A Contemplative Life

My Lavender quilt-in-progress.... How now, suddenly, my heart is drawn to the Lavender EPP quilt when not long ago I didn't think I'd ever finish it. (And now that translates to other things, like certain novel series, Enran ahem....) Over five years ago I started basting shapes for Jodi Godfrey's Lavender quilt . It's from her book The Seedling Quilts , and in Godfrey's pattern, the EPP is surrounded by negative space. I first made the pattern with her Seeding Quilt sampler and I FELL IN LOVE with it, once I understood it. That took a while, staring at this beautiful design but not quite able to get my head around it. Then it was yet another English paper pieced quilt I just HAD TO MAKE. Several of those over the years, lol, but I've completed some. Yet for all my initial love of Lavender, other shinies overtook it. Shunted it to the end of the queue. Demoted it into a tote that despite being feet away from where I sit at night to stitch, it might as well hav...

It's ALWAYS a thrill and pleasure to announce the release of a new novel! Somehow that never gets old. Can't Be Done Alone: The Hawk Book Five is a story close to my heart for the subject matter introduced, as well as a new character, dear to Pastor Marek Jaworski. Funny to think halfway through this saga new faces are still emerging, but with five novels left in The Hawk , some of the plot had to shift from Eric and Lynne Snyder, Renee and Sam Ahern too. This installment focuses on Seth Gordon, cousin to Laurie Abrams. Seth's story becomes paramount to Eric, once he learns that Seth isn't returning to New York from Florida despite the Synders' having left for home. That niggle turns into a nightmare for Eric, who cannot shake the sense of being torn from his family, especially now that Lynne is pregnant with their second child. Only after a heartfelt discussion with his pastor and friend does Eric begin to find peace, but it's short lived after Stanford Taylor...

Diagonal Colours is an apt title for this quilt top/back, what I discovered a few paragraphs below, hehehe. I'm kinda on the last phase of revisions for Can't Be Done Alone: The Hawk Book Five , reading silently instead of out loud, although a few sentences have been murmured, making sure this or that wording is what I wish to convey. When I started this saga over twelve years ago, what I wanted to convey wasn't necessarily magical realism and historical fiction served in a women's fiction sort of way. What emerged was, well, all that and more. This is made from leftovers of a recent Rainbow quilt as well as newly beloved prints from Shell Rummel's beautiful Daybreak collection. Nearly halfway through a long tale, this installment starts to veer in different directions, not merely dealing with Eric's transformations or Lynne dealing with them or her assumed infertility. The chapter I've included below hearkens to other elements of the story, that of faith, ...