Creative Days, Creative Ways

 My Covid test this morning is negative, so I'm heading down to Williamsburg to spend a long holiday week-end with my parents.  I don't have any symptoms, but with this new, more transmissible variant of Covid running wild across the planet, it seems wise to test.  I haven't been in contact with many people since returning from vacation and doing some grocery shopping, but since the Montgomery county library system has free rapid tests, there's no reason not to test.

I do wonder if we will ever get to a point where I don't feel this need to test, where I'm not aware of disease risks.  Of course, I was aware of disease risks even before this latest pandemic.  Between disease risks and the risks of violence that come with being female in a patriarchal society, I'm often deciding to stay in.

For the past few days, as I've decided to just stay put and do some quilt piecing, I've wondered if I'm really just lazy.  Yesterday there was a steady wind that just cut right through me, so I decided to abandon my plan of going to the MLK site in downtown DC, as it is an outdoor memorial.  I thought about a museum, but getting there requires a fair amount of walking on either end of the Metro ride.

Through the magic of technology, my spouse and I watched movies together, and I worked on quilt pieces of various sizes:

 

I'm going to keep creating these, as they delight me.  Eventually, I'll create a quilt out of them all, with long strips between the panels, much like this quilt:

displayed at October 2020 Quilt Camp at Lutheridge

At some point, I also need to get back to doing the actual quilting on my other quilt project.  Winter is a great time to have that weight draped over me, as I work on doing the quilting.

The nice thing about having projects of varying sizes is that one is more portable.  I stashed some of the smaller pieces in my backpack, with my tin that contains a set of small scissors and spools of thread.  

It's also nice to have a variety of projects that feed my creativity.  I began the day writing a poem, and in the middle of the day, I sent some poems out into the world.  Then I finished with stitching.  Ah--heaven!

So, it's not laziness keeping me home in these long, cold days of winter--it's the appeal of a creative day, in many creative ways, in my snug seminary apartment.