In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

I wanted to continue these revisions, but the entry below came first. Heads-up: Bleak post but with strength at the end. Ups and downs; perhaps that's what it's like living under a repressive regime. Not the most uplifting manner in which to begin a post, but at this moment in time it's how I feel. And being honest with oneself is imperative to keeping a grip on sanity, if reality is an effed up kettle of rotten fish. Maybe I should have called my senators already. I could contact my rep, Jared Huffman, because aides do answer those calls. But I'm not steeled enough mentally or emotionally to delve into that arena. This day, I'm barely able to note my name. How do repressed peoples manage during such bleak days? They've been doing it a long damn time, and if that's how my nation ends up, I'll be doing it too. Life goes on; sports and Valentine's Day and whatever else the Big Eastern Syndicate requires. Big Eastern Syndicate is not of my creation; it...

Trinidad Head from Saturday, 11 January 2025. It was blowy and cold, but nice to observe from inside the car. "I don't see how anybody can predetermine how their movie is going to turn out, or why anybody would want to, because it's a creative thing that is changing every day, and you're changing every day while you work on it. You start to make a movie, and when you finish it you'll be a different person." - Barbara Loden I read this quote earlier today and obviously it struck a chord. Not that I'm planning to make a movie soon (or ever). Only that I'm hoping to start writing soon (or ever again). And the first (long) line proffered me a whole lotta freedom. I have notions how the story will end, snippets of ideas for the middle, but no clear path for how to get from Chapter 3 (because I'm keeping Chapters 1 & 2 that I wrote last year) to say, Chapter Question Mark. I don't even know how lengthy of a story this will be. Not The Hawk l...

Hexagon block for Alexandria, a wonderful ongoing process! Quilts. And novels, ahem.... I almost titled this Sincere considerations , because to blithely discuss writing (actual writing not revising) or machine-piecing a quilt seems precarious. Why? Because it's been over a year since I finished writing anything new and a few months since sewing with my machine which is STILL UNDER ITS COVER.  But I'm not going to change the title. In leaving it alone, I'm possibly setting myself up for disappointment, but damnit, I REALLY WANNA WRITE SOMETHING NEW! And look at something different on the design wall. I stretch twice a day in the room where the design wall resides, and I meant to take down the blocks just minutes ago after completing my stretches, but I forgot. Jeez Louise! I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached (and I'm a little afraid I'm forgetting how to.... Not write, but, but, but....)! The out of order bit relates to the quilt I'm sincerely consi...

  This week's Red Sky at Night block, Rolling Star. Green is becoming one of my fave colours. I'm glad it's a new day. Yesterday was....tumultuous. Not because of what you might imagine, but due to rain, memories, and a sense of futility. A decent night's rest alters A LOT. Cups of less than half-caff tea ease the turmoil, and now at 6.13 a.m. I'm feeling able to grasp my life with more than a modicum of relief. PTSD is a funny thing, in the you never know when it's going to strike column. In the how crippling are events from the past you never consider until they have brought you to your knees arena. In the why in the hell am I still bothered by this, that, and the other even though the crap happened over forty years ago element. Hmmm. Fascinating is the human mind, able to slot away shite from one's day-to-day, then BOOM, there is it in a downpour and merely by God's grace there go I into the maelstrom. Suffice to say, being in a car in the middle ...

  The hourly forecast for Saturday; indicative of my mood are the clouds, but if no rain falls, I'll be SO GRATEFUL (also indicative of my hope for the future). Recently a dear friend sent an email about being patient, trusting, and celebrating exactly where I am right now. I was grateful for her grace, that peace, and the accompanying anecdote about happy pigeons proffering a glimpse between where I currently stand and a world just beyond the veil. Where I am right now feels like thin ice, although Future Me is holding my hand, reminding that she just told me things were gonna suck. She squeezes my fingers as if to confirm that notion, the pressure not harsh but healing. She and I have been in some VERY DEEP VALLEYS, Past Me too, and yet here I am (or we are), breathing without difficulty on this bright, Thursday Humboldt County morning. Family arrived on Tuesday, my sister-in-law and her partner. The birthday celebrations begin tomorrow, so today will entail grocery shopping and ...

  The Hunter's Moon, October 2024. Bright moonlight proffers alternative glimpse of the world. Also how catastrophes make one feel like there is no day, only the suffocating darkness. Well, that's a mouthful, notes I made over an hour ago while sitting in the not quite dark living room feasting upon the moonlit landscape. The Hunter's Moon is indeed bright and beautiful in our clear Humboldt sky, and despite being awake since, oh my goodness, three a.m., I was cognizant enough to note a title for today's entry and scribble a couple of sentences for later perusal. So now it's later, which can be qualified because while it's also five thirty (at the time of writing) in the morning, when one is up at three, five thirty seems like mid-day, kind of how the night appeared, not really like night at all. It's currently this twilight-night, that marvelous moon illuminating far beyond what spotlights could achieve. I was up early yesterday (although not so stupid earl...

  Paper pieces in the box along with all the fabrics, etc. Going to be so much fun! Okay, it's not a total surprise because for the last few posts I've been going on about the Red Sky at Night sampler quilt . I've received the papers for the this project, have already started sewing an EPP block, lol! I'm super excited about making some version of Jodi's pattern; definitely a mix of machine and hand-sewn blocks, but no idea how many of each. The surprise I'm referring to is how suddenly the next few/several months will be full of traditional blocks that previously I had no desire to stitch. Not that I had some grand plan for fall in the quilt department, in fact I'm busy with another quilt that will fit itself into the schedule. But after a VERY QUIET MACHINE SEWING SUMMER, autumn is looking to be chock-full of me seated at my machine, even if I'm finding how my tinnitus isn't really keen on all that noise. (I wear earplugs and noise-cancelling head...

  Small, futzy blocks aren't usually my speed, but the units above have been rockin' my world since receiving Jodi Godfrey's pattern for Red Sky at Night . From top left going clockwise we have Square in a Square, Hourglass, House, Flying Geese, Pinwheel, and Half-Square Triangles. These are not blocks in themselves; Jodi refers to them as units. I capitalized them because, well, at three and a half inches square, with the exception of the Geese, measuring 3.5" X 2", these units have stretched my machine sewing muscles like no others. The Honeycomb Squares quilt was a lotta work, but nothing compared to what RSAN will be. Previously if I wanted complicated, English paper piecing sufficed. It still does, and certainly will with this pattern because some of the paper pieces are pretty dang little. My idea of enjoyable futziness is basting papers, then sewing them by hand; give me all the angles you want, lol! Using my machine, and loads of scant-quarter-inch seams,...

HST stands for half-square triangles, which in my decade of sewing have remain conspicuously absent from the routine. I don't like sewing triangles; I can't control them. They have their own agendas and.... Anyway, in Jodi Godfrey's latest delightful pattern , HSTs and other angular manners of machine sewing figure heavily. I was reading over the clearly written instructions yesterday, when suddenly I found myself cutting squares, drawing a line down the centers of the light fabrics, then.... Well, those pictured above are what I curated before it was time to eat dinner. I spent a good while rummaging through my stash for appropriately unbusy low volume fabrics, of which I don't have many. Then it was a matter of choosing darker prints, then chain-piecing, pressing, and finally trimming to size. The trimming was the biggest hassle, well, right after finding low volume scraps. A few times I nearly walked away, then I'd gaze at my monitor, where the pattern waited, te...