A break for freedom

Accepting that I will not likely make that last batch of tomato sauce for the freezer, I put the Romas on the compost pile. My kitchen table is my own again. Also finished up a couple of small projects—installing the smoke detector/carbon monoxide monitor, sewing two sheets together for a duvet cover, and finding all the pieces to put together a pillow cover pieced and quilted years ago. It is good to get these things done.

I try not to let inanimate objects bully me. I try to keep around only the projects that I will really finish one day, but the projects go and multiply on me, and either stamina or interest fails on me. It must be a good sign somehow that lately I have been finishing up old, old projects. Quilted the last few stitches on my first quilt. Figured out how to use two types of frames—the lap version made of PVC pipe and the big cherry floor model.

The living room’s winter furniture arrangement can accommodate the big quilt frame, which is now set up with a queen size quilt made of flannel squares. The piecing and part of the quilting date back at least two houses—this is how I think of my personal history—or is it three? No, I think it was while I was living in Brooklyn that I put together simple four-square blocks of flannel, set them on an angle with single squares, and started quilting with big stitch.

The same light that gives me morning light therapy is perfect for lighting this big project. I work on it at least a few stitches a day. Oddly, I do not feel intimidated or bullied by this very large project, not nearly as much as I do by my mending basket or the floors that need vacuuming.

Simplify. I have enough projects to hold me for years, maybe decades. Unless I am absolutely overcome, I don’t buy new ones these days, and I count this one of the benefits of having less free cash than I once did. From time to time I find treasures among my stash, and I have as much fun doing old projects as I once had acquiring them. If I lived a place where it was easier to shop, I might give in more readily, but I am enjoying the freedom of this simpler life.

Today I think I will make a batch of dog toys. Even at the Dollar Store, they cost something, and the squeakers are dangers to growing puppies. I can take a batch of scraps, some leftover stuffing, an hour or two with scissors and sewing machine, and I will get the same result a week from now: a layer of stuffing an inch deep on my living room rug and happy, boisterous puppies. Free and priceless.