I almost didn't get anything made for February. Back in January I did tie-dying with my Home Ec class. While they were doing bandanas, I was doing pieces of fabric, thinking I would use them in my February journal quilt, since I had never done tie-dying before, so it would qualify as my "new technique of the month. Well, those pieces of fabric sat around, not inspiring me at all. I just didn't have any ideas. Then I cut up some old jeans to use in a someday jeans quilt for my son, and thought I might try one of the ideas I had seen on the About.com forum for using blue jeans. Maybe I could even combine the blue jeans and tie-dye. Seemed appropriate. Never got off the ground. Then I thought about making a miniature Cathedral Windows quilt, which is something else I've always wanted to try. That didn't inspire me either. There were several other uninspiring thoughts along the way, then I thought I could do a small landscape, which is something else I've always wanted to try. I couldn't come up with any appropriate fabrics for the scene I had in mind. That was two days ago. I finally went back to the tie-dye fabric, and decided it would make nice butterflies. That seemed entirely appropriate for my state of mind over the past month. Not the freedom of being a butterfly, but the inability to stay focused or "land" on something for any length of time. I wanted to get this done quickly, before my attention flitted away, so I didn't even finish the edges of the fabric squares. I gathered the middle, starched the heck out of them, and only sewed the middle to the background. (By the way, I went through several different backgrounds before deciding to go all the way with tie-dyed fabric.) I put fray-check around the edges of the butterflies so they wouldn't ravel. I didn't think quilting it would add anything, so I just made the back, layered it and bound it. That was day 1. The next day I found some things to embellish it: silver Christmas stars on wire, rhinestones and tiny pearls on a string. Fabric glue, and voila! a journal page.
I found a nice quote by Robert Louis Stevenson for the back: "To be what we are and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life." A butterfly symbolizes becoming something new, so I liked the thought.
I have to say I am not as happy with this one as I was with January. It seems so crafty, if you know what I mean. It is not sophisticated or very artistic. But it does reflect my state of mind right now. On June 15th we will be leaving Suriname and going back to the U.S. After a year there, we will be moving to Belgium.
My thoughts are bouncing between multiple categories right now.
1) Teaching music, home economics and yearbook until the end of the school year. It is really difficult to continue the daily stuff when you know a big change is coming. I also have to think about the end-of-year program and the mad dash to finish the yearbook by our deadline.
2) Finding buyers for most of our furniture and lots of other stuff. Most of what we own is not worth the cost of shipping it home, and we won't need it in the house we have in the U.S.
3) Finding homes for our pets - 2 dogs, 2 cats (who don't get along together) and 4 hamsters. This worries me a lot more than getting rid of the "stuff."
4) Packing things to be shipped. Most of this can't happen yet, because we still need our stuff! But I'm still thinking about it. We also have to arrange for shipping.
5) Arranging for our transportation and our travel schedule this summer. Our "job" for the year is to visit all the churches who support us, so they will continue to support us in the future. Although we will be living in NC, we will be traveling to CA for the summer, and we have to be in IN by July 21 for meetings at our mission headquarters. Then back to NC in time for school to start in early August. Oh, yeah, and we have to buy a van for all of this driving.
6) Thinking about future plans for moving to Europe. This isn't so pressing, but some things have to be done now.
7) Quilting projects and commitments. I still want to keep up with my Women of the Bible quilt, and the Journal quilts, besides other projects that I just want to do. I haven't actually finished anything in a while, other than a couple of baby quilts and these journal quilts.
8) Finally, regular wife and mother stuff - cooking, laundry, cleaning, taking kids everywhere, etc., etc., etc. I put this last on purpose. It has to be done, but generally gets put way down on the list. I realized this morning that my kids have been out of shampoo in their bathroom for a week. They did tell me about it; I just haven't done anything about it.
Whew! If I look at the whole list, it's easy to get overwhelmed. But usually I am able to just do the thing that is in front of me now, and not stress over everything else. However, I think this journal quilt experience is an indication to me of how far I am being stretched at the moment. I am normally not a "short attention span" type of person. I find I am also forgetting lots of things (like the shampoo).
Sorry this was so long. That was a lot of reading for a simple little journal quilt! Time to flit off to something else...
