Category Archives: House quilts

A good day to…

It’s a good day to finish this little Village Quilt. I’ll fold the top edge over for a dowel sleeve and trim the edges. I ended up putting a layer of cotton batting in this one.

Also a good day to put garden things away and bring more plants indoors. Pillows and rugs are out for sun and air. I wiped away the mold lining the plastic rails of one section of the deck (only eight sections to go). Vacuumed the downstairs and wiped crud off a few kitchen cupboards.

But here’s the thing about domestic chores: they satisfy the soul; they enhance the peace of one’s space; they make one feel virtuous. At a time of horrific news, it’s hard not to think of these jobs as anything but privileges.

Speaking of homes. The wasp’s nest that I found recently seemed, at first glance, completely dried out and empty. After several days of rain, this morning I picked up the now-soggy structure and saw the tip of a wasp head. By squeezing, not unlike releasing cloves from a baked head of garlic, a body emerged. There were many more.

I don’t think I did anything to speed their demise but I’m not really sure. It’s been just sitting outside since I picked it up, just as it would’ve sat on the median strip of grass had I not picked it up. Anyone know these things?

K and I watched The Burial last night. Great characters, based on a true story, one about the little guy taking on the big, fat, greedy, smug, rapacious corporate guy. Who doesn’t love a David and Goliath story?

We have sun today after a pounding rain yesterday. I performed my usual neighborly duty of pulling amassed leaves from the sewer grate at the bottom of our street’s hill. Water collecting there can and has reached our basement. By the time I got out there, the water was three-four inches deep. Talk about satisfying jobs!

One tug, two, twelve — fistfuls of wet leaves tossed to the median in great splats until one eddy formed, and then another, and then a great onrush of water into a now echoing, revealed sewer. The puddle cleared in about ten minutes.

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/ZqEK0nBg/img_9003-1.mp4

Clip from The Burial is 2m long and please know I don’t expect people to necessarily view it. I like to save these things for my own sense of things. It’s a wonderful monologue though and speaks to so much of what is wrong with the right wing’s critiques of CRT, their book burning, etc.

Believe me, I know that “etc.” is doing a lot of work here.

Nine years ago

Yesterday, someone left a comment on another YouTube video I made (once upon a time) and it led me here.

The video shows the background-audition process for a small row of connected felt houses. It reminds me of how much I (used to?) enjoy this stuff. Well, I still enjoy it but watching this made me feel like something’s been lost.

The video also offers up the impressions of being in Colorado for a college tour when we heard the news about the Boston bombing. There are images of the fretful travel home, too.

I’m posting it here because I don’t really spend time over at YouTube. It’s a little over three minutes long.

* the Marathon Bombing was ten years ago. The video nine years ago.

** 2013 was when I signed up for twitter. My son’s updates showed that it was generally 30 – 60 minutes ahead of the news cycle. I guess ten years was a pretty good run for a richly diverse and reliable news/opinion platform.

Woods, words, and stitch

Discovered a new park. Less than two miles away!

Reading my book again. Primary take away: it’s really good and I shouldn’t give up (good thing that’s my takeaway because I checked Query Tracker this morning and there it was in red : 49 queries, 100% rejected). It’s also good to reread to catch more typos or content questions.

Mixing cowries and pawpaws? Must research a little more and then fix.

Still life. I’m gonna make a heart for myself. What do you think of that?

I continue to populate this one with windows and roof outlines. With all the dire climate news this and last week, part of me wants to either : fill in all blank areas with scarlet red stitches or surround the piece as is with some of the Global Warming sections I have downstairs. They’re full of hot colors, swirls for storm maps, out-of-control vegetation — all overstitched with words like “hoax” and “try raking the forest.”

What is THIS?
Sweetspire everywhere!

Happy fourth everyone! I may listen to Frederick Douglass’s speech as read by James Earl Jones over on YouTube later this afternoon.

Smoke and grief

That sky is not filled with clouds. It’s filled with smoke. K and I managed a walk around the lake without feeling any harm, but I talked to one friend who has to stay indoors because her chest hurts trying to breathe this air.

We’ve been hard at gardening for the last hour and I think I’m done. It’s hot. It’s muggy. Gardening is satisfying and worthy of reporting but that’s not why I’m here today.

I’m here to say how much grief I feel about the Supreme Court going rogue.

Should I drape the house in black cloth? Wear my clothes inside out? I want to tap “SOS” in Morse code to the heavens.

When we lose a loved one, we cover mirrors, wear black armbands, attend a service, and pray (and by “we” I mean other people). There are many reasons why, but two good ones are to share the burden of it and to signal our loss to complete strangers.

What can we do now?

(What a day for Elmo Musk to institute bizarre viewing limits. Twitter might finally be broken. His timing feels intentional. Sharing outrage with like-minded people online is not nothing.)

There have been conservative courts before. There have been really bad decisions. Really bad. But the level of disregard for law and fact and basic procedure has reached epic proportions. Worse, this flagrant disregard is being wielded in service of Christian Oligarchic Nationalism.

I want to drape my house in black. Wear my clothes inside out. Tap SOS to any angels in the area.

If I were an influencer I’d start the hashtag: SCROTUS.

As Joyce Vance says at the end of her Substack entries: We’re in this together.