The first week of 2021!

 

Good morning, or afternoon, to everyone!!!  I have been working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, "Grassy Creek.".  The final pattern has been revealed, and you can still find all the steps for free, here, until February 12th.

Quiltville's Quips & Snips!!: Grassy Creek Mystery - the Big Reveal! (Part Seven)

Now this is the reveal post, keep in mind, so if you want to do it as a mystery, go to quiltville and start from the beginning!  

I am sewing connector corners on the above blocks...that is just plain fun, with some fun music playing and toe tapping going on!

Here are my little pansies...I love them.  They thrive in our cooler weather...which did you know they are saying we will have snow on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!????????  Whoop!  

My iris are confused.  They are blooming again, in December.  I love them for their plucky spirit in the winter!!!  These belonged to my mother in law, and I have divided and spread them to all points of the backyard.  I rescued them, because her little garden was paved over just a few days after I dug up the original iris, about 15 years ago.

OK YOU LOG CABIN LUNATICS!!!!!!!  READY???  We made our centers last week, so this is a cutting week.  I used 1 1/2 inch wide strips, light and dark.  Cut a whole bunch.  How many?  Well I don't know how many blocks you are making, but I can always use them, so I cut a lot of my strings into this size.   I use my strips from my scrap user system, too.   I find I can go either with bright clear colors, or browner colors...but if I mix them, it just looks like mud.  Hahaha!!!  Cut a lot of red 1.5 inch squares, too.    

Maybe you want to treat yourself and change your rotary cutter blade...I did, and wow, I love how much fun it is to cut with a new blade!!

*******************Health*****************************************************

This is my challenge to you this week.  Before you get up...stay in bed a moment.  Contract your abs, hard, hold for a count of three, then release.  Repeat x 20 times.  Many of us ladies have a condition called diastasis recti, which is a condition that is common after childbirth, where the muscles of the abdomen separate.  It makes it really hard to support those internal structures, and makes us look a bit potbellied!  This exercise helps these muscles get back in place!    It doesn't matter if it has been years since your kids were born...do this.  It helps, but you need to be consistent and do it each morning.  It feels really good to get those muscles energized!

Then?  Go and drink a glass of water first thing!  This helps lubricate joints, and also your brain, and helps us not have bad clotting, etc.  Now if you have congestive heart failure, or kidney failure,  you are going to do exactly what your doc says about fluid restrictions, but for most of us, we don't get enough water, and this is a healthy good habit!!!  

So what healthy habits are you doing?  Please share!  It helps us all!

*************************Nurse's notes**********************

I received my second vaccine! It really kicked my toot for the first day, but now I am fine, no tiredness, no fever, no body aches.  I pray it gives me much needed immunity and a small step to a return to normality...or maybe we will have a new normal?

At one point, we had 90 patients in the ER.  90!!  40 were holding for needed beds upstairs in the hospital  We,  in the hospital, were full.  Wild!  The charge nurse of the ER called me, and begged me for beds, and said he was marching up to administration and making them come down and take a look in his ER.  wow!!!  I have never heard him so upset!!!  People were furious with the waits...but what could we do?  The docs were running frantically around trying to see everyone!  

Even our women's service floor is completely overwhelmed with covid patients today...so no hysterectomy patients or others are getting their surgeries. In fact, all elective surgeries are cancelled, period.  FULL STOP...it is all covid patients.  

************************Decluttering challenge!!!!!!!!!!***********************

Food banks are very low right now. So can everyone maybe take a look at your pantry?  Do you have good, non-expired food that you may not eat?  This is my challenge to you, for this week!  Clean your pantry and take what you do not need to your local food bank.  I did, and it was crazy how many people were there to get food.  They always take cash, too...

Your pantry will look so good for 2021!!!

So my theory in starting a weekly de-clutter thing is....I think most people need to do this in our homes, and it will be fun to share our efforts and just think of what we can do if we focus on an area every week!!!

**************************The 1930's********************************

I have been doing a lot of reading about the 1930's, for myself, to learn more than my skimming knowledge obtained at school.  I love history, but in my school, this era was not studied in depth, like the civil war era, or the revolutionary war.  In my university studies, I was all about chemistry, mathematics, biology and nursing.  This era profoundly effected my family, so I want to know more. So!  Here I go!  

It seems that I cannot learn more about the 1930's without first knowing more about the 1920's.  What a wild ride!  After World War 1, there was a general sense of well-being...the men returned from the war, then the women got the right to vote!! Many people moved from an the country (agrarian based) to the cities, to work in factories.  There was a general sense of well-being...and lots of spending!  I figured out that that is why so many upright pianos still exist from the era...the 1920's!!  One of them sits in my living room...100 years old.  Maybe you have one of these!  Lots of cars were also purchased...big ticket items, with newly earned money.  I also found that many people bought things on credit. I found a phrase, "The run up" to the stock market crash...and it seems like it was a wild ride...the "roaring twenties."  The flapper era!!!  

The colors of quilts lightened...with textile mills churning out brighter fabrics, the colors changed from browns and darks, to more happy, lighter colors, and I see this in the antique quilts I have admired.   Although, purchased blankets were also much in use, instead of quilts, too!!  Lots of penny squares were embroidered, although this seems to be a little earlier in history...but lots were made in the 1920's, too.  Perhaps you, as a child, embroidered some of these...I know my mother sure had me do that, to learn to embroider. I found redwork quilts, attributed to the 1920's. 

It seems that these may have been pre-printed squares?  Or heat transferred to fabric...we did that when I was a kiddo.  Or hand traced!  Are these made in the 1920's?  Hard to tell, but they are attributed to that era.  

I could be wrong about this, and please let me know what you know, but it seems that quilting was huge in the last 1800's, then waned a bit, then when the 1930's hit, it had a renaissance. There is a totally different look to the quilts in the 1930's, compared to the 1880's! At least this is what I am reading and seeing.

Stay tuned for more on my exploration of the Great Depression era!!!!!!!

******************************************************************

Julie

Roaring Through the 20s : Paper Pieced Quilts from the Flapper Era - Walmart.com - Walmart.coms