There ARE advantages!! Finding joy.

 

Life is very different right now...and it can be very frustrating...especially if you listen/watch/read the news!!! Between the virus, elections and climate change it seems hard to find joy.

Therefore, I suggest you turn your eyes away from those topics! And consider the huge amount that can be learned online.  I found a lovely little tutorial on a piano piece I'm struggling to learn by myself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MCQ5hpkQZM

And there are you tubes on just about Everything!!

Here's one based on a lecture I gave at the local library:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihQDn9f-Qqw

and one on that very pleasant activity - ironing!

https://youtu.be/-kUEGpEHAYQ

I'm using a program called Filmic Pro to make the videos for my online classes - and there are some really neat little videos about how to use it.  

But you know...there are actual advantages to being so restricted in one's life!!!

Both my daughters had horrible commutes to work (one in New York, one in Atlanta - cities notorious for traffic) -  and now they're working from home and have two extra hours to the day...as well as less stress.

Cities are realizing that outdoor dining is much safer than indoor...and very popular! anyone who's visited Paris know that the outdoor cafes are immensely popular and busy everywhere...and so much better for people watching.

I used to work in a big health Center, they built a new one..I said make sure the windows open - oh no ,they said, the architects don't like that!!!  much better to have controlled air!! ha!! now they know that the safest air of all is....outside air!  

Another advantage: we're eating much more healthily, we get local produce (including mushrooms) delivered from local farms. Fast food is DEATH!!!  And as a Vegan I could rarely find anything palatable at the local restaurants anyway.  

Even the mushrooms are Socially distanced in the park!

I really missed dancing...but then discovered it is perfectly possible to dance at home.  Plus I get to choose the music!  No more hackneyed Country and Western for me, I never have to listen to that awful Possum song again!!  No more tired swing tunes from the 40s - you can swing to anything!

In fact, I've discovered the very best music to dance to is........ Bach.  Try it!!!  

I was missing people....so I took my Bach to the Park!  and a group of us...8 feet apart...now dance to Bach every wednesday morning - you are welcome to come and join us!  If you hold your breath and ask them to hold theirs...you can even get a quick hug too!  Bach and hugs!!! This is bliss!

I have ten online classes right now with www.academyofquilting.com  - I asked the Dean to make them all available, you don't have to wait to join a class. 

Also, while playing around with the fabric I had at home (although I did sin a bit with online ordering from Mood fabrics in New York!) I came up with a really neat idea for a bed quilt.  Ever so easy, but..it also illustrates all the basic design principles.  I'm filming it now...will let ya'll know when it's done.  It will just be a short fun class, maybe 3 lessons.

So very many ways to find joy.

Please write and tell me what you have discovered...the positive side of our trying times.

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!!

Elizabeth

decluttering in the time of the plague

 oh my Lord are you fed up with decluttering??? I know I am!

at first i thought...stay home and stay safe ...what a wonderful chance to do the death cleaning I've always wanted to achieve!

BUT that was before I tried to tackle the clutter in a house where 4-6 people have lived and collected and collected and stored and stored for 31 years!!  A house with not only at least two large closets in every room, but also masses of roof space!!

However, sometimes amidst the clutter you come across things you'd forgotten about!

i found all the antique quilt tops I'd collected many years ago...I do want to finish one of them!  it's a raucous orange!!  which will look wonderful in my blue North facing bedroom...

the best way to judge the age of an old quilt top is by the fabric...I think this one will be mid 20th century

.but that leaves me with about 5 I'd like to sell...plus a couple of dozen feed sacks...and a stack of blocks!!!

Making clothes and quilts from feed sacks became popular in the depression era...here's a good article about it: https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/07/how-depression-era-women-made-dresses-out-of-chicken-feed.html

The top below, however, is made from old shirts cut up...another way for women to be creative even though their resources were extremely limited...

I like the little funky mixes of fabric.

The tops are laid out on a queen size bed by the way...my new air bed!!! LOVE air beds!  I shall never buy a mattress again...apart from anything else you can move these so easily.  and about a tenth of the cost...however..don't invite your daughter and her partner and her large dog to play and sleep on one all together!!!! pffffffffffff..........

An old grandmother's flower garden pattern...many of the flowers are feed sack material...these are hand stitched...

Here's another really lively one...I love the way the rather severe blocks seem to float on the flowers!!!

The one below is small but very elegant in its crispness...probably a little older.just one little hole though...

And this one never got finished!!  it would have been huge!  but I kinda like the fact that the center is now off center!!!!

So if you're interested, contact me at elizabethyork100 AT yahoo dot com...

but also please comment on what you have done with these fascinating old tops..and also if you know what the feedsacks and old blocks actually sell for right now....I'd be most curious.

and what you found when you were at home de-cluttering thanks to the virus!!

and so...back to death cleaning!!!!not that I'm planning on dying imminently!

and, if you have been, thanks for reading...

take care!!  but remember to have fun too....

Elizabeth