I recently chaired a committee of SAQA Oregon members who produced a book following 21 artists as they took an idea through the steps of creating the final work of art: Emergence: Textile Art from Concept to Stitch. It is available on Amazon.

Here is my latest look. After many years of red hair dye, I have gone au naturel. We started Phase 1 of reopening last weekend and I was able to get in for a haircut. I did not want to spend a lot of time so I washed my hair at home and skipped the color part. I was amazed to see all of the gray. There is still a bit of red in my bangs so it is hard to tell. I also got it cut really short so that I don’t have to go back right away. I am liking it so far.

I am busy stitching my 100 embroidered indigo blocks together. I am doing 25 at a time. Here is the first group hand-stitched together.

I think this is going to be a wonderful piece when it is finished. Since I do not have a large design wall, I laid out the blocks on a flannel backed tablecloth on a table top. I can roll it up and keep the unstitched blocks in place while I stitch on others.

I made these pillows for my grandkids in California. Paige had selected a gold and teal color scheme. She loves horses and Harry Potter so I printed photos of them on horse/rocking horse on fabric.

Here are my torn paper collages since my last post.

I started knitting a sweater for myself. I find it hard to do intricate stitching at night, but I need to keep my hands busy when watching TV. I had this yarn sitting around. I used it for a kimono style sweater which I didn’t like so I am going to unknit and use it for a big bulky sweater.

So that is my life in the time of corona update. Time seems to be going by faster than you would think!

I have been hunkered down, dealing with pollen and a sinus infection. I have continued to make masks, but have also picked up some unfinished projects. I am also doing my weekly torn paper collages.

Last year, I started knitting squares to make a Welcome Blanket. The Welcome Blanket Project aims to connect people already living in the United States residents with our country’s newest immigrants through stories and handmade blankets, providing both symbolic and literal comfort and warmth. At the same time, the project offers a positive, hands-on way to understand the scope of a 2000-mile border wall and to subvert it from an idea of exclusion to one of inclusion. By participating in this project, people will also come together to talk about immigration policy and how it affects real-live people.

I have knitted 16 squares with two color complements in each square.

I am now stitching them together. I had to order more yarn online which is hard because I could not remember the brand or specific colors so there is a bit of a variation on the orange and chartreuse knits.

I joined a June challenge group with the goal of assembling the 100 blocks that I made last year. My first activity is to trim the wonky 5 inch blocks to 4 1/2 inches.

This is a container of the blocks.

I also did this beast of a jigsaw puzzle:

Here are the other torn paper collages that I have finished.

Time seems to be passing slowly and then all of sudden, you realize that it is a new month and you have neglected the blog. I spent the last two weeks making more face masks and finishing the above piece for the SAQA benefit auction. I had nine blocks of the indigo dyed raw silk. For each one, I embroidered a circle motif using cotton dyed with madder root. I assembled them into a nine patch using embroidery floss dyed with indigo.

These are some of the masks I made. They were sent to Navajoland in New Mexico where there is a dire need for masks because of a large outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. I am starting another batch to send to them. I got t-shirt yarn cut to use for ties.

I have 3 more torn paper collages done since I last posted. They are all Covid-19 related.

And that is about all I have done except spend a lot of time doing online grocery shopping and hoping everything shows up. I hope you are doing well as we all continue to shelter in place to stop the spread.

I saw this on Facebook and it described how I often feel these days. Some days I feel as if I don’t have enough time to do what I want and on other days, I just space out and do nothing! Getting food into the house is like going through an obstacle course – my version of Hunger Games.

I have been remiss on posting here so thought I would bring you up to date on my creative activities. I spent several days making face masks for the family and for a woman’s center that my friends daughter is involved with.

I found some quilt fabrics in my stash that friends had given me for Jude’s I Spy quilt. I also had some batiks that I could use. I had to wait for the proper interfacing to arrive before I started.

Elastic was impossible to find because so many people were making masks. I found a tutorial on line for making ties from t-shirt yarn. It was a good use for old t-shirts.

This is my daughter-in-law Jayme and my two adorable grands in CA modeling their masks!

Here are more of my torn paper collages, taken from the Sunday NY Times magazine.

I have also been doing some hand-stitching. This is a small hand-stitched piece that will be part of an online auction to support programs for those in need during this difficult time.

I have stitched some more circles that will be part of my SAQA 2020 benefit auction piece.

That brings you up to date on my life in isolation. I have enjoyed face timing with the grands and Zoom calls with family and friends. It somewhat like Little House on the Prairie with the internet, Netflix and food delivery.