Lottie is viewing cherry blossoms this week!

So where are the cute Lottie pix?  Um…let’s use our imaginations…she’s sitting under a huge, old cherry tree in full bloom on an adorable little sashiko quilt in a pale blue dress with tiny pink flowers. Spread out on the quilt between her and her bunny sidekick is an itty-bitty bento box with some little sushi made from fimo and a thermos of green tea. Bunny is leaning back enjoying the sun on her face, and looking up at the pale pink petals softly drifting down onto the quilt.

[Beginning of some rambling…just scroll down to the bottom for the quilt pattern!]

You know that little girl in the Annie movie that always said, “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!”?  That’s how I’m feeling right now!  Working at home is proving much more challenging and time-consuming than I had anticipated.  In case you don’t know, I’m a school-based speech-language pathologist, and with the schools closed am having to provide services virtually.  Every single one of my students has different needs and I’m working with families to provide services in a way that works best for them while they deal with the challenges of kids off school and interacting via technology.  Another major obstacle for me is that we don’t really have a home office/guest room anymore because we have a doll storage room ☹  Yes, it’s that bad. So when my husband’s company ordered everyone to work at home a few weeks ago, he took over the table in the craft room and is there from 8-5 or 7 or midnight every single day.  I’m not allowed in when he’s in meetings, which appears to be much of the day, so it was stressful to say the least being on spring break while being sick and having him here in the house, but not interacting with me in a “normal” way (I’m at work, leave me alone!) and, worst of all, blocking access to my craft stuff! 

Because I commute around 2 hours per day, depending on traffic, I was thinking that with virtual speech services, I’d have that extra 2 hours a day to work on projects, and the Lottie in Japan would be fun and easy but it’s not exactly working out that way.  When your work computer is sitting in your kitchen staring at you, it’s really easy to just turn it on and start responding to email, and when your house becomes your workplace, it’s hard to separate your thinking about home vs. work things.  Yes, I’ve got an extra hour in the morning that I don’t spend driving, and that’s great, but it’s hard to focus on something novel and creative, like the next thing Lottie needs, when I know I’ll need to stop at a certain time and I’m simultaneously worrying about what homework pages need to be uploaded for which kids, whether my wifi will cooperate for the meeting coming up, and just how exactly this new model of service delivery is going to work with each individual student.

So, during this time I’m learning that shorter projects, are actually harder for me to do than longer-term projects like weaving, spinning, knitting, hand embroidery, etc.  Once a weaving project is planned and on the loom, you can just sit down for a few minutes or an hour and work on something, and with a few minutes here and there, my mother-in-law’s new towels are almost done!

This week’s Lottie quilt will take time if you want it to, or can be a quick/easy/kid-friendly project too! I haven’t actually gotten to it yet, but that’s no reason for you not to!

Get the quilt pattern here