Front Door Quilt Redux

 Nearly three years ago with a sense of urgency, I made a quilt for my front door to voice my support for the people of Ukraine in the midst of the cruel attempt by Russia to take over their country. As seasons and years changed, I put other quilts up, and although the quilt was not forgotten, I stopped displaying it, perhaps out of dismay that there was no end to the aggression.

This past week I decided that it was time to make my voice heard again. So I took the quilt out of storage, but before I put it back up, I made a change.

Here is my Front Door Quilt Redux:

And here is how it looked before:

If you'd like to read more about how I made this quilt, you can click here and read the second half of the post. 

I'm sure you can immediately see the alteration I made. Yes, I still think we need to pray for peace. But given the notion of the current administration of my country about what it means to "make peace" (giving in to an aggressor, letting others make decisions as if Ukraine was the aggressor, paying back for support which was intended to be a gift, giving up resources and without guarantees of security), I can't pray for that. I don't want my quilt to reflect that. So, I covered up the words with appliqued strips of fabric with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Who couldn't love that flag--the blue sky with the fields of wheat? What a beautiful image, rich with symbolism. I just happened to have yellow fabric with a print of children holding hands. Never mind that I'm about the only one who knows the fabric is there--no one will see it from afar. But it needs to be in this quilt. Think of the children. 

I hung the quilt up yesterday with my own prayer that Ukraine will be recognized and supported as the sovereign country it is, that the aggression will stop, and that the country will not be used as a pawn in a dangerous transactional global game. 

This isn't the only thing on my mind right now. I am embarrassed by and ashamed of the cruel and senseless actions of the administration to destroy every aspect of my country and in doing so, to bring instability and devastation to our world. I could say a lot about this, especially about the unelected citizen and his illegal department of government (in)efficiency and co-presidential stance (talk about waste, fraud and abuse!), and rule by executive order, but I'll try to restrain myself. I know I am supposed to continue to live my life and find joy, etc., etc.. To maybe even live as if the breakdown of our democracy isn't happening. Perhaps I don't even notice much of a change in my personal daily life. Yet. But by the time I am personally affected, it will be too late. And there are many, many people-- domestically and internationally--whose lives have already been upended, perhaps forever broken. I am slowly trying to finding ways to protest the dismantling of the government--educating myself on current issues, contacting my congressman about issues I care about (discouraging in itself as there is apparently only voicemail). I'm doing some other things, too, and I know there is much more to do. Yeah, I'm just one person, but there is strength in numbers...(Please join me.) 

There was no quilting here the last few weeks except for this quilt redux. Instead I was saving my blog posts to my own computer. Since I wonder what might happen to social media in the future, I decided I wanted to preserve a copy of my blog content. I looked up how to save it, but kept reading that once saved, it was sometimes hard for people to access the format on their computers. So I painstakingly made screen shots of each post (not the comments) and pasted them in locally saved Word documents  There was lots of cropping going on. I did get more comfortable with my newish computer and learned some shortcuts along the way. It doesn't look like the blog, but all the content is preserved. After all, it's mine. Now if something weird happens to Blogger in the future, I'll still have everything. It was a great distraction from social media and news consumption. I had fun visiting old quilts, old posts, and old photos of my vacations, bike rides and flowers. Time consuming, but not really a waste of time.

In the meantime, I read gentle chick lit (not a usual interest for me) to help myself fall asleep at night because anything more thought-provoking just leads to insomnia. I have fantasies of quilt making. Remember the old Sunbonnet Sue quilts (and Denim Dan, maybe)? Quilters either loved or hated them. There was a trend for awhile of quilts with lots of different blocks showing the demise of Sunbonnet Sue. You can imagine the blocks swirling in my head depending on the news each day. No, I won't make that quilt. It will exist only in my mind. I wouldn't be surprised if someone does though. We have a long history of protest quilts. Seriously, I think my next quilt will be some sort of landscape or lakescape so I can remember what our country looked like after we  lose our national parks and clean air and water. We'll see. Have to pep myself up to get inspired. 

Thanks for the tips from people about my no-reply problem with comments. I haven't tried to figure out a fix yet. If you don't see your comment published or hear back from me, know that I do appreciate your feedback. 

Okay, time to wrap this up. Here's my quilt from the steps.

With Selfie!

And from farther back.

Look at that open window! It was in the 70's here today.

 Simple pleasure. :) 

So, if you are still here, I know that you might agree with me, or at least have an open mind to read my take on the state of things. Thank you. 

There are some fun things going on here. On Tuesday, we celebrated the 47th anniversary of the day we decided to get married. (Much better than the current reference to 47, don't you think?) We baked a Rusk pie together, and ate the last pieces tonight on Pi(e) Day. Yum. 

                                               More simple pleasures. 

I'm linking up with Cynthia this weekend at Quilting is more Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap, because there are a few scraps added in my project, and the original was also made from scraps. I hope you have scraps to put to use. Ha, who doesn't? Also, please make your voice heard to fight injustice where ever you see it. We can do this.