[I am following Anne Brooke‘s 2021 #52tagshannemade slow stitch challenge to make a little tag every week of the year – see them all here!] OK, ok, I cheated and stitched instead of doing the work I need to be doing to prep for the new semester but I couldn’t get Anne’s #52tagshannemade challenge out of my mind! Because I am late to the party, I was able to think of her themes while reflecting on what occurred during the first two weeks, which is going to be how I approach this now for the whole year. And, well, anyone in America (plus much of the rest of the world) all saw the attack on Capitol Hill during our second week of 2021. I intentionally avoid being political here, but since it did inspire my tag, I suppose you could infer a thing or two.

Anne’s theme for week 2 was a heart. I found this to be fitting, since it seems like so many of our hearts were broken for all the reasons while watching the storming of Capitol Hill.

I went with an Americana theme – reds, whites, and blues. The heart is made from a scrap of red felt and a scrap of red corduroy, to represent how politically and socially divided we are already as a nation. The heart is, of course, broken down the middle by a raging river of “patriotism” that is shiny and gaudy, reflecting my opinions of where all this rhetoric and vitriol stems from. The heart was already wounded, as evidenced by the little bandage. I had envisioned using some white thread and a medical stitch to stitch up the heart, and then cutting it to represent the direction our country had been going under previous administrations (healing and stitched back together) compared to what’s occurred during the last tremendously long four years (ripping us apart with abandon) – but I couldn’t get it right so I shelved the idea.

And beneath the broken heart lay little red gems, representing the bleeding heart and the loss of lives from racism, covid, and political manipulation – a trifecta of fuel burning us all up inside.

So here are the tags from week 1 and week 2, side by side. Gee, I wonder what these next 50 weeks will bring…