Comfort me with fabric

I was off-kilter, desafinado, yesterday. I don't like to get too personal here, but emotionally it was not good, especially as I'd woken up from a disturbing dream about someone I used to know online. I was going to go out, but I left it too late for where I wanted to go, so I stayed home. I turned on the TV and started watching Stella Dallas on AMC but couldn't stand the mother character being abused, so I switched it off. I started reading a book, but there was too much backstabbing and cruelty in it, so I put it by the front door to return to the library. I find that lately I can't tolerate all these stories of humans being cruel to other humans, even if the bad guys do get their come-uppance in the end. "Suspense" novels and movies have become far too nasty. I guess they have to dream up nastier and nastier scenarios to sell their wares to an audience that's become inured to violence. I turned on the news and what do I see? The most anger-making thing yet: a 91-year-old man being beaten up by a carjacker, while a bunch of men are getting out of the neighboring car and...walking away. I remembered the time in Ireland when I was driving home with my husband and we came across a similar thing: a young tinker was beating a little old man up, while his cohorts surrounded them, egging him on. My husband stopped the car; I was frightened, but he said he had to do something about it, and marched his 6 ft 2" rugby-trained body over to the fight. He wrested the little guy from the crowd, brought him back to the car, and drove to the nearest hospital. The little guy was shaken, bleeding and babbling; he'd only gone out to get some milk. Anyway, we took him to the Emerg, and stayed until the nurse came back and told us he was OK. She said the man wanted our name to thank us, and my husband said, No, that's fine. We just wanted to be sure he was OK. And we left.

Finally, when I roused myself from that touch of stupor that Miss Depression can shove you in, I made things. Before I knew it, I'd given myself over to the process and was feeling much better (even though I did yell at my sewing machine for misbehaving... imagine, yelling at an inanimate object, for heaven's sake!). I bought this wonderful buttery, straw-colored linen fabric at Fabricland, and made these bags. They're about 4-1/2 x 6 inches, and really only a step or two removed from my quilties.



Going for a brisk walk around the park and consuming a whole box (small box!) of Hurley's Boston Irish crisps studded with cranberries also helped... Oh, and I bought myself a pretty bunch of ranunculus (the renoncules that appeared on all the French blogs last month), white ones with a lone yellow flower among them.

And so it goes.