Sewing in the time of COVID-19 – Week 32
This week I am feeling grateful for fabric and chocolate to get me through 2020.
Thanks to our friends and customers who have called and written to express concern about the fires in Boulder and around Colorado. As of this weekend we are getting a respite, as a big snowstorm is on its way. These explosive firestorms have been quite shocking, because they have spread very quickly. The air quality has been bad for awhile now, with smoke from the West coast, the Southwest, and now we have huge plumes of smoke from our own Colorado forest fires in the mountains. We know many of our quilter friends and our family friends who have had to evacuate from the numerous fires. I just heard that a mountain quilt guild lost its shed where they stored all their sewing supplies for their charity quilt program. My beloved Rocky Ridge Music Center (where I went to summer music camp in the 70s, and my kids have gone over the last 15 years) was under mandatory evacuation as of early this morning.
As a result of these layers of stress, I decided this week to bring back an old eQuilter tradition – offering a curated selection of premium imported Chocolate Bars in the cold weather season. I mean, what better to get you through the fires, the hurricanes, the pandemic, and the election? (when quilting is not quite enough)
If you follow me on my personal Facebook page you may know that I’ve been doing ‘research’ in a local bookstore’s online Chocolate Club (as part of my own pandemic self-care) and so have been introduced to the fine art of chocolate tasting which is like wine tasting. You don’t just bite into the chocolate. No, you open the wrapper, inhale the various levels of fragrance, then you snap off a small piece and let it slowly melt in your mouth. Then you discuss the different layers of tasting notes that unfold, right down to the ‘aftertaste’ when it has all melted away. It is what I call my Chocolate Meditation. It does not work with cheap grocery store chocolate. I have one square of premium imported chocolate after work or after dinner, and then I can go sew or draw or write, with a clear head.
Over the years we’ve had a few giggles about the things our customers order with their chocolate. My favorite customer order was 10 chocolate bars and 1 spool of thread. Don’t worry, we won’t tell! But please do not order if you live in a warm climate. It will melt in the package. And that would be a terrible waste of good chocolate. Not to mention what it does to the spool of thread. Ha.
They are predicting a foot of snow in the high country where the fires are burning, so fingers and toes are crossed here. This storm is coming down from the North, so thanks Canada!
Many thanks to the ladies at Create Whimsy, who published this profile interview about my creative life.
with Hope for the Future,
Luana and Paul
