Gettin' Crackin'

For many people--and I am one of them--in recent years the Christmas season has been a time of sadness rather than joy.  Events in our lives have conspired to make it a time of tears (and compensation eating) and hopelessness concerning our ability to change our circumstances.   One of the ways that I dealt with Christmas this year was to stay busy--because that way you have less time to focus on things you can't change--and, hopefully accomplish something constructive.  Less moping and more hoping.  I did a LOT of sewing.  And creating something out of nothing made things a bit better each time I sat down at the machine.
When we moved back to the mountains of North Carolina, I got rid of all of my scraps--except the batiks.  You can see the big basket of them in the first picture.  I sifted through all of the scraps

looking for purples and creams, having decided to make a log cabin quilt.  I ironed and cut, cut and ironed, cutting strips 1 1/14" wide and then started piecing.  As the blocks came together, I really enjoyed seeing the way the colors worked together ( and as I didn't have enough cream-colored fabrics and added other light-toned ones that were in the basket).

There were no rules for the piecing.  I didn't paper piece to assure accuracy--I didn't even cut the correct sizes for the strips.  I just sewed and trimmed off the ends.  I did press the omponentsof the blocks as I went along, but I didn't press the rows of blocks until they were all sewn together.  It wasn't a show quilt--I didn't spend a lot of time on the quilting.  I just sewed and sewed and listened to Books on CDs.  It was soothing and satisfying.

And here you can see the finished quilt.  The only "new" fabric I used was for the border.  What am I going to do with it?  I don't know.  This time it was definitely the journey, not the destination.
And along the way this year, I learned a pretty good lesson.  We truly can make our own happiness.  This quilt made me happy--as did several other things during the season.  We had friends for dinner on Christmas and it was a joy-filled time .  After Christmas a friend came for several days and, together, we made a quilt for another friend.  It brought us both a sense of deep satisfaction to do something for someone else.  We also went to a movie, played cards and shopped for  yarn in a wonderful knit shop.
So. . .Was this Christmas what I would have wished for in my perfect world?  Definitely not.  However, it was pretty darn good and, for that, I am thankful.
My resolution for the New Year?  Focus, focus, focus on the things that are good.  Practice gratitude and be thankful for the people that are in my life.
May your year be filled with more blessings than you can imagine.