Riding the Roller Coaster of Life

Well, I certainly didn't expect to fall off that cliff. After a very productive couple of days building a new baby quilt for the Little Lambs Foundation work came to an abrupt halt. Granted, it was a natural stopping point. All that remains is some kind of outer border treatment. However, my attention has been turned elsewhere. In spite of the fact that I spend most of my days sheltering in place due to my chemical sensitivities the ripple effect of the coronavirus pandemic has somehow taken a toll on my creativity and productivity. Maybe because every member of our household falls into the high risk category for Covid-19 for one reason or another. Just getting weekly groceries has become a more hazardous mission than in the past. That makes non-essential items not worth the effort to procure if they can't be had via an online vendor. As it turns out, not all of them are - at least not at a price I'm willing to pay. So my retail therapy options are more limited than ever before. That's enough to depress anyone I guess.

Son and I did venture out to purchase a half-barrel in which to plant the Roald Dahl rose bush I ordered before the virus took over the world. Fortunately, hardware and garden centers are still open for business. They have been deemed essential, no doubt for the health and well being of the general public! And we actually had cleaner air around our home that day so we were able to clean the deck and get the rose settled into place.

I want to get some annuals to plant around the baby rose to give the barrel some color while it gets established. I'm thinking we may need to uproot the rose, put more soil in the barrel, and then replant it. I didn't realize it was sitting so low in the pot until after we had a rain shower overnight.

One of our smaller pots has some volunteer violets in amongst the weeds.

I have a hard time getting outdoors to do any weeding or other gardening due to the noxious fumes that emanate from neighboring homes. It cheers me up no end to see a bit of color through my windows. Around the side of our house the rosemary is in bloom too. There aren't any windows over there though. 😞

At about the time that work stopped on the baby quilt (which I will eventually share with you in another post) my friend C~ brought over a needlepoint kit she thought I would enjoy stitching up for her. She'd found it at a thrift shop, obviously a souvenir from someone's cruise.

Her husband refers to their only granddaughter as "Princess." She asked me if I could just stitch that word and cover up the word 'Cruises.' Yes, I could. But that would have left 'Princess' shoved all the way to the top of the cosmetic case and left a lot of empty space between the word and the rest of the design. So to begin with I shifted 'Princess' down a bit. I also did my best to shift those little white flowers up a bit.

This project was just what I needed. It gave me the opportunity to do some rhythmic, mindless basketweave stitching for the background. Now I'm tackling the smaller, more detailed areas. I'm finding myself drawn to other embroidery projects too. Something about working on small, hand-held projects has more appeal than trying to work out a quilt plan on the design wall or even cutting patches. I'd even be pleased to sew down a binding on any - or all - of the quilts that are ready for that last step. I just need to get the bindings onto the quilts. If only I could muster up the energy that requires...