In Stitches

When I first began working from home, I thought I'd be able to finish all kinds of projects because I have 3.5 to 4 extra hours a day not spent commuting.

However, that commute time typically was spent crocheting, while aboard a commuter train, if I could get a seat, and if I wasn't stressing about other things. I seem to be nurturing (or sometimes fighting) a lot of stress this last couple of years or so, not just the last couple of weeks or months. I think I need to get back to crochet because it is relaxing for me, and I need to set aside some of that newly free time to be free time. Big grin.


Since last summer, I've wanted to add more motifs to my Harvest Flower project. After I dyed eight hanks of crochet thread with avocado peels/pits last year, I decided I need to make a motif project from my newest threads, too. I've been working on a new design (which I really like, by the way), but the project still isn't very big yet. And now it's almost warm enough to begin solar dyeing more crochet thread with avocado pits/skins. I've had a jar of skins going in my living room window all winter long.


I also noticed my bedroom quilt rack is down to three quilts, and only one was made by me. I gave away two finished quilts last year to women in my little community who lost their husbands. I gave away two more earlier this year to my newest nieces. I think it's time to finish up another WIP or two. Not only is the end of the quarter coming, but this quilt rack is looking too bare.


And of course, there's that green batiks leftovers pieced dress project that now has stolen three weeks of home time. I'd really love to finish it, even though I'm not sure I'll have a place to wear it when this whole virus thing blows over, assuming it does. I finished piecing the front of the skirt, and I've got five more rows of machine embroidery along the seams before I can finish up the sleeve bands. The bodice should go super fast.


I thought the dress would come first when I began working from home. But a call went out in my neighborhood for masks for nurses who live near me. I happily donated my time and some freshly washed pillowcases I've had in my linen closet for several years. Pillowcases and T-shirts are supposed to be the next best thing, stopping about 50 percent of germs, if you have no interfacing to put between layers of cotton. I have no interfacing. So I did the best I could with what I had on hand, being as we are officially on Shelter in Place.


So the very last thing I needed to do was start yet another a new project. Before the virus hit the US, I stuck the bottom of a skirt from Dharma in an empty pretzel jar of fiber-reactive dye in our garage. It froze every single night, and sometimes it thawed during the day. I spent my lunch hour one work-at-home day wringing out the project and hanging it to dry in our backyard. Lizard LOVES this project. Every time he catches a glimpse of the skirt out the window in the breeze, he tells me he can't wait to see me wearing it.


Which got me thinking. What would I wear with it? I still have three undyed long-sleeved shirts from two or three years ago, so I stuck one in the same pretzel jar of dye I used used for the skirt, hoping it would be a lighter but matching shade.


Another dressy outfit I'm not sure I'll have a place to wear when and if things get back to normal. But it is pretty. I cannot wait to see how I look in my new Deep Space ensemble! I might even have to stick a hank of thread or yarn in that dye pot so I can make another accessory to match!!!


Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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