Homely

Something new I’m experiencing – at almost 67 years old (Thursday!). Going back to a project months or years later, continuing. Mending. Assembling and reassembling. Reusing. This feels new. Or maybe it feels old – something our ancestors used to do often before our throw-away cultural habits really kicked in.

I’m mending my large sofa cloth. I’ve added one full nine-patch and a few squares. Next I might quilt some of it. It will be on the table for awhile. I think that means I will have to wash it after it’s been used as a tablecloth.

And I wanted to take another look at my golden houses. This project went on the shelf last May when the garden work started taking priority. I was also uncertain about how to use them. I recently visualized just a simple layout with scrap borders separating the pieces. I’ve decided not to care that the houses are right-side up only from one angle. I think this design was inspired by looking at Jude’s alphabet quilt photos.

So I pulled them off the shelf and found a piece of linen big enough for mounting them in a layout I can look at. I might move a few of them around, but this is basically the idea. Now to decide if I want to embellish the houses more – I think yes. But I can also start piecing strips to go between them, to join the blu-ish backgrounds together. Sounds like fun!

One of the many reasons I like Jude’s blog is she talks about thoughts so much. There is a lot to think about thoughts. I’m now thinking each project is embroidered with thoughts. This one thinks about domesticity and cobbling together a home. I’ve been thinking a lot about all the makers that labored to create textiles for the home, some more “artsy” than others, but all mostly utilitarian. This feels a comfortable crowd to belong to.

We had a lot of snow. It feels like real winter. The sun came out very briefly yesterday.