In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

It's a busy day, getting ready for guests that will enlighten our lives for the next week. However my feet are a little weary, so why not ramble here for a bit, giving those dogs a rest as well as set upon a discourse about the above title before I forget why I thought it was important (lol). I don't even know why I first pondered this, maybe an IG poster mentioned them, which made me think of my orphan EPP blocks. I don't have many machine sewn blocks without a home, but plenty of English paper pieced designs linger in a tote, patterns I liked and HAD TO MAKE. I used plenty of them on a Turning Twenty quilt, decorating some plain tone-on-tone prints and that was a great manner in which to employ less than a quarter of what remains, ahem. Oh and I used some on a t-shirt quilt that I made in conjunction with a friend, who had lived in Hawaii for a few years and wanted to put her aged shirts to quilty use. But still many remain, although I have a plan for them, hehehe. I am h...

Mandolin block on the bottom, Cornflower block on top for size comparison. Going between large and medium-sized English paper piecing blocks has been fascinating. I knew the Cornflower Quilt blocks were easy, both in the choosing of the fabrics as well as stitching those prints. But lately I have incorporated Mandolin blocks into my nightly routine and yeah. Size makes a difference. It's the amount of time dedicated to completing a block. You could say it's like comparing a standalone novel to crafting a series, especially if the smaller quilt blocks are made from scraps or just not one theme of fabric. Which is the case for both of these EPP projects, lol. Why not find one more way quilting and writing go hand in hand, huh? (Another post awaits for when I can't compare my fave hobbies, but for now....) My first foray into English paper piecing was hexie flowers using 1.5" hexagons and the blocks weren't that big. Next were Mandolin blocks, way larger! Those were a...

In the last twenty-four hours, we have received nearly two inches of precipitation. The photo above was taken yesterday at 4.25 p.m., and overnight a little more landed in the gauge. The air is clear over most of Northern California and in Southern Oregon too. Fires are still burning, but a great relief has been experienced. When we lived in Silicon Valley, fire wasn't a major threat until the summer of 2020. I think back to those days, packing precious belongings as we were near an evacuation warning zone. I keep a go bag at my bedside now, in part from the threat of earthquakes, but fire remains a major issue, and then rain falls, rain so prevalent earlier this year but extremely absent for the last several. As the sun streams in my office window, I am still picturing yesterday's gray skies, water pouring from the heavens, dousing the flames and bringing respite. Not much else to report, in that the writing, sewing, etc, are about as usual. I have begun revisions on my novel,...

Okay so today is the official beginning of autumn, whatever. I was fairly loopy yesterday morning, and surprisingly I didn't get tired until about seven p.m. I was able to stave off the yawns by starting a little 1.5" diamond cutie, pictured above. More about that, perhaps even in this post. First, however, I FINISHED MY NOVEL. Woo hoo and all that! So let me just say that while I knew the end was in sight, I didn't imagine The End would arrive on a day when sleep was minimal, skies were (and still are) smoky, yet rain is on the horizon. I had hopes of completing this story maybe by Monday? Maybe. And that maybe is mostly due to not wanting to rush myself, as well as the drama, but more me. Taking one's time to wrap up a project is necessary, although a few of my books (and quilts) have been finished in a rather speedy fashion. As this novel is packed with alluded to details, it was a little tricky about what to wholly reveal and what to hint toward and what to spell...

Most recent Mandolin block laid out, minus the perimeter diamonds. Being awake at 4.21 a.m. (when I began writing this post) happens occasionally. It's not due to being uncaffeinated, I'd like to think I'm over that adjustment. It's partly due to a rather cool night that my summer duvet wasn't quite prepared for; later today I'll switch it out to the autumn quilt better suited to keeping me warm. It was also partly due to being near the end of my novel, HURRAY! Which is interpreted by Semi-conscious Me when waking at not quite 3 a.m. as, "Hmmm. It's early, yes, but I've slept a good stretch and well, if I don't immediately go back to sleep, I could get up, make the morning decaf brews, then sit for a bit, wake up a little more, then start today's chapter." Yeah, that's how I roll sometimes, not much I can do about it. But after perusing my fave internet sites (Wikipedia, the weather, catching up with what Bluey episodes I've see...

Maybe my fave. I'm taking off a day from the novel; I had to visit the local endodonist, the consultation result being I'd rather spend a few hundred dollars to have a tooth removed than a few thousand for a root canal repair and probable new crown. A-hem! Yet stepping away from my writing provides time for other pleasures, after getting back from the dentist, lol. And with most of the coasters done, a couple of placemats completed too, here is how the battle for attention panned out between mug rugs and their larger cousins. A nice assortment to scatter here and there. The coasters won, of course, ha ha! I have one still in need of a binding, otherwise all are washed and waiting for the first of October. Our cloudy and now smoky weather continues, but it is still September, a couple more days before autumn begins officially, and these will adorn my tables of various sizes until the end of November thereabouts, no immediate rush to slap them where teacups usually land. I just a...

