In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

Today's pics are ones I took last night, dried flowers collected by the grandgirls and my youngest daughter that adorn our fireplace mantle. These post-Thanksgiving days are...strange. Such a big holiday, then a busy weekend with family, traveling included. Now we're home, yet more alterations await; dear friends are coming on Sunday, staying for the week, yay! I need to prep the house, although not put up Christmas decorations, as there is no time for more than stringing lights on our front fence, so necessary as daylight has diminished sharply. There's also a quilt on the design wall that I put up yesterday and want to stitch together before our guests arrive. I wrote a chapter today, WOO HOO, so missing that element of my life. I adore sharing our home with beloveds; it's also great to return to familiar rhythms that bring me so much peace.     Then I stop myself, realizing how blessed am I to have that peace. This nation is fairly fractured, but not openly waging vi...

One small Far & Away square in Brushfire. The end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend finds my other half and I home from familial visiting. Dinner has been eaten, we're listening to the new Kurt Vile EP-LP, Back to Moon Beach . I'm working on another Cornflower block that I took with me to stitch, but after getting the inner petals sewn together, I found half of the squares were basically the same hue as half of the petals; DOH! We weren't home more than half an hour and I had chosen a different fabric from William Reue's Architecture School collection. 'Far & Away' in Brushfire was the winner, as well as being very close to the title of my fictional WIP. Then I wondered if I had coined the title from that print, or maybe I dreamed doing so. I had been longing over that fabric once I saw it on my fave online store, and it's been in my stash for a while. Very fun when incidental issues get tangled together. I've been awake for a long time today,...

Faith Family and their good general health A great spouse Dear friends A comfortable home Food in the fridge Plenty of creative outlets Cognitive cohesiveness Few aches and pains Love Happy Thanksgiving.

Excuse the slight reflection of this shot, taken yesterday. We're back from our familial celebrations and prepping for the national holiday. Cranberry sauce is cooling; I put in vanilla per an online recipe, and it's pretty dang tasty, if not a little heavy on the orange juice. Notes have been made for next year; I love cranberry sauce, and I try a different recipe whenever possible. As soon as I woke this morning, once the decaf brews were made, I sat at my computer and picked up on page eleven of my WIP; I'm hoping to read through it over the next couple of days, then we're off to see our youngest daughter, then we're back and I'll finish the read-through and maybe write a few chapters before dear friends arrive the first week of December! I would LOVE to complete this novel by the end of the year, but won't hold myself to that, in that the holiday season is full of surprises, and I want to enjoy Advent without feeling I have to do this, that, and the othe...

Having finally united the lovers within my novel, I find myself getting up very early to write. Well, my right leg is being troublesome, so that also plays into these well before the crack of dawn noveling sessions, but most of my enthusiasm at truly ridiculous hours of the day (night) is based upon itching and aching to further the story. That's an immense blessing and I'm extremely grateful for it. Strangely enough, I am not dropping off for sleep at six or seven or eight p.m. at night! I'm not getting a ton of hand-stitching accomplished, but last night during the Kings/Lakers game I completed a Cornflower block, pictured above, and was struck at how it perfectly, but accidentally, represents my novel. Space-themed inner petals are bordered by hearts; dude that's my story to a capital T! This block originally had a dark blue floral print for the squares, but after I basted them, it just didn't feel right. I had a strip of the hearts print leftover from my younges...

  A dear friend is enduring similar heartache to mine from earlier this year, a beloved diagnosed with a very serious illness. We chat regularly, having known each other since our England days. That's over two decades ago now, time slipping past at a rate I really don't want to analyze. But right now time is strange, how a year ago my brother-in-law was ailing, how at the beginning of this year he died, and now it's again November, but this year others are where my family was in 2022. Right now my life is focused on writing my novel, still emerging at a rate that makes me wonder for how much longer will the plot keep barreling down Storytelling Hill. Till it's done I guess, or I hope. I'm nearly finished with youngest granddaughter's quilt top, will probably wrap that up tomorrow. We're going away this weekend to celebrate a birthday with our eldest, then will host my sister-in-law who is managing life without her husband. Traumas occasionally last a long ti...

