It's been awhile since my last post, hasn't it?
I've been sewing a lot recently, working on some new quilt blocks, scrappy strip quilt blocks with a solid black stripe in the center.
Those are two of the sixty that I've made so far. I have enough of the black fabric to make seventy-two blocks total, so I am trying to decide if I should make a quilt with the seventy-two blocks or if I should use some of the other black fabric I have even though it doesn't really match. (I never realized how many shades of black--or white or red or any other solid color--there are until I started quilting.)
I'm using up my collection of Tim Holtz fabrics to make these blocks. That fabric is beyond amazing and I had been hoarding it just because it is no longer available. (I can still find some of the prints on Etsy if I want to pay a lot for them, but I'm not at that point right now.) I go back and forth about using the really amazing fabric I've got and it's partly because I think that I'm not a skilled enough quilter to "waste" my really good fabrics on what I can do. But I don't really like that attitude either. Why shouldn't I use the good stuff?
There's an artist I follow who solicited donations of women's collections of things that their mothers or grandmothers or aunts had made (embroidered linens and tea towels, lace, crocheted doilies, and so on). She had thousands of donations from women saying that they inherited these things and wouldn't use them but also felt like they couldn't throw them out. As she began to cut and alter these things, she also got a lot of criticism from people asking how she could possibly do that to these precious things that someone else had made. Her reply stuck with me. She said that, as an artist, she was the "final acceptor" for these things that these women had made and put away because they were "too good" to use. She wrote of these women: They saved their best for never.
They saved their best for never.
Why do we do that? I can understand keeping a decently nice dress and pair of shoes in the closet so that we don't have to rush out to shop when we have to, say, attend a wedding or a funeral. But why do we keep our nicest towels or sheets or dishes for special occasions? Why isn't every day a special occasion? Don't we deserve to use our nicest things for ourselves? And if not, why not?
But I don't know how I got off on that tangent.
In addition to sewing, I've recently been binging some online media, too. I started watching Queen Charlotte last night. I like it as much as I like Bridgerton. (It's in B+ territory, I guess.) I also watched Spanglish (which I enjoyed) and A Man Called Otto (which I enjoyed despite it's being a Tom Hanks movie). I watched the final episodes of Firefly Lane (so cheesy). I've also watched The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone, Call Me By Your Name, Greenberg, Almost Australian, and way too many YouTube videos.
We've been eating at home a lot more (versus getting takeout), so I've been cooking. Over the weekend, I made green chile stew (just had a bowl of it for lunch). We've also made Korean vegetable pancakes (from a mix that we add vegetables to) a couple of times and had them with simmered chile tofu and smashed cucumber salad. We've had nachos a couple of times (quick and easy). Not sure about tonight's dinner though. Something easy, I'm sure.
4 comments:
Have you read the book A Man Called Ove?? I fell in love with the book. Haven't seen the movie, but I don't picture Tom Hanks as Ove.
Laura
Hi Laura!
I haven't read it, but I hear it's good. I just found out yesterday, while looking for more info about the movie that it was based on a novel. There is apparently another, earlier, better movie. I may watch that as well as read the novel. It's a very interesting story, reminds me a bit of Harold and Maude.
My mum was the same, she always saved her best cutlery, cups and tea towels or nice gifts for some distant time in the future and in the end she passed away without ever having used them. We put some of them in her coffin with her as we felt bad she didn't have the chance to use them. I now try to not follow in her footsteps and use the nice things I get or have in the now, so I can enjoy them. I wonder if the thinking of my mother and other mothers and grandmothers are from the war era?
Hi Kelly! I'm glad to hear you've broken the cycle. We are worth it!! I know my grandmother was the same. I associated it with the Great Depression era, but the war would also make sense, wouldn't it?
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