The Mess of Creativity -

Some days there isn’t a lot to share!

By the time I got back to the house from filling book/ruler orders at the QPO it was 4pm, with just a couple of hours before dinner to deal with what was in the above photo.

My plan?  To cut pieces to sew into units in that 2 hour span – making daily progress on our next round for the Unity Quilt Along.

Well, remember that thing called PUPPY!?

And while we were in a break between bouts of rain, we rain Zoey out hoping that she would settle into the evening hours.

Only, by 9:00 p.m. she was still so wound up we had to do it again.  In the dark.  With an umbrella. 

SO. MUCH. PUPPY!

And she has seriously been the best thing one could acquire when pandemicking from home.  Never a dull moment.

Zoey, come!  Zoey, Stay.  ZOEY!!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!

It’s like having a toddler.

Some piles are here to the side of my cutting table.

I’m going to need to spend some time reorganizing because this quilt has turned into a frenzy of HURRY SEWING.  And we all know what happens with hurry sewing.

Mis-cuts, wrong fabrics, loads of seam ripping. And where is that rotary cutter?  There have to be at least THREE on this table, but can I find them?

Not here, but I found that bag of neutral strips!

AHA!

It’s a good thing that the aqua rotary cutter is the one at the QPO or it’s likely it would still be hidden under this pile of strips I’d been cutting from.

That little blue bin?  It is holding all of the trimmed off corners from Monday’s center.  I want to do something with those.  Even if I just border the label or something.

What did I get accomplished while potatoes were baking? (We did stuffed baked potatoes and salad for dinner – yummy! I baked a couple of extra potatoes with the batch and will do pan friend potatoes from those with another meal this week.)

CUTTING.  NO SEWING. Pieces laid out by the machine.  But no sewing.

Because???

This.

This 35 lb girl thinks she is still a lap puppy.

And I’m not going to make her realize otherwise.

This is comfort.

This is bonding.

This is love.

And it will all be okay.

I laughed about this all day long.

My little sister Mary (She’s 37 with 4 kids, but she will always be the baby sister!) sent a message saying the kids were singing “Bring back Aunt Bonnie to me, to me….”  I miss these kids!

I also really appreciate the busy moms who in the midst of all of this have taken on homeschooling (harder than raising a puppy!) their children to keep them current with the school year until school resumes after Summer break. 

What a job.  These moms are heros!

Other unsung heros:

From the Charlotte Observer:

Amid warnings of an impending shortage of protective equipment for medical staff, a Gastonia NC based textile company is organizing a national effort to ramp up production of face masks for healthcare workers.

Parkdale Mills Inc., one of the country’s largest yarn spinners, is working with companies like Hanesbrand, Fruit of the Loom, and six others to build a manufacturing supply chain for the masks, the National Council of Textile Organizations said in a press release.

The decision, according to NCTO, “heeds call of nation” to help. [source]

This makes me SO HAPPY.  I know it will take some time to get them into the places where they are needed most – but it’s a start.

And I hope it will continue.  Living in the south, it’s been really sad realizing that most of our once abundant and thriving textile industry has been moved overseas.  Where once many mills stood creating product and providing jobs and livelihoods – it’s been reduced to minimal over the past several decades.

I would love to see industry come back to our country so that we don’t find ourselves cut off from places that are unable to provide what we need.

Maybe it’s naïve of me to think this way – but putting all of our eggs in someone else’s basket gives the power to the basket holders. 

This is a wonderful thing.

Once at full capacity (in about four to five weeks) the coalition expects to produce up to 10 million face masks per week.

And the call for home made masks continues in the mean time, and I love the stories from around the country of quilters and sewists banding together to make colorful cheerful masks that although do not protect against Covid-19, are helpful and useful in many ways.

So please keep it up – we are in this for the long haul!

And next – it’s time to draw for the winner of the March 2020 Quilty Box!

This was a lovely box, and the projects are great!  For the more info, click to the original post.

Who is 621 of 4535 entries?

LeAnn Ryan!

Congrats, LeAnn – I have sent you an email to the address you provided with your entry.  Please reply with your mailing address so I can have the folks at Quilty Box get your prize off to you.  I hope this helps brighten your shelter-at-home time!

There will be more goodies coming soon so stay tuned.

Quiltville Quote of the Day -

Miracles are everywhere.

You just have to stop, pay attention and appreciate the little things.

Or the puppy things.

Will I get to sewing today? (It may be a miracle in itself!)

Enjoy your Wednesday, everyone!