Small Steps: Push-Pull

April 21, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about Push, and Pull.

The terms are popularly used when discussing how we interact with the internet. We receive Push Notifications, which means that someone, somewhere is sending us information or things that can be helpful. Or not. We can choose where we go, pulling information to us in terms of blogs (like this one, thank you). We can also pull information from bank sites, news sites, school and medical sites so we can gather information or read for pleasure.

We are familiar with push-pull in our own lives, aside from the internet. For example, when I go to a Guild meeting like I did this week, and have to show up early to set up the book sale, take minutes, make sure the substitute photographer is squared away (because the regular one didn’t show up), serve on the Nominating Committee (hallelujah — we got our President-Elect!), it is a push because NONE of those jobs are what I officially do (I run the website). Some activities in our lives are push-pull: volunteering, for example. Or paying attention to the weeds in the garden because you want to plant flowers.

But if I can plan an appliqué project, take a 3300-mile road trip visiting family (and grandson Alex, below) and enjoy time with my husband, I’d call it mostly a pull.

This idea of push-pull on the internet was discussed in a radio interview of Kyle Chayka with Ezra Klein. During their discussions about the nature of the internet these days, as well as Chayka’s newest book, Filterworld, I became interested in this idea. What is pushed onto me, and how does it affect how I feel about the quality of my life? And what is the effect of all that pushing? Chayka feels like it changes how we view things on the internet, and why — perhaps — our eyes glaze over quickly:

CHAYKA: “I mean, most of the encounters we have with culture online are pretty bad, I think. We do have much more choice in what we consume and all of these other possibilities surround us. But what we lack is that kind of museum-like experience or movie theater-like experience where you do have to sit with something and think about it and puzzle your way through it without flipping to get an answer.”

EZRA KLEIN chimed in: “And the problem with the push internet is it’s not really under your control, right? It’s about what the force pushing is doing. But as that became bigger, people stopped doing the things that allowed the pull internet to exist. There aren’t so many blogs anymore. Not none, but there are fewer. People put their effort — because it’s the easier way to find audience and eventually to make a living — into the algorithmic spaces. And so there’s simply less of this other thing there to explore.”

CHAYKA: “I think a feeling I’ve been having a lot lately is that scarcity is often what creates meaning. When you’re surrounded by infinite possibilities, when you know around the next corner is another video that might be funnier or more to your liking, you’re never going to sit with the thing that’s in front of you. You’re never going to be forced to have the patience, or the fortitude maybe, or the kind of willpower to fight through something and figure out if you truly like it or not.” ~ Kyle Chayka

Sitting with the thing in front of you.
Museum-like experience.
Algorithmic spaces.
Push is not under our control.
Scarcity creates meaning.
Puzzle our way through it.

How much of our life is a “push” experience? How much of our activities and interests are “pull”? Do we value our time at the machine, or with cloth, or with the needle because it is a “scarce” activity? Or because we had the patience and stick-to-it-iveness to finish the stitching, the quilting, the cutting?

I guess it could be both. I guess it could be all.

Final image: Made in the 1600s for one of the popes, this smallish curio cabinet is a classic example of sitting with the thing in front of you until it is finished. Although I have to admit that if I were the cabinet-maker on the other side of the centuries, it might be feeling like a push. And that’s how it goes, right? I saw this in the Getty Museum in March.

Something to Think About

Filling the Days…with Quilting

January 30, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

I have treasured all your messages to me, and have read them over and over. Thank you for all your kind words on the occasion of the loss of my father. I will miss him greatly. I was unable to reply to you all individually; however, I appreciate what you said. I thought I would talk about some of the things that I’ve been doing to pass the time, fill the time, mark the time.

