Blog Index

  • Reverse Course

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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?

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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!

    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*

    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

    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…

  • Double Star • new pattern

    Double Star • new pattern

    Kolob Canyon. We were about mid-point in our drive from the Salt Lake City area to our home in Southern California, when we turned into the Kolob Canyon parking lot, in the upper section…

  • JanFebMarAprMayJune 2023 This and That

    JanFebMarAprMayJune 2023 This and That

    Yeah, just lumping them all in here together, because I just can hardly remember the first six months of this year. I know I dropped a lot of balls: unfinished quilts, undusted corners, unsent…

  • Community • Quilt Finish: North Country Patchwork

    Community • Quilt Finish: North Country Patchwork

    This is a quilter’s visual paradise: triangles, circles, squares, bits-and-pieces; it’s the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Cathedral, which got a lot of press recently with the coronation of King Charles. And this is an…

  • Time Let Me Play

    Time Let Me Play

    I was struck by the idea that: “…all thinking is an act of memory in some form. That includes imagination, creativity, innovation and other variations of ‘new’ thoughts. That means the components of the…

  • Flashback

    Flashback

    Occasionally I attempt to clean out my emailbox, which is a vain and futile attempt to generally keep my life organized. But in this round, I found several stacks of emails regarding Quilt Swaps,…

  • Quilt Finish: Blossom and This & That for May 2023

    Quilt Finish: Blossom and This & That for May 2023

    I’ve been storing up some This-and-Thats, so buckle up, here we go. First up is a quilt finish. I started this in June of 2021, and finished it today. I was teaching classes about…

  • Quilt Finishes, Kitchen Re-do, Watching a Plant Bloom

    Quilt Finishes, Kitchen Re-do, Watching a Plant Bloom

    These strange looking almost-flowering buds belong to the Mother of Pearl plant. It’s also known as the Ghost plant, or Graptopetalum paraguayense. This is the mother ship of that spindly, tentative arm that is…