In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

Warm Hearted quilt in its full glory. Tomorrow I'm heading out for a few days with family in the SF Bay Area. My suitcase is mostly packed, a few things with those chickens to accomplish, like cleaning out the coop today, lol. From my bedroom I could hear one of them making a racket, so I trekked outside to find Ruthie in a grumpy mood, probably because Owl was in Box #6. Ruthie, at times a broody hen, croaks the loudest, not a cluck exactly, more like the caw of an angry crow. I hope she behaves while I'm away and doesn't cause my husband too much fuss. I'm SO GLAD I denoted what I planned at the top of the quilt. An upside-down view of it. Two days ago I had big ambitions for my Warm Hearted quilt, since the back was finished. Big because on Thursday I'm leaving; what did I think I was going to accomplish in three days amid preparing for a trip, chickens to look after, etc, etc, etc. This morning I put the EPP part of this project on my work table while the back w...

Skies, fabrics, etc.... My right shoulder is BETTER! It's not to the point where I'm hand sewing like previously, but it doesn't hurt when I do hand stitch. Every other night. For about an hour. Which is approximately a quarter of the time I used to hand sew, but I'll take it. Very slowly beats not at all, and as I have several EPP projects, not to mention Kawandi, I wish to complete, hand sewing will truly exemplify SLOW STITCHING on a grand scale. Lol. A few days ago, while figuring out the next round of my Peace Around the World quilt , I played with some fun squares, turning an extra swan into the center of yet another coaster. I have So. Many. Coasters! Yet I love the brevity, experimenting with different fabrics, as well as adding a layer of Insulbrite to make them more heat-resistant. It kinda works, but it's not perfect. Guess I'll need to try it again, hahahah. What I DID LOVE were how woven fabrics worked amid regular cotton prints. I love how green me...

Colour does the heavy lifting in these six-inch squares with splashes of low volume to add sparkle. Despite two broody hens, one of which is a NEW BROODY HEN (ahem), I finished a definite quilt back this afternoon. It will be the back because the front is an EPP heart beauty, and this brightly coloured extravaganza will complement that warm-hued top just FINE. Life right now feels very....interesting, in a slightly overcast, marine layer sort of way. Revisions I wanted to do this week didn't happen. An extra broody hen wasn't in the plan. Completing this quilt top, however, was a goal, and I met it, and feel good about it. Certainly a win! Today my husband and I walked along Samoa Beach at low tide. The sand was packed and sturdy, the waves were loud, the wind blowy. I thought about how this setting could be incorporated into Noth's next storyline in The Enran Chronicles , as well as what looked like a driftwood forest there on the sand. Pondering that idea lifted my spirit...

The hens from days ago, before Gigi became super broody. Photo courtesy of my husband. The latest from here.... The sun is shining as though all those days of cloud never existed. Gigi is VERY BROODY, having picked her chest feathers down to her skin.  Our world is in turmoil. But the sun is still shining! I had a very apt entry going through my head first thing this morning of how to tie these things together in a very meaningful way. Now it's murky, though the sun is still blazing. The sun was blazing during all those gray days, I merely couldn't see the brightness, though the days were lengthy. The cloud was pervasive, but couldn't derail the trek toward the summer solstice. And now it's like those days in late April and early May never happened. Those fires in the fireplace? Nah! It's so bright out, blue sky and no clouds. NO CLOUDS. Seriously? Yup. The last few days in Humboldt County have been CLOUDLESS. Now I remember where I was going with that thread. Our w...

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, ...

About six months ago I wrote a post about five weeks till the winter solstice . Funny to think that's about half a year ago already. Nothing felt summery earlier this month; all those gray days seemed like a weird winter, because it was chilly but light out. We had four fires in our fireplace, maybe more than we actually had during winter. It was lovely to go out for more wood at seven p.m. and it wasn't dark, LOL. Then suddenly, like a weather switch has been flipped, we've had mostly sunny days since Mother's Day! Windy but not cold. Bright and healing. Truly like summer is around the corner, though here in Humboldt County summer is a relative term. It's summer once the dragonflies arrive, mowing down the mosquitoes. It's summer in July because by then not only are the mosquitoes gone, but the days are still lengthy and the marine layer isn't quite the wet blanket it was in June because there's just enough heat soaked into the ground that makes it feel...