In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

Happy Halloween! I'm home after a lovely weekend spent with my eldest and her family. Pumpkins were lit on Saturday night, hence today's photo. The top left is my youngest granddaughter's (with help from her dad) spooky unicorn, while the left bottom step carving and upper right heart are courtesy of my eldest grandgirl. Today's title is a play on the holiday as well as what I considered while driving home yesterday concerning a future tale in my current series; science fiction isn't my typical wheelhouse, but I mulled over plot and characters, trying to think outside the box. Not sure if I came up with anything truly bound-stretching, but it was fun to ponder. I also admired the gold-dusted green trees along Highway 101, autumn's kiss prevalent the further north I traveled. Which made me consider how to describe whatever planet my sci-fi protagonist goes to next. This story isn't what follows the WIP, but hovers on my radar, at least in developing whatever ...

Over an hour ago I snapped the photo above. I was going to write a post about completing the binding on this quilt, all to remain being the rest of the hand-stitching, both for the binding and quilting. I tacked on that binding, then did some laundry, made a cup of lemon tea, then sat down to write this post. But first I felt compelled to check Wikipedia, which never happens when I'm ready to write an entry. I merely sit, type, clean up.... I had already read my Wiki for the morning, hours ago. Hours ago Wikipedia had yet to put on their In the news column the latest mass shooting, this time in Lewiston, Maine. But now I know what happened there last night, and writing about quilt bindings seems rather useless, pointless, irrelevant. Once again many people are dead because someone had an assault rifle and employed it not only as a wide-scale murder device, but as a weapon of terrorism. Some of the dead weren't shot, but killed in the stampede that followed the shooting. I have...

My latest quilt prepped for basting. Writing science fiction isn't my usual gig, but it is beneficial for stirring within my gray matter questions I rarely ponder, the Why am I here and What does human culture mean in the grand scheme and What if there is life beyond our planet , those sorts of notions. Especially when I wake early and the house is quiet and it's dark outside and for all I know in those brief (or lengthy) minutes perhaps I am alone in this big wide universe, or all that I am is merely a curious soul wishing for answers. Not that I mean to go off on some tangent, lol, but there's life as we all see it, then there's our imaginations or ruminations or whatever one ponders when all the usual flies out the window. My current novel is set in 1971, but a main character is from a distant galaxy, and despite being human, she has little in common with those she now associates. Putting myself in her shoes, I can't help but wish to push the boundaries, as she...

Last night's sunset. After a little internal deliberation, I have left the melancholy chapter mostly untouched. A few minor edits have occurred, but despite its unplanned emergence, today I merely added onto the story, nine chapters now accumulated. The word count is rolling along nicely, this book not causing me overt issues, other than Chapter 8, ahem. Sometimes a novel has a Chapter 8 that sneaks up, throwing the expected plot slightly askew. Yet much has emerged since I last wrote, which was only two days ago, but sometimes a little break is necessary, or maybe a detour adds to the urgency. Whatever it is, or was, all is fine for now. And that in itself is plenty of OKAY. I like to think of writing as a safe outlet for my active imagination. It's better to write the melodrama than live it, which at times is easier to think than do. It's certainly more preferable, but heartache increases our level of empathy in the best scenarios, leaving us better able to live compassio...

After and before, whatever! The weeding is done, as the photo above shows. Yeah I still need to trim the scraggly irises, perhaps a task for later today. Right now I'm feeling contemplative, because in today's chapter events took a turn I had not anticipated. Sometimes surprises are good, like forgetting one is supposed to get a flu shot at eleven a.m. instead of at four p.m. That also happened yesterday, lol, but fortunately we were heading out to run errands when my phone alerted me that we first needed to stop at the local pharmacy where I did get my flu shot. Would that preclude the scheduled weeding I had planned for later in the day? It did not, whew, in fact my arm feels FINE, and the irises look so much better, and the sunshine was awesome and I went to bed last night feeling so good for all that had occurred. The writing is coming along with gusto, hurray! Garden maintenance is proceeding to plan, woo hoo! I'm all caught up on necessary vaccines, YES! But then this...

