In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

Eight-inch squares full of rainbow joy alongside some batik jelly roll scraps and Kaffe Fassett magic make for one happy quilter! Last night I completed the hand quilting on this beauty. I had already bound it and after trimming the strings on the back, I tossed it in the washer this morning, then into the dryer and voila! Another finish of a quilt I would LOVE to keep, but it has an awesome home already in place. This happens often; I'll sew up something that truly strikes my very own fancy, yet with the full awareness it won't remain in my possession. Yeah, I could design something similar, but it wouldn't be the very same, in that many of the skinny pieces were scrap and I used them all, ha ha! Also those exact solids aren't part of my stash, but boy I was pleased working with them. And of course the backing fabrics can't be replicated easily, neither can the binding, and, and, and.... The fish are courtesy of Violet Craft's Fisherman's Bend collection a

Sweet Williams in myriad colours thriving where the deer can't nibble them. In reaching the near-end of my fictional WIP, I'm feeling my way around as revisions bump into fresh additions, dribs and drabs of new writing, lots of reading previous chapters to make sure everything makes sense. Yet I'm enjoying how this new configuration is coming together, making notes in brackets so I don't forget too much of what remains to be included. I haven't been rushing myself, wanting to savor the experience, yet I'm also aching for the next book, which means I'm hooked on these folks, itching to share their stories. This is the best part of writing, having fallen in love with a quirky cast and wanting to expand their horizons further. Yet I am taking off the upcoming Memorial Day weekend; a break is necessary, then I can return to writing with a recharged battery. This series has hit me so squarely in the face, I'm trying to find the required space so I can do just

I grew up with irises so these remind me of my youth. I thought about this last night while sewing basted paper shapes; I stitch a bunch together, then set them aside as blocks pile up, waiting for a good long while as I still need to sew a dozen more blocks, plus baste loads of four-inch squares. then sew all of that together BY HAND, ahem. Writing my current series needs to be considered in a similar labor of long-term love manner. Assessing my fictional WIP in such a way was liberating, because I never berate how much time I put into a paper-pieced quilt; those projects always emerge through a lengthy lens, no way to sew by hand as fast as machine piecing. Each block is akin to a chapter, yet for this series, it's more like sewing a few EPP quilts, lol. I just need to write/revise a little bit most days and know there's a great ending waiting for me. I actually did some writing today; I've come to the the part of this second book where much required alteration, so a half

A wee sunflower newly placed in the garden! But I need to preface it with the notion that I feel like I'm cheating. Yet I've put a number of plants in the ground and in planters, so that counts, right? And they are live plants, lol, so yeah, I've kind of found my outdoors mojo, even during a mostly cloud-filled week. Boysenberry plant that I started last year from a tiny plug; it's the berry of my childhood and doing well. So why do I feel as though I've skipped many steps? Well, last year I started SO MANY PLANTS FROM SEED. Oh my goodness, I was a seed-starting fool last spring. It was our first full year at this house and with little rain and plentiful if not cold sun, I went nuts for veg and flowers. Not all of it did well, due to hungry deer and other critters and meh soil, as well as our mild summer weather. Did I burn myself out, perhaps. Our very wet and cold winter hampered my efforts this spring, as well as malaise from grief. Yet I'm making up for it n

Petunias and one random flower recently installed into a bucket. So pretty! I mean that merely in a fictional manner, although after a tremendously bright Sunday, clouds have overwhelmed our area as though impending summertime was a dream. I did get some pumpkin plants into the ground yesterday afternoon when the sun peeked out for a few hours. Otherwise I'm living like it's mid-February, spending my mornings with the writing, then sewing the rest of the day.  Except that it's not cold out, despite gray skies. Well, it's not warm certainly, but not as chilly as February or even March. It's typical Humboldt weather, loads of overcast skies occasionally broken up by sun, although probably not today. And that's fine, wholly freeing me up to spend much of the day with indoor tasks which might include cleaning a bathroom, ahem. Yeah, really gotta do that, but first is this post. then some quilt wall play as I finished the fabric WIP yesterday and by evening's end

One row from the quilt; I LOVE this elephant print! A year ago during our trip to the UK, we watched for the first time the Eurovision Song Contest. We lived in Britain for nearly eleven years and not once during our stay did we indulge, but it just seemed like the right thing twelve months ago. Forward to this past weekend and we deeply enjoyed the first two hours of the final, although we didn't bother with the voting part of the show. I wrote down tunes I appreciated, will incorporate them into my music player. We laughed that at the time of living there we simply didn't appreciate what has been broadcast for several decades. But then, I still don't watch cricket or European football. ("Cha Cha Cha" was my fave production; WOW! Finland knows how to showcase a song, hehehe.) Mother's Day was marvelous; we went to breakfast early, then headed to the beach for high tide. It was my hubby and me, our kids having visited a few weeks back. After the beach, I hung

Just past the large boulders is where the sand drops off about ten feet to the shore. We bought some plants today, then went to the beach, hence the title. Cloud cover should lift tomorrow and we'll put the various flowers, fruit, and veg into the ground then. I've been considering starting some pumpkins from seed, but hesitated because last year's were such a bust. Finding nicely sprouted plants at the store pushed me over the edge and I'm toppling into minor gardening with my fingers crossed. In addition to squash, I chose a cantaloupe plant and a dozen petunias split into two six-packs. And a coleus for our planter that dwells in the shade, into which I'll put one yellow and one pinkish-purple petunia merely because that leaves ten, which is plenty to scatter where the deer and other critