Saturday, December 26, 2020

Hello 2021 - Quilting and Camping

 I'm Back!

I haven't written a blog post since August 2019. Holy Cow, what a year its been. 2020 is the year of the awful "P" - Politics, Pandemic, and the Passing of my sweet husband Saul.

Quilting was one of the main activities that helped me survive. It has been my life line - creating, making, and friendship with my quilting buddies (virtually in most cases).

So, now like most of my quilty friends, I shop for fabric on-line, attend quilt guild meetings by Zoom, and have plenty of time to finish up quilts and even start a few new ones.

About this time of year, I usually contemplate the past year and develop some quilting goals for the next year. Actually much of this year is a fog. A fog made up of Saul's illness and temporary entry into an assisted living facility, our separation due to Covid, his passing and my grief and loneliness. I'm beginning to emerge from that fog.  

I guess if I had to sum up 2020 in terms of quilting it would be "Finish It Up" and "What do I do now?" What am I going to do now that I have lost the person I most wanted to show my quilts to.  I also lost my part time teaching job at Mea Bernina, which closed its orange doors for good due to tough economic times experienced by many small businesses during the shutdowns caused by Covid.  The country has lost over 300,000 people as of now and a vaccine has just been released. 

The country and I have lost a lot, but we've also gained some things - time with the people who are in our bubble, a slower pace of life, an appreciation of the things we are missing and may have taken for granted.  Personally I have gained an amount of freedom that I have never had in my life before. So with this new freedom, I've been concentrating on finishing up some quilts.

So now my future is basically open to me and my question is "What do I do now?"

I'm going to take some time to figure that out, but I know it will involve quilting, designing quilts, teaching quilting, taking quilting
workshops and going on retreats. 

I've also experimented with camping in my new little trailer Trudy. My sewing machine comes with me and I sew on picnic tables in campgrounds - so far in Kansas, Indiana, and Texas.

So 2021 will be filled with Quilting and Camping. Specifics to be determined.

Curious about my life without Saul . . .