About a week before his death we knew the arc of Dad’s life was bending slowly to the earth, but it was Road to California Week, kind of an event around here and I had two classes, one from Lori Kennedy (on the left, above) and one from Annie Smith (right). I won the lottery on my teachers, not only for their classes, but for their humanity. I was pretty quiet on Monday during Lori’s but on Thursday when I walked into Annie’s, I had been crying the whole way there. Both women were sympathetic to this week of pre-grieving, kind souls who recognized a quilter in distress. I am glad to have met them both, and also to learn from them in many ways (yes, we talked death and it didn’t upset either of them). They both just sort of let me be creative on my own, far away from the goals of the class, so I just quilted in Lori’s, and drew a version of an appliqué block (“Citrus Grove”) in Annie’s.

They were kind.

Saturday, I had determined to pose by my quilt, and I did. It was down the aisle from a stupendous quilt so most people just walked by, but that’s the game. That’s my smile when I felt like like I was stuffed with cotton batting, trying to produce a smile, but really wanting to cry, but gosh — it was Road, and I did want to see the quilts. Ever have days like that? (There are lots of YouTube videos of Road 2024, if you can’t wait for me.)

This was in the Cherrywood exhibit and I loved the colors they chose this year: a punch of green and orange together, along with the black. This one is one of my favorites. And I loved Picatso (below), by Nikki Hill. Click on the cat to see the whole mini quilt. A classic.

Because I sewed on a sit-down with the feature of “optical reading” of motion in my class with Lori Kennedy, and because I already had a Sweet Sixteen sit-down machine, I went to the Handiquilter booth to see what they had. This was their newest: the Insight Table. It will help me keep my stitches more even (I hope). There’s now one in my quilting room, and I pinned up Happy Valley to practice on. But I haven’t yet quilted on it.

That next day, just at the end of last week, we had our trees trimmed, something which happens every two or three years. Remember, in California, things never stop growing; we even mow our lawns in the winter. Yes, there is some dormancy, but cutting off excess and grinding it up to get rid of it is something we do. This was also the week that my family was planning/not planning the funeral events for my Dad. In some upset moments, I wish I could have brought a truck like the one on the right and thrown in all my excess feelings and ground them up. Mom was pretty specific with what she wanted for her service, and we did it. Dad was also specific with what he wanted…but we aren’t doing it. I read about this online and this situation can be common with the death of the remaining parent. Siblings can split up over this sort of thing (I have friends who have lost their whole family).

Families are more fragile than trees.

I brought this quilt to the finish line. My husband helped me sort out the borders for this 2023 temperature quilt, and it’s ready to go to my quilter’s.

Remember how I wrote about that local quilt store that closed at the end of the year around here? I put some of that fabric to good use with this backing. If you are doing a Temperature Quilt, buy yourself a tea towel on ETSY with the calendar on it. I also added a stylized image of California and the temperature key I also finished:

I had chatted with Lori about the temperature quilts she and her sister were making in Minnesota, after seeing mine. When we talked later that week, she told me she liked my free pattern, but that I’d made a mistake: the temperatures only went to 36 degrees on the low side. Yeah, she’s right. It’s a California scale. We laughed about it and she said she’d add more. (And, um, don’t judge the embroidery. I don’t know why I can’t do the stem stitch. I do much better when it’s the back stitch.)

Nights this past couple of weeks have been hard. I saw that inscription when we visited Chicago this past September and Isaac Barrow was right. First I was reading Home, by Marilyn Robinson, and the ending of that book echoed what was going on in our family: the family being called home as the father was fading. One of the main characters, Glory, tended to cry — boy, could I identify with her. It was a powerful book of loss, of love, and a nod to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Then I turned to something completely different: a sheep mystery, Three Bags Full, translated from the German. Both were “effectual comforters”. Three Bags Full was a “cheerful companion,” and Home was a “wholesome counselor.” I decided to read them in real book form, as I needed to hold onto something tangible at night in those evening hours that are hard to pass. We also are enjoying the PBS series All Creatures Great and Small. I’m glad these quiet stories are here.