Now this is my kind of outdoor activity; making a cowl from gorgeous autumnal yarn. So a spoiler alert: I have been writing my latest novel with a modicum of realized plot. A modicum of realized plot; that in itself could be the title for this post. But Important details uncovered works too, in that what I'm kinda confessing is that at seventy K into this book, I finally figured out the Aha! element, answering all the big questions that have been piling up, ahem. And Oh My Goodness am I grateful to now understand what's going on with everyone, lol! Yeah, big deep sigh of relief, followed by, "OMG, I need to remember all this and finish the dang story!" A few times I have been so brazen to write with this scant of a clue to what this twist meant and what that cryptic gaze implied. The ending I have had in mind for months remains solid, but jeez Louise, what's with all the cloak and dagger hoo haa, most of it within my own head? Well, Future Me exhorts, sometimes ...

Coasters. 'Nuff said. Because I lived in Britain, I love tea. Because I love tea, I use coasters. Because I sew, I make coasters. Because I keep my scraps handy (meaning because I don't put things away and they clump on surface areas) I fashion coasters. Because coasters are easy to put together when scraps are plentiful, I design a LOT OF COASTERS. And because I wrote a chapter this morning without a lot of sturm und drang, I had time to pin together random beautiful fabrics and Bob's your uncle: Here's a pile of mug rugs waiting to be turned into sweet little quilt sandwiches. And yeah, twenty-one days without caffeine. Talk about ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom Bob's my uncle! Dude, yeah, no regular tea. Or coffee. But the sense of wanting something that'll pack a punch lingers. I forced my withdrawals onto my protagonist, lol. Poor chap is aching for something strong, while I wonder if removing caffeine has made any difference to my tinnitus or blood pressure. I'...

A jewel not of my making; read below for its story. I spent a few days away from home, gifting some autumnal quilts which garnered gushing affection, which is always so lovely to witness. Meanwhile my husband hosted a friend he's known since high school, and that friend also enjoyed the myriad quilts draped over the sofa, lol. It's always nice to be appreciated and prepared. Speaking of prep, last week I started to wrangle with future installments of my current fictional series. I had ideas certainly; this saga has miles to travel until reaching The End. But I hadn't given it much hard thought, kind of caught up in Halloween quilts and cleaning for a guest, ha ha. Yet now I have a plan, or maybe it's more concrete than an ethereal notion. I won't know till I reach those stories, but at least a pathway has emerged from the foggy mist. At times it's a difficult journey when relying on the muse, my faith, the twists and turns of life. I chatted about life's sur...

An early Cornflower block, 8 August 2021   Five years ago I took the plunge into the world of EPP. Spurred on by the magical creations of Jodi Godfrey and Florence Knapp , I bought some 1.5" hexagon papers at Joann, then began to thread baste scraps given to me from my eldest daughter's mother-in-law, who was starting to purge her fabric stash. Most of these prints were whimsical in nature from collections of days past, and the notion of making my oldest granddaughter a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt seemed absolutely ideal. I basted hexies while visiting my mom, who unbeknownst to us was ailing from cancer; I recall sitting at her dining table while she napped, using her thread as I had run out, which now is my thread. It's very special to me knowing those threads are included in that special quilt (as I don't remove the basting threads, way too much work). Quickly I gathered other patterns into my EPP realm. Those initial papers were stiff and I learned that ...

Our granddaughters have left for home and what a lovely weekend we all shared! Many blackberries were enjoyed fresh off vines, the frog above hopping onto a large stalk, deserving a photo. I took lots of pictures over the last few days, read heaps of books, built hordes of Lego creations, watched a little Bluey , and patched a pair of pants, lol. The girls departed with new hexie shirts from hexie flowers they helped sew while we were together during the July Midwestern vacation, about all the stitching I managed after they went to bed. The house is SO QUIET now, such a different flavor with guests, especially kids. Toys and books are drawn from the large collection in the living room, and three stuffies remain on guard along a sill, my youngest granddaughter placing them there to watch for deer, which did not make an appearance much to the girls' chagrins. We had glorious weather, which of course demanded a trip to the beach, albeit it at high tide, but sand castles were fashioned...

Why I call it a floral Halloween quilt, hehehe. Our granddaughters are spending the holiday weekend with us, so the only writing I will manage will be an early morning read-through of what has accumulated since the fifth of August. Which is both pretty cool to have amassed over fifty K in those weeks and also very necessary to see what in the heck I've written throughout most of last month. Wow, it's September; that's a little bit of crazy! August seemed to slip away like sand running through my hands. I had hoped to get a lot of writing done in the eighth month of the year and I sure did. I also made quilts, worked on placemats, picked blackberries, and um, gave up caffeine. That achievement has been due to my tinnitus, which so far doesn't seem extraordinarily improved, but machine quilting over the last few days isn't a big help so.... Yet I am over the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, which mainly meant really achy leg muscles. I tapered off slowly, no headache...