Purposeful Stitching

I am working on my 12 by 12 for the Orange Reveal on September 1.  Needle turn appliqué. This is the process I enjoy the most of any of the "quilting" techniques.  It makes me feel like I have actually created beauty and art.  The other methods are faster and easier.  I use them.  But the work doesn't have the lasting satisfaction of stitching the edge with invisible, well intentioned stitches.  I could have been done by now, if I had zigzagged the pieces to the base.  But, I decided to please myself this time.

How often do we choose the most expedient way of doing something?  Get it done as quickly as possible.  Today, I am slowing down, being purposeful in every thing I do.  From peeling a cucumber for my lunch, to washing out the dog bowls for Riley's lunch (he "asked" for his lunch today), to threading a needle with matching thread and stitching slowly and thoughtfully on a small piece of cloth.

The pieces I have made with needle turn are the pieces I turn to for comfort.  I love to trace my finger tips over the raised edges of each bit of cloth sewn down to create flowers, circles or even whole chickens.  I was reconnected to this love of mine by Spirit Cloth's Feather Friday videos.  While I watched the videos (how to's of needle turn appliqué) the desire to work with the fabric and thread was over powering.  I gave in, gratefully. Gracefully.  I will eventually make a feather.  Perhaps one of the pieced, stripe feathers as well as the embroidered Magic Feather.  For now, I am stitching carrots.

My horoscope for the past few days has been about letting go.  Being satisfied with the "now" and letting go of the past and forgetting about the future.  I think I spend entirely too much time in the past and future. Rethinking past mistakes and projecting those mistakes into the future.  Meanwhile, the present is wasted. I need to do a MUCH better job of staying in the "here and now".

For the moment, I am present and accounted for.  I have my delightful Cadfael mysteries, instead of crappy television.  I now have my stitching to fill the afternoon pleasantly as the Blue Angels fly over the house practicing for the air show this weekend.

 I can hear the jet engines as they arrived in town.  Tomorrow, a practice day, it will be raining.  If things work out, they won't be able to fly for the third scheduled visit in a row do to cloud cover and poor visibility.  Show visitors will be surprised at the $25 per person gate entrance fee.  We don't have a Naval Base any more.  The US Government isn't picking up the "tab" for jet fuel this time.  Really, they should be practicing.  I wonder if they have visibility issues today, as well.  Too bad.  With all my trees cut down, I could have seen the jets as they fly over my house.  I'm 6000 feet from the end of  the runway.

Riley is barking.  I need to check the garden, pick green beans.  And if it stays cool, bake a loaf of chocolate zucchini bread for the gang at work.  Saturday I teach a class on dividing perennials.  One of my favorites.  Feels like Autumn has already arrived, bringing my birthday.  Twenty five days and I will be Sixty Five. I've gotten so much mail (medicare) in the past two months, I feel like this is a "big one" in the birthday department.

Lunch is leftover, overbrowned and baked, cauliflower pizza.  Perfect.  Chewy.  Very much like "real" cold, leftover pizza.  Nothing like cauliflower.