My friend Charlotte gave me this Amaryllis for Christmas, and everyday we notice changes: from one blossom, to two, and now two more are opening up to make four. She says to plant it in the garden when I’m done with it, and it will come up every year. I’m in this interesting “slowed-down time” — different from than when my mother died — where I take life at a less hectic pace: quiet dramas on television, watching lilies bloom, and reading paper books. The grief is not as profound, I can tell. Just different. Next week I’m grabbing my children who are coming up for the committal and we’ll be clearing out my parent’s apartment. It does make me re-evaluate what I’m hanging on to, and getting rid of.

I’ve been trying to be diligent about keeping up with my morning walks, and today — after I dropped Three Bags Full at the library dropbox downtown — I walked around those streets. I thought the Katarina tile was appropriate to what I’m going through.

If only we could just open a faded red door to get more power for ourselves.

It says: Be Kind to Yourself Today.

Something to Think About

Reverse Course

January 7, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Wait. I thought we had just gotten started on this New Year’s thing, you say, and now you want to reverse course? Yes, because I am saving you from taking on too many things. And saving me, too. In some circles it’s called a “chuck-it list,” the reverse course of a “bucket list,” which we’ve all heard of way too much. I’ve also been reading about a parallel concept to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), which is JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), another way to not plow full speed ahead into Everything. For this is the week that resolutions get made, lists of quilts get written, projects get detailed. I’ve seen Way.Too.Many quilt-a-longs this week, too. Some new quilt ideas are genuinely tempting, like this one:

Lindlee of Plains and Pine has designed this, and it really looks wonderful. So many are doing it, so your feed will be filled with color and beauty all year long. I must resist the urge just this year. I’ve already made up my list for 2024, and am doubtful I’ll even get those done (one of which is one of my own patterns, long-lingering on every list I’ve written these past few years, but I want to make it in a different colorway).

What is driving this focus? My Index of Quilts: I’ve made 285 quilts. I count only the ones that are completely finished, which slows the pace a bit. But I’m really close to 300 quilts which is where I turn into a pumpkin, or something. (Stay Tuned.) But in order to get to that 300, which probably shouldn’t be a goal, I have to edit My 2024 List pretty tightly, not letting in other great ideas until I’ve reached that number.

I say this with some caution, knowing that “Focusing on pursuing our goals often leaves us running on a treadmill of desire and frustration,” as Valerie Tiberius writes in her article, “Why you should swap your bucket list with a chuck-it list.” She goes on to say, “Discarding goals that we really care about is difficult; failing to complete them can elicit sadness or regret.” Like me, with the above Temperature Quilt.

If I hadn’t just finished this one, there’s no way I wouldn’t be jumping in. (But there is always 2025.)

And I pinned up this appliqué mid-December, and have finished the two sides. Now to tackle the middle, with those vines. The dots were a birthday gift in 2022, and it’s taken me this long to figure out what I wanted to do. Working Title: Twilight Garden. So right there, there are two projects on my New Year’s List, along with seeing the Total Solar Eclipse in Texas (April), a trip to La Jolla, California (end of this month) with my three sisters to celebrate my recent milestone birthday, traveling with my DH this fall, and a list of quilts to be considered.

In days long past, I’d splash those goals up here — a way to keep “myself accountable” — or something like that. But given the tight real estate on the birthday cake (more candles than cake to hold them), I’ll politely decline that course of action. I’ll consider the best days the ones where I can work happy and contented, able to call out across the hallway to my husband, answer a phone call or take a walk, or pause to watch the bees attack the wisteria blossoms with gusto just outside my sewing room window — interrupting all evident progress.

Sometimes reversing course is the best way forward–

300 Quilts · Mystery Quilt · Something to Think About

A Wild Night, A New Road • Quilt Finish

November 18, 2023August 31, 2025 Elizabeth E.25 Comments

Emily Dickinson’s phrase, Dying is a Wild Night and a New Road, accompanies me at times in my life. Dickinson first said it in a letter: “I know there is no pang like that for those we love, nor any leisure like the one they leave so closed behind them, but Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.” This past year, I said this phrase to my father, as we sat in the living room of where he lived with mother, who was on her own New Road that week. Life felt like a total slog in those early weeks after we lost her. I tried to get it together, but I felt so strange. Many of you wrote notes, send letters, welcoming me into this new club, and reminded me to give it time.

