A Colorful Thread: March 2020
Weaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life.
Best of Stitched in Color {March}
On My Mind
Experimenting:: with the Swatch Service from The Confident Stitch. It brings fabrics to your mailbox via a curated swatch card. There are different cards for different interests. This super-fun and cheery Quilting Cottons collection is called Tea with The Queen in the 1960’s.
Choosing quilting cottons online is one thing, but choosing fabrics for garment sewing is soooo hard to do remotely. Of course one can reach out to the store for advice, but it’s even better to feel fabric swatches in real life. On their swatch card mailer, The Confident Stitch has even paired each garment fabric with particular garment pattern suggestions. I have the Warm Tones card, but there is also a Cool Tones garment collection.
Reading:: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. This memoir is profound and exquisitely written. The voice is a brilliant neurosurgeon facing his own mortality upon a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer. It sounds as if it would be morbid, but the book is absolutely about life, meaning and purpose. It’s also about dying well. It would be impactful at any time, but especially with the current health crisis, it’s a thought-provoking read.
Following:: Penny @SewTakeaHike. Actually, I’ve been following Penny for ages, from the very beginning of my quilty journey. I’m so glad she’s still playing with fabric and sharing her patchwork online! Scrappy flying geese, anyone?
Anticipating:: receiving a shipment from Fenceline Fabrics. There are a few goodies heading my way, including this gorgeous fabric called Metcombe Navy Whitehaven from Cloud 9. It will make a fabulous backing for my Confetti quilt! I can’t wait to see it in person.
image by Fenceline Fabrics
Of course the covid-19 health crisis is on my mind, as it is on yours. Social distancing is not so hard, but one of its challenges is that the end is not quite in sight. We don’t know when it will end or how this will progress during the rest of 2020. It’s unsettling, to say the least. but we do know that we’ll have to work together to find a solution.
Last night I read this article which imagines how the world might change for the better as a result of facing certain difficult realities due to covid-19. It’s a complex article, but one takeaway is that we have a choice about what we value most. If we choose to value life, that might mean we need to be open to a different world that protects the wellbeing of all.
xo,
Rachel