This applies to all areas of my life, but as this blog focuses on the writing and sewing, I'll limit my appreciations for those aspects (and still write a long-arsed post, heads-up!). I just finished my second chapter of the day, oh my goodness. I told my husband this morning over breakfast how this novel is pouring from my head and fingertips, and then I took a shower, considering what might happen next, then proceeded to start another chapter for the day (the first completed before eating). I haven't written like this IN A LONG TIME. One day last week I wrote two chapters in a day, not sure from where all this novelistic enthusiasm springs, maybe due to it being November and I'm channeling my prior NANOWRIMO days or making up for last year's spectacular fail. Whatever it is, I'm VERY GRATEFUL to be so prosy, lol, although I do need to get some housecleaning done this week, ahem. But relishing this rather I'll just write myself thank you very much story is ess...

So many stitches (and quilts and books etc...) I'm suddenly realizing the enormity of certain projects, and oddly I'm telling myself, as in Present Me to even more Present Me, to just stop, breathe, and DON'T RUSH. It's a weird thing, like Present Me is suddenly Past Me, but not snarky, impatient Past Me (sorry Past Me, but you need a serious dose of get over yourself), but a frazzled yet willing to listen Past Me that seems to possess a decent amount of self-awareness. Or just that surprisingly, I'm wising up to what I can and can no longer accomplish. And what I might complete in the future, hehehe. For starters, a few days ago Present Me (or Recently Present Me) realized that while I would LOVE to sew two lap quilts by the 26th of this month, I just cannot manage it. Instead said quilts will be Christmas gifts for the grandgirls. They chose the fabrics months ago, but this abuela doesn't have the wherewithal to do that much sewing while trying to write and pr...

I can't wait to sew this together! The writing is going well; I had a big day yesterday, another good smattering of words today. The subject matter is tricky, in that I'm dealing with racial issues set in 1971. But there's the love story too, of which I am giving all due respect to the drawing out of a twosome aching to come together. Stark are the repercussions of a split, hard for a child to grasp why someone so beloved wishes to leave. Not to give away too many spoilers, but my duo is in that holding stage, waiting for someone to make the first move. And sometimes it's not one within the relationship to push things over the edge. Sometimes another character nudges one toward their soulmate. Arranging all these folks to their correct spots is like laying a quilt on the wall. Square by square fabrics are placed, then replaced. By the time I'm a good third of the way along, I start moving down beyond where it's easy to navigate, then I have to rearrange just to ...

Cars that topped the list with my granddaughters this past weekend when Hot Wheels tracks came out. My chapter today was mostly through the POV of a five-year-old. The idea of writing an unpleasant meeting between a few characters came to me last night, not that the child is insulted, but those beloved by the little girl are injured. Having read over said chapter, I'm glad I wrote it through a youngster's view, a little easier on my heart as well as including those often overlooked when emotions turn bitter. I've been told that my novels are character-driven, and that I have a deft touch with all ages in a cast. I take a little pride in that, because children aren't merely bystanders; they hear, see, think, and feel. Their reactions are often more honest than adults, although they can also remain silent, not wanting to absorb the wreckage left by the storm. A shouting match would have been too easy to write; better is the youthful observation of irregular reactions by t...

Recent Cornflower block finish; at least something's being completed. My latest novel is up to 50K. Technically that's a strong halfway point, but I need to confess for the plot I previously imagined I should be farther ahead in the story than where I am. That rarely happens, and I'm realizing this tale is doing its own thing regardless of my initial considerations. Well okay then novel; you be you and I'll take a couple of days off while family visits! Ahem.... I think, within this series, despite it being a collection of kinda-standaloneish-books, I need to allow that it's more like The Hawk . Meaning it's one LONG book broken into these bite-sized hunks, and maybe this one might be the largest. I won't speculate HOW big Book 4 will become, as I don't want to paint myself into an inescapable corner or limit the story, which is nicely meandering as two characters fall in love. Yet the timeline I'd assumed has stretched itself, or shrunk itself depe...

Recent quilt finish that didn't get a proper photo shoot. This post is about getting older. I use the word deceleration instead of slowing down, in that slowing down insinuates a notion that makes me slightly uncomfortable as I drive pretty fast, lol. But in myriad other manners, I am not the gal I used to be. I considered this subject before I came home, fully aware that once I came home, writing wasn't going to happen the following morning. It's been some time since I got back from a short trip and immediately dove into writing. I did sit that first morning home and read over several chapters, prepping myself for the next day's work. Yet the writing isn't the only part of me decelerating. Getting older is a funny thing; it happens gradually of course, but suddenly I feel like, "Wow! I'm, uh, nudging toward my late fifties. How the hell did that happen???" I had a great chat with a friend from my junior and high school days this week concerning this ...