After a soggy winter and spring, this summer I let myself be pulled into this. I had no idea what it was going to be, or what kind of work it was. Yes, time does heal all wounds, but perhaps a little quilting wouldn’t hurt, either.

The first thing was to watch a video on how to choose fabrics, which was a great video. I could do this new thing. And when the first steps were to cut strips and sew them together, yeah — I was totally in.

Week by week, I cut and sewed and soon my file of print-outs and blocks was full:

It was like I was back in school, in a good way. In school, there’s always a syllabus, a raft of homework, a goal, a test, a completion. Working on this quilt I felt like I was accomplished something that wasn’t a duty. During this time I was getting quilts finished, but usually I have a lot of ideas and sparkles of creativity and things I want to say, but…it not this year. We had our kitchen torn apart, and then rebuilt. It was actually a relief to choose doorknobs, tile and countertop: a welcome distraction.

This article helped a lot with the sadness, letting me know that what I was going through was normal, would take time. Talking to my husband, my sisters, daughter, friends and my family was a solace. It’s all normal, yes, normal, normal, normal…but I wanted my old normal back, of happily diving into color and cloth, of not missing someone terribly.

I began to screenshot memes on Instagram, like this one, or the one below:

I retreated from life for awhile, but kept working on this Summer Camp quilt. Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, of the Modern Quilt Studio (who were running the Sew-A-Long) held “campfire talks.” Sometimes goofy, but always authentic, warm and interesting, I would join them a day or two late, and read through the posted comments. This project became my through-line.

I ended up with 52 blocks ( photo 1) which when placed on the wall revealed themselves to be Not Enough (2) and so I chose some of my favorite prompts and made more (3). I couldn’t see how this would ever become anything but a mush of color and line, just like I couldn’t see how I would ever feel like a life without my mother was something I wanted to have. She died at age 94, on November 13, 2022, a year ago. I’d had her all my life. I burst into tears at odd moments.

Finally, the Summer Camp Quilt-A-Long project turned a corner. Now I had to make something of these small blocks. I chose this layout, It’s a variation of one of their variations, with some changes suggested by my husband.

I finished quilting it this month, and made this label.

On the anniversary of her death, my husband and I drove to Utah. We picked up my father and drove to the cemetery in Paradise, Utah to see her gravesite, to remember her. Dad’s very old, and I’d forgotten to bring lawn chairs, so we were there about 3 minutes, 20 seconds. No lie. After he got back in the car, I took a few photographs, feeling a bit strange having such a cheerful quilt in this setting. While we were driving there, my father kept saying little tidbits like, “When she was a senior in high school, she was the editor of both the newspaper and the yearbook.” And, “She lived with her grandmother for a year the year before that.”

When we drove along the road beside this reservoir, he said: “We came along this way some time ago, and got as far as this bridge before we had to turn back. It was under construction.” They’d driven up there nearly every Memorial Day — or as they called it, Decoration Day — to put flowers on the gravesites of all those who had gone before. It felt very circular this day, me with my quilt, thinking about my Mom, as she always thought of her mother, her grandmother and others before her.

Back home several days later, I threw the quilt in the wash, and of course, it changed as quilts do, becoming something soft and cuddly and maybe perfect for a baby blanket? In the end I didn’t put the label on. I’ll send it out in the world without its history, letting it find its own way and purpose. I’m grateful for projects like this which are small bites at a time, helping me become reacquainted with why I like cloth and thread and quilts. I can’t always put my finger on where I am on this new road, but I feel better. I doodled a new design last night and I’m looking forward to making it.

My mother taught me to sew, first doll clothes, then enrolled me in a class at school where I made my first dress. Recently, I’ve had a couple of moments of deep remembrance, times when her presence has popped into my life, seemingly a reminder that she lives on, and still loves her daughter, and her quilts.

Thanks, Mom, for everything.