreated in the 30's repro fabrics that we can buy now.  I even found a flour sack print with big purple flowers on it.

Sunday morning, I decided I was ready to start my new kitchen curtains.  So, I pulled out my very vintage pattern and figured out what I was going to do and I started cutting and I worked on that almost all day long, finishing up after supper last night.  Funny thing about vintage patterns.  You have to be careful.  All the curtain pattern pieces were there, uncut and factory folded, but the instructions were for a shirt.  So, I had to fall back on all my sewing skills to figure it out.

We took Rob shopping and picked up a couple of things for our upcoming vacation and had a big lunch out, with all the other folks honoring the Fathers.  Sydney made him a pie that came out so dense and rich that we could barely eat it...one of those decadent things that is so sweet it makes your teeth hurt and while you're eating it, you're thinking 'I don't want any more', but you just keep going and going because you can't really stop until it's all gone...but tomorrow, you'll try to remember to ask for a smaller piece. 

At some point, I got so busy, I lost track of the day and suddenly it was evening again and I hadn't done any cleaning or watering.  But, it was a blissful and stress free weekend after such a stressful week as the last one was.

This morning, I started working on things I should have been doing all weekend.  I spent my quilting time cleaning up the sewing room and after I walked the dog, I watered the flower pots in my garden and after that and making breakfast, I had to rush to the office and didn't have a spare moment to upload a post with any pictures.  And any time I did have for blogging,  I spent wiping up and clearing away the detritus that had collected all over the place while I wasn't watching. 

So, today, you'll have to content yourself with the promise of pictures of some beautiful vintage quilting objects and a new set of curtains, and this quickly written post about how important it is to recharge after the hectic blast that every day life can become.  I'm proud of both Rob and I for handling our situation as well as we did and glad that we've reached that point where we can both just retreat and wait until we're in a better frame of mind to handle life's little crises.  And, I'm glad that I have somebody to weather the storms with. 

Be well.  I hope you had a wonderful weekend, without the need to use it to de-stress.  And, I hope it's cooler where you are, because we're dancing around the hundred degree mark every day, with no rain in the forecast, cursing all those times I said

Rain, rain, go away;
Little Lane-y wants to play.