I’ve kept myself sane during this last week of online schooling (where the chorus of “Muuuum I need help“ rises to a crescendo about ten minutes in and continues intermittently all day), by getting stuck into a sewing project.
I bought some tea towels from Spotlight in an end of Christmas sale a few years ago and have been using some instructions from a lovely book called granny chic (you can buy a copy here) to make half aprons for Christmas presents.
In order to make one of these beauties all you need is a tea towel (a used one from your cupboard works just fine), some lace to sew across the bottom, some old doilies or napkins to sew onto the front as pockets and embellishments and some vintage sheets to use as ties. (You just cut long strips from the sheets and hem them, although you can use twill tape if you prefer).
The fun and creative part is choosing which doilies and lace to put with each tea towel and mixing and matching the colours. It’s a thrifty project that makes use of items you may already have at home.
Some other things I’ve found helpful to deal with the pandemic pandemonium:
- Reading books about troubles or disasters others have faced to put this time we’re experiencing into perspective. Turia Pitt’s book Everything to Live For has been good for this, as has Last Truck Out (a mission story about wartime Broome);
- Planning and creating for events in the future when hopefully the situation will have greatly improved (making Christmas presents has helped me to look forward to something positive);
- Limiting social media time. There’s a lot of bad, sad and alarming news, particularly on Facebook, some of it true, some of it not. Some of the rare good news is coming from our Christian prophets (link here if you’re interested in what they’re saying).
Thankyou to my beautiful pinafore models, Portia and Popcorn. I’ll leave you with one last photo from the end of the photo shoot, as boredom was setting in! What coping strategies are you using to navigate your way through this time?
