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 potential flooding areas. We put in French drains ages ago, but our up-above-neighbor’s water always pours into our yard (unhappy face, here). He’s a nice guy, but we have to prepare against his run-off, so my husband did something we’d never done before: went and got sandbags.

I cleaned out the garage, sweeping it clean and propping up all cardboard boxes off the floor, just in case the water runs through the back door. We then loaded all the patio furniture (even the BBQ) into the extra space. I think we are ready. The humidity is off-the-charts, and the storm hasn’t even arrived yet. (And in case you are wondering, that is a 30-year old wisteria vine on the patio cover. I planted it when we first moved in and I hope it all survives the predicted winds.)

But that’s not the only weather on my mind. On this day as I sewed the squares for January 2023 together, I was thinking about how cool the weather was at that time (yes, we even had a few nights of freezing, which would explain why our jacaranda tree is currently toast — we have hopes it will come back), and how many rainy days we had. When I sewed March, we had one day of 10 minutes of snowflakes (it happens in Southern California), and a third of the month were rainy days.

I mentioned how I was needing a month identifier block, and I decided to use whatever colors were in the mix at that month. So for January, they are pinned above the beginning of the month. I sewed two of the triangles together, then added another:

Then trim:

Now I have a month block. Of course, I can’t do them ahead of time, but that’s okay.

Do I just sew them together randomly by date? Yes, I do them by date, but first pin them up to see how they relate to the other blocks around them. If the temps are lower than the day before, the angle is down to the right. If the temps are higher, angle up to the right. Of course, the first couple of rows, I just sewed, but now it’s a pattern game: what will I see when this one is next to that one. This is the fun part of it all, and I’m enjoying seeing what these HSTs make. (And the temps are getting warmer, shown by the pinks.) I pin the loose ones together:

Then I sew them together. I press one row going down, then the next row going up, so they will nest together and I can sew them together (albeit a bit more slowly) without needing to pin them. If you are a “press-open” sort of sewer, have fun pinning those seams.

Then I got up early Saturday morning, before the work of the day (moving stuff into the garage — even the gazing ball is now tucked away) and take a photo. I just turned the corner on the month of May, so I’m catching up to August. Now I’m thinking I need to make a different color band for our hurricane. Yes, I know it will be a tropical storm by the time it hits us, but wow–this is definitely something I’ve not experienced in Southern California living. Ever.

Now I have a question for you. Have you ever journaled about your quilts? If so, have you tried any of these techniques?

• Blog, then print the book
• Blog, with no printing
• Instagram, with/without printing
• a notebook, where I paste in my photos, and write about my quilts
• no Quilt Journal
• just photos in an album

I’m thinking of proposing to our Guild that we have a Quilt Journal night, prompted by this article in the NYTimes, where Laura Rubin believes corporate American could benefit from the practice. But why not quilters, too? She says that “journaling works. It gets you where you need to go,” but in my life, it’s also a way to collect what I’ve done, to not lose my life in the details.

And do you:

• use a pre-designed quilt journal, like the ones available on ETSY?
• make your own from a blank spiral-bound book?
• Buy a bound book?
• Write just about the nuts and bolts of creating that quilt?
• Or do you take time to write the inspiration, the story of the quilt, and why you chose the title?
• Does it include photos? Fabric swatches? Sketches?

So, anything you have to add about the idea of quilt journaling, leave a comment, or an idea.

The storm is still not here, and we are all in anticipation. It’s killing us, smalls. We’re used to earthquakes, with no advance notice. Boom, and you are shaken. I just came in from outside, the twilight sky is dark and deep, with a thick layer of clouds overhead that deaden all sound. Eerie. Guess I’d better quilt before we lose our power, right?

…who is looking to survive Hurricane Hilary!