Back to normal and busy

 Yes, I realize that all this stuff I'm doing is about anxiety over the election and pandemic.  But, if spending several hours baking sweets and cutting a new quilt project are how I deal with it, that doesn't seem so bad to me.  I'm sure there are lots of people having a worse go of it than I am.  

For the new project, Rob has asked me to reproduce this quilt.  Some of you may remember this quilt.  It's an early quilt that was 3/4 quilted when I realized I'd made a mistake and I picked all the quilting out of it and started over, and replaced the border.  It's supposed to look like falling leaves building up on the ground.  It looks like someone developed that pattern and they used fewer leaves and more background space.  I'll likely do some of that, too.  

Rob wants me to reproduce it in batiks.  So, I've gone to the bin and pulled out my scraps and am away!  There's about 600 pieces and I've cut about 100, but that includes ironing all the fabrics and scraps I cut from.  Hopefully there won't be that much more of that.  

I also signed up for a class next Saturday.  That seemed very optimistic and hopeful that civil war won't have broken out by then.  It's a class by Sheila Frampton-Cooper called Express your true self:  one piece at a time.  It's totally improv piecing.  You can see more of her work at https://www.zoombaby.com.  

We'll be working with solid fabrics and I opened my bin of solids and found that there were only mediums and darks, no lights.  So, I bought a bundle of light solids and they came in Saturday and have been washed and ironed.  I never thought I'd be interested in improv piecing.  I am a rigid pattern follower who prides himself on finally being able to follow a pattern, but sometimes you need something new.  Even if I only make one small quilt from this class, it will teach me something and I will be inspired in my work.  

In addition to several hours of surging new fabrics and ironing them I also worked in the garden.  In addition to regular chores, I've started digging and dividing the iris and daylilies.  I've made several small pots to give away or for Rob to use and I've put a large pot of iris corms in a bucket out on the street with a free sign.  I'm also putting in the plants I bought over the summer, knowing I was going to want to dig and divide this section of the bed this year.  I have plants small plants that will grow low and should be in bloom all across the summer because I bought them in bloom all across the summer and have been holding onto them.  But, about the only thing in bloom right now is these mums.  They're the only pot of mums I ever bought in the fall and was able to keep alive and they're at least 2 years old.  They're so cheerful and the blooms are only about the size of a quarter.  

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Over the rest of this week, we will find out how strong our country is.  We will find out whether we believe in right strongly enough to make it happen in the face of adversity.  

I'd been living in a bubble of imagined safety.  But, the trumpists trying to run the Biden bus off the road near Austin on Saturday has convinced me that there is nowhere in our country that is truly safe from hate, racism, and bigotry.  

Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.  For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me...  (Wow, look at me quoting scripture from memory!).  

What we do will influence a generation and how they feel about hate and bigotry and racism and corruption and lies and fascism and right and good and compassion.  

Everybody have a safe week.  Lane