"Sew" excited!

In the first year of the pandemic, I played a lot of Settlers of Catan online. (A LOT.) Since there was a lot of swearing at the other players, or the computer, or our internet connection, in the second year I dropped that and picked up DuoLingo, in order to improve my German. I kept that up for 366 days in a row (give or take a few freebies). That eventually began to feel like a chore, so I'm taking a break. Also last year I decided to return to a childhood hobby of cross stitch, which I recently realized is so satisfying because it's a lot like coloring, but slower. There's also a geometrical angle that satisfies the Tetris-lover in me.

Anyway, one reason I decided to cross stitch was because I could do it quietly during Zoom meetings, and the other is that I found a cause to which I could donate the final products, the annual student auction to benefit the Birmingham Free Clinic. This way I get all of the fun of making them without having to figure out how to display or store them!

Here's the entrance to the clinic and the view of the South Side from the porch. The administrator who accepted the pieces was very excited and thinks the students will bid against each other for them.

The canvas for the "wash your hands" signs held up pretty well, so I just set them in hoops hung with some red ribbon. The anatomical body parts I have stuffed with cotton batting with brown velvet behind. I'm working on the lungs right now, which are even trickier than the eye ball.

I've also finished a golden honey bee, which I framed and gifted to a local friend who keeps bees, and I sent syphilis (aka Treponema pallidum) through the U.S. postal mail to a senior historian of medicine in Massachusetts who spent her career researching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

What have you made during the pandemic?