Kinda fussy-futzing around

 

The spoils of yesterday's efforts; the two lower stacks of diamonds aren't fussy cut, just some Karen Nyberg prints I love.

Being it was Mother's Day in America yesterday, I spent much of Sunday afternoon in the office, cutting fabric. Fussy-cutting fabric if I'm being precise, and with fussy cutting, precise is paramount. Not sure why I felt so enabled, perhaps in talking to my aunt, who called to wish me a lovely day. Aunt Jay was a couple of years younger than my mum, but now she's older than Mum ever reached, a wonderful link to a past for which I'm grateful, especially at a time when wishing Mum a beautiful day no longer occurs.

Yet life continues, and there I was, cutting fabrics for another Myrtle block, when the impetus struck to pull out other shapes and templates. Rummaging through my stash, I recovered a gorgeous stack of Tilda prints, then set about searching for just the right element to capture within the acrylic template, thankful that those I received from Tales of Cloth have holes at the corners of the shapes to better get the exact spot necessary for the fussiest of cutting. My phone helps too, making sure I'm marking precisely what I want to highlight.

I snapped this because I wanted to see exactly where the lines connecting the dots intersected on the flower. Maybe I lean into twenty-first century tech more than I should, but better to know for sure the dots are right than not.

Precise. Yeah, not really my usual aim, but Aunt Jay's loving voice led me to a space within myself that allowed such notions. We chatted about her new place in a senior apartment complex as well as how life takes twists and turns unexpected by us, but that always brings us to where we're supposed to be. Mum's been gone nearly six years now, a length of weeks and months that seems strange to acknowledge, but time doesn't cease when those we love die. Time creeps or speeds past, and best that we move along to the utmost of our ability while holding close the essence of those we miss in whatever manner keeps us sane and peaceful, happy and responsive.

I've been paper-piecing now for six years. Wow. Fussy-cutting rarely occurs, but like I said, when it does I go with the muse and don't stop until the Giants were tied with the Reds near the end of the game. As soon as the game was over, my husband and I were going out for a treat, but play dragged into the tenth inning and my husband said, "You wanna watch the end?"

"Not really," I smiled.

He nodded, turned off the TV, then we left. At our destination, while enjoying soft serve ice cream sundaes, he considered the game, and to our collective glee, the Giants had pulled out a victory in the bottom of the tenth! Using modern technology, he brought up the end of the game and we watched Casey Schmitt hit a ground rule double, scoring the runner at second, WHEW!

Now thinking about that, I wonder if Mum, Dad too, played their part; both were avid Giants fans. If nothing else, we came home to no immediate need for dinner, but the Denver Nuggets were facing the Minnesota Timberwolves in playoff basketball. Meanwhile some scraps of Tilda fabric from my earlier endeavors were now ready to be basted onto one-inch hexies. All the rest of my fussy efforts are still on my work table, waiting to be placed into Ice Cream Soda blocks when I get around to it. Those pieces won't be as precisely curated, better to set off what was intricately chosen. Sometimes life is steeped in niggly details, other times it flows along haphazardly, or how it appears.Yet I know all things happen for some reason, not that all those purposes are within my grasp. Just to fussy-cut when necessary, eat some ice cream, then revel in an inadvertent victory, or two of them. I was rooting for Denver last night, now to see what Game 5 has in store.