Fickle Tree Hugger remembers Earth Day -- finally!

What a fickle tree-hugger I am! I can remember Earth Hour, but not Earth Day? Well it is upon us. Thanks for reminding me with your blog, Virginia Spiegel!

Happy Earth Day!

If you're like me and the event sneaked up on you, never fear! It is not too late to celebrate. Just because it says it is a 'day' to celebrate. We can make it last as long as we want. This day is a beginning, so begin a new earth-friendly project.

With the priority on recycle, reuse, reduce and de-carbon -- mending even fits into this help the earth attitude. But I bet we can all find something more fun to do than that!

Mary Emma Allen put together a little list of suggestions including a project designed by Terri Powers to make a quilt out of natural items. It is a learning project for children or students, but I can see laying out a garden in patchwork squares or circles or designs such as those laid out in Amish country. I love the idea of 'natural' and find it can include a limitless number of materials -- including jelly beans, according to this one project -- a jelly bean mural (as shown here).

Maybe a journal quilt or post card? Find a favorite poem and design a corresponding image? I like what is posted for Earth Day at Journey of a Quilter blogspot, including the quote chosen:

The earth is a garden and each of us only need care for our own part for life to be breathed back into the planet, into the soil, into ourselves. ~ John Jeavons

Perhaps somewhat associated with 'mending' or reusing: make a quilt out of recycled fabrics. At Sew Green website, they are hosting a quilting bee to make a crazy quilt of reused materials. Or as mentioned in another blog -- pocket quilts using pockets from favorite shirts.

Another Earth Day quilt may not work into your daily schedule, but for the University of Central Florida, quilting an oyster reef, to save the intercoastal ecosystems is a priority. If you read my blogs on Observations about our visit to a small roadside historic site dedicated to ummm trash heaps, you should know that the site borders onto Mosquito Lagoon. I find it so heartening that the concept of quilts enter into saving our ecology.

This site offers many ways to be 'green' and celebrate the day. And, you know me, I always seek out books on every subject -- here is a list for quilters and artists and crafters and teachers that bring quilts into Earth Day.

I chose the Laurel Burch photo to accompany this because we are all kindred spirits on this earth and when we ruin someone's habitat, we all suffer. Hearing about the disappearance of the fish in the ocean should trouble all of us, knowing about that huge glob of trash and garbage swirling in the midst of the ocean where we actually dump it! Makes me sick just to think of it. Our little house must fit into the world picture and when it doesn't, when we abuse our environment or hurt those around us, we will also feel the sting. So I look at Laurel's Kindred Creatures and want to be a better steward. It is never too late -- even for fickle tree huggers like me!