It's been a wet start to the rainy season here, for which we are definitely grateful! Already over an inch and a half of precipitation has fallen, although the rest of the state remains pretty dry. Hopefully that will alter soon, in that what drifts over the top left corner of California will eventfully become the norm, however rainfall in this part of the country remains an unpredictably tricky beast even for the best forecasters. However, when clouds give you fog and rain, best to keep busy with indoor activities, for which I am well-versed. The novel is progressing nicely; I'll work on Chapter Five when this post is complete. And speaking of completions, maybe by the end of this day I'll have another quilt top ready, lol. Pictured above is how it looked when I started yesterday afternoon, four rows still to stitch, as well as sewing the whole thing together. Currently it's waiting on my big table with a two-inch strip of Kona Magenta pinned to one side; I'm in th...

Amid machine quilting the blanket above (and stitching yet another Ice Cream Soda block), I 'started' my next novel. I put quotes around started because I actually wrote the first chapter in May of last year, then immediately filed it away, moving on with the next literary shiny. Talk about a purpose for scattered fictional prompts! That single chapter, and the five characters within it, became an inadvertent link to a manuscript I wrote at the beginning of this year after a beloved died. I'm all over inadvertentness, because what is attached to inadvertent is really not that off the cuff or out of the blue but fated from far beyond anything I can imagine, and I have a pretty attuned imagination, might I say. It's kind of like making lemonade with a inordinate amount of citrus, although I'd give up the rest of my writing life to bring back someone so dearly loved. However, all of that is out of my hands, so instead I'll start another book and see where that tak...

The smaller version of the Ice Cream Soda block; while I adore this block, an entire quilt of them isn't in the cards.  A few weeks ago I considered taking on yet another English paper pieced quilt. I bought some papers, just to make a few blocks, which I did, and while I enjoyed stitching those blocks, when adding the attaching diamonds, I realized fashioning an entire quilt in that manner wouldn't actually be something for which I'd be thrilled. I then made the same block in small shapes (see above), mostly because I already had the smallest pieces basted, inadvertently tucked away for this precise moment in time. Past Me nods, with a sly smirk attached, while Future Me shrugs, not willing to give anything away. But in my heart, I've accepted that this particular pattern, while still tugging on my soul, isn't for me. Book ideas are similar, characters and plots that call to me like sirens, aching to be realized in manuscript form, not merely languishing in my head...

Photo courtesy of my better half, snapped this morning on his walk. After guests leave, I always want to jump right back into my routine. I LOVE my routine; mornings spent writing, afternoons dabbling with fabrics or enjoying the outdoors. Recently we've had some rain, which curtails the outside activities, but I have plenty of sewing to do, so it's not like I'm bored. Yet this afternoon we discovered our kitchen ceiling was dripping water, um.... Hastily my husband inspected the crawl space on the floor above and sure enough there's a leak. SHOOT! My quilt design wall is in the room with the crawl space, so as we wait for the plumber to arrive, I thought I'd write a post about being in between projects while catching up with this blog. It's not merely the sewing that is on the back burner, but at least with the noveling, I am engaged, although not actually writing. Yet edits are meaningful, and I *think* after I finish this round, I will indeed start the next b...

A dahlia still thriving in the garden. Rain is forecast for the next few days. Right now the sky is cloudless, although hours ago misty fog ruled the horizon. And a few days previously it was, get this, EIGHTY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT in our actual neck of the Redwoods. Global warming or late summer, take your pick. It was glorious, that's what it was, and our departing visitors joked that it's always that way along the North Coast. I enjoyed hanging out with family this past week, days full of playtime and exploring, chats and many books read. My youngest granddaughter was keen on hearing  Amelia Bedelia while her older sister enjoyed  Horrible Histories , some Ramona books, and plentiful comics from Charles Schultz and Bill Watterson. Those sun-filled days seemed especially blessed, perfect weather to be out and about at our place or at the beach, where my better half and I took the grandgirls for a fine afternoon before high tide and a brisk wind sent us on our way. They all lef...

Our western view a couple of evenings ago. A month ago I started taking an online course on how to sew angles. I knew that I wasn't going to just dive right into this new element of stitching, filing away each course after a quick read-through of that week's topic. Quickly I realized this course would be something I'd give proper consideration to much further ahead, perhaps early in 2024, what with the end of 2023 zipping right along as though each day signified the end of the world as we know it. I mean, here it is, the fourth of October! Where have the last nine months gone, truly I ask, without delving into the deeper query of what about the last five years, eight years, two freaking decades??? Ahem, okay, calm down Present Me, and focus on the post at hand. Today's post is about accepting how suddenly, a mere month into this course about angles, I really have no aching desire to sew triangles or diamonds or parallelograms unless they are English paper pieced. I don...