I don’t know how many people do this, but my particular reaction to grief, apart from crying, is cleaning. When Jordan died I gave the master bath a deep clean, finished recaulking the shower enclosure, and did a bunch of other tasks to get it in shape.

After J.J.’s death I’ve been organizing the house, vacuuming and sweeping the downstairs daily (yeah, yeah, I know I should have been doing that already, don’t @ me), planting the new lantana to replace the old ones that got killed in the frost (at least, I had assumed so until I dug up one monster and found little green leaves sprouting on the underside. I also learned that lantana have big-ass taproots so next year I’ll just cut everything WAY back and wait until the end of March for it to start blooming again), mailing stuff that needs to be mailed off, putting a bunch of stuff away, and making a master list of what I’ll need to deep clean each room. I think the J Crew are a little confused at Mom bustling around all the time.

Until I go upstairs and start sewing. I was commissioned by a friend to make two Log Cabin throw quilts, one in the Asexual flag colors and one in black, white, and grey, and I’ve started the Ace quilt first. The border will be black, white, grey, and purple stripes like the Ace flag with purple corner squares; so far this is turning out to be really pretty. I hope the recipient enjoys it.

It’s definitely been theraputic for me. Log Cabin blocks lend themselves to chain piecing so putting together the actual blocks is nicely repetitious and goes quickly. I should have the entire center section done by Thursday, the borders added on Friday, and I’ll put the backing/batting/top sandwich together over the weekend and quilt it. Even better, Joann Fabrics is running their Daffodil Dash weekend sale so I’ve been able to pick up the bulk of the fabric at a discount, which gives me more $$$ for quality cotton thread, batting, and borders. I’ll post pics once the entire quilt is done.