-
Shimmer: New York Beauties Block 8
This is not Shimmer‘s first rodeo. It first started as “Dazzle” and I liked it, but then I was playing around one night and came up with that bias-stripey-trim on the outer ring, and…
-
February 2023 • This and That
I finished all the tendrils and vines and flowers and now just have the center circles to appliqué and so I started thinking, what’s next? A border with leaves…with flower buds and occasionally not…
-
Aurora: New York Beauties Block 11
Yeah, I promised I’d do these blocks every two weeks, but it was a day I wasn’t weeping over Dad and stuff, and I could breathe and the sun was out and the white…
-
Uncertainty is Wisdom in Motion
This phrase intrigued me. It came from a podcast I listened to while out walking, so I’ve been thinking about what happens when we try to learn something new. Or lean away from “what we’ve always…
-
Filling the Days…with Quilting
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…
-
Pause
This is the other bookend to my life this past fourteen months: my father died Monday afternoon. He was 98, a wit, a smart man with grand ambitions, most of all for his children. Finally…
-
This and That • January 2024
Sometimes the title for these posts can nudge toward the trivial, but the first thing I want to talk about was anything but trivial. My family. Our four children do not live near us,…
-
Reverse Course
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,…
-
Happy Old Year Ending: 2023
We can’t change the past. Matthew Potts’ book Forgiveness: An Alternative Account holds this thought up to the light so the rays shine through in a multiple different ways, but the premise is always…
-
Merry Merry
You don’t have much time right now. You have too much time right now. You can’t think of what to do next, the choices being: sew the quilt on the wall together, work on…
-
Merry 2023 • Quilt Finish
Quilt Finish #284 from a kit, which means it sewed up lickety-split. And my quilter… …let me pick it up in Utah when I was there last month. Jen did a very cool pattern…
-
Santa’s Night Ride • Quilt Finish
This quilt has been on quite a ride. A Santa’s Night Ride, to be exact. It has flown over to France, to the QuiltMania people, who publish three fine magazines: QuiltMania, Simply Moderne and…
-
A Wild Night, A New Road • Quilt Finish
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…
-
Ladies of the Canon • Quilt Finish
I was in a quandary about what to name this quilt, having tried out multiple phrases. It was a quilt made up of blocks from my friends in The Gridster Bee, the penultimate year…
-
A Pattern Language
“Every society which is alive and whole, will have its own unique and distinct pattern language; and further, that every individual in such a society will have a unique language, shared in part, but…
-
This and That: October 2023
Of course I took my quilt titled Annularity up to the Annular Solar Eclipse, and took its photo while the eclipse was going on. And my new Eclipse quilt also got a photo. The…
-
Eclipses: Aren’t we so lucky?
Way back in the darker ages, eclipses were thought to run the gamut of Should Never Be Looked At, to fear and terror. Nowadays, thanks to NASA and all the people like me who…
-
This & That: Hiding Out
I think it started with the post-fun-trip dreck (laundry, cleaning out suitcase, realizing I couldn’t just walk out the door and play all day), then it morphed into I-got-an-RSV-vaccine blahs (a needed shot, as…
-
Dumplings
Not *this* kind of dumpling!Yes, these are dumplings, but it’s not the kind I meant. However, if you want the recipe, I describe it here (but the NYTimes Cooking website is the original source).…
-
Time Let Me Play • Quilt Finish 2023
Last night we had smoke from fires somewhere, but I never could figure out where. And so I gave up, because that’s what you do at the end of summer: you play it easy,…
-
Eye Candy for the End of Summer
While the original version of the word meant light, frothy entertainment, this grouping of quilts was more serious, found in Primal Forces, an exhibit in the BYU Museum of Art. They were part of…
-
Weather on my Mind
Hurricane Hilary is streaming towards us, so we spent most of Saturday morning doing something that East-Coasters have memorized: make sure we have water, food that can be prepped w/o power, and have sandbagged…
-
Even Gritty People Get Discouraged
The title of this post comes from Angela Duckworth, the researcher famous for talking and writing about those who have what she calls “grit” — that innate quality that helps you to keep going.…
-
Amarysso • Quilt Finish
I never hold my own quilts, preferring to be the one behind the camera, taking the shots. But we had a photo shoot for Amarysso, my latest finish, and we traded places. Here’s some…
-
Temperatures are in the News!
Since it is not nice to be selfish, the West Coast and SouthWest are graciously sharing their high temperatures with the MidWest and East Coast. We are sorry. Climate Change is upon us all.…
-
Messing Around *July 2023*
Literally. And that’s not an ironic use of that word. To see if I’ve made any progress, here’s an earlier shot from January 2020: I know it’s a little fuzzy, but the glump of…
-
Crossroads
What is the difference between achievement and accomplishment? asked Adam Gopnick. That question has set me thinking about it ever since. We quilters work hard to get our quilts finished, our patches pieced and…
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 