In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

These calendulas were flattened by a tree but one would never guess from their amazing recovery. Certainly something for me to remember. Last night I was perusing blogs, one of my own long forgotten and a few quilting sites that brought me to where I am today in the sewing. Two quotes gave me plenty of pause for thought, one about fabrics, the other more personal. Yet Sarah Ruiz's statement concerning quilting struck a deep chord, that after a decade she still isn't sure about who or what she wished to be in the quilting world. I SO NEEDED TO READ THAT, although my insecurities are wholly related to the noveling. As a quilter, I am totally an amateur. Sewing triangles scares me, I have no desire to learn partial seams, and y-seams are great only if I can baste paper pieces and sew them by hand. But as an author, jeez Louise.... Yes I write books. And some of them are pretty good, if I might say so myself. However what does a career as an author mean to me, indie or traditional...

The next Cornflower Quilt block. One quilt is done! Another I have begun sewing. A third has six completed EPP blocks and the photo above is another I just basted and hope to start stitching tomorrow. I can't write more than one novel at a time, but juggling quilts is different. Okay, once I wrote three novels all in the same month; it was my second year of National Novel Writing Month, 2007. I was forty-one, which seems a lot younger than fifty-six. Those books are tucked far away; I have a lot of first drafts that will never be more than steps in learning how to craft fiction. Some of my early quilts are that way too, but the level of nigh-incompetence of those initial books is far greater than the quilts. I was thinking about that today as I started piecing a Honeycomb Star quilt from Rachel Hauser; all the stories written over how many centuries that aren't published, known only to the persons who wrote them. And how few of those books might survive to the present day. Once...

A selvedge reminder of what matters most. Lately I've been in a sewing jag- the previously mentioned long-neglected quilt is almost done, heaped on the sofa alongside my granddaughter's quilt; I switch back and forth between them in the evenings, hand-stitching the binding on one, hand-quilting the other respectively. In the mornings I've been working on EPP blocks, nearly wrapping up another in the Cornflower Quilt collection. Yesterday I pulled out my bag of Christmas fabrics, rummaging through them for binding prints; two Christmas coasters require that last element, while six others need to be fashioned into basted mug rug sandwiches. I cut five WOF strips, sewed them into one long piece, pressed it and now it's a matter of putting the walking foot back on the machine, then attaching some binding to whatever is ready for it. This is what I do when I'm not actively working on a novel. Of course there's the garden, but in a way right now it mostly takes care o...

Yesterday afternoon I had planned to finished machine quilting a comforter I started months ago; that poor blanket has NOT been feeling much love, as it lingered on the quilt wall half sewn together, then has languished after I finally got it basted and ran some of it under my machine to stitch together those layers. Instead I spent time in the garden gathering flower seeds; calendula and ornamental poppies, California poppies and Sweet Williams, and marigolds. I have more marigold seeds than, well, sense. I want to scatter them next spring in what will be a wide patch at the back of what used to be a chicken coop. All the while as I harvested seeds, I considered the quilt awaiting my attention. And a book that has been patient for much, much longer. Not that I'm assuming I'll get to that story this autumn; I received a jury summons for the middle of next month that could delay the writing. But if I don't end up serving, I'm still not certain I'm ready to invest mys...

An artistic forest amid the marketing trees; photo taken on Saturday at a nearby Redwood grove. Lately it's come to my attention how differently I approach what I write compared to other authors. I've been reading material provided by Draft2Digital, the company who distributes my novels, learning a lot about marketing strategies. The takeaway seems to be write for a narrow audience, then distribute widely. Kind of a contradiction in my opinion, but authors who follow that advice and turn a profit permit my small meandering manners of crafting from my heart, then publishing what makes me happy. I have to admit I was bothered by the recommended ethos, not only that it seems fraught with contrasting logic, but what of the creative spirit? I follow the marvelous suggestion National Novel Writing Month founder Chris Baty proffered, to craft a novel only I could write. That advice has been the backbone of my authorial life, and I've traversed some unexpected themes and genres. I...

The beginnings of a Myrtle block from Jodi Godfrey's Seedlings Quilt book. Probably two months ago I cut fabrics for an EPP block, the prints from Karen Nyberg's gorgeous Earth Views collection. Those cuts and their coordinating paper pieces sat in a sandwich bag, along with a nearly finished bobbin of thread for basting, all tucked away in my hexie box, what I call my portable sewing makeshift Tupperware. I'd forgotten all about them until recently, then made that my focus when we went traveling last weekend. Upon reflection however, I need to alter the initial design, outer colours too similar to the blue squares seen above. Similarly I'm having a little trouble deciding what to write next, which isn't an altogether bad situation. But too many choices, and a current WIP to revise, kept me from going back to sleep at 3.49 AM today. Okay.... I will note that by getting up early I enjoyed seeing some bright stars that really are planets in the not too cloudy sky, whi...

A shot taken yesterday in the Lassen National Forest along Highway 44. Returning home yesterday, we traversed the upper half of California, some of which sports burn scars from various wildfires. With less than two hours to go, we ran into smoky skies, the Six Rivers Lightning Complex burning without containment. During part of the drive, as blue skies hung over the distant western mountains, a hillside across from us sported flames, separated by what was probably the Trinity River. Plumes of smoke rose from spots along that mountain ledge, and I wonder when we next head east how much of the landscape will resemble the photo above, taken in the Lassen National Forest, an area altered forever. I don't think I could write a novel about such devastation, leaving that for others to ponder. But it was otherworldly to drive for miles and miles amid what the 2018 Carr Fire had wrought, the fire last summer in Lassen, the August Complex fire from 2020, and then speeding through an ongoing ...

After many cloudy mornings, this was our sunrise today. We're going away for a few days, will see most if not all of our kids and grandkids. I have been so plugged in to the writing that last night I dreamed about merging what I'd been rewriting with something else I'd written, although upon waking I realized the something else was a figment of my nocturnal musings. It was about ducks of all things, and I smiled, aware I needed to unplug from my fictional wanderings. Yet I don't get far from those notions, as I'm taking a notebook connected to the real story in addition to some English paper piecing as recreation. I'm never far from the quilting/fabric/sewing life, how intriguing those two interests have woven themselves so deeply within my soul. I harvested another big tomato yesterday and some smaller ones, larger than cherry toms but not by much. Baby pumpkins are attempting to attract pollinators and I'm looking forward to when I return to examine if the...

Special thanks to my hubby for holding this up last night after I finished sewing it together! If I'm just talking quilt tops, I'd say the removal of papers compares to the final edits of a novel destined for publication. Yes I still have to make the quilt sandwich, baste it, then quilt the whole thing, but having just sewn BY HAND this entire top, I'm feeling pretty damned accomplished. Much like how releasing a book requires several hoops through which to jump; it's all perspective and of course relative to one's choice of activity. Yet I wanted to share this quilt top because it has been a long time in coming, and it's greatly anticipated by my youngest granddaughter who helped in the making by designing several of the hexie flowers. I'd bring my sewing tote when I visited, basted hexagons in a bag not only for her quilt but to mend pants with blown-out knees. She and her older sister both loved fashioning a plethora of flowers. And she was a little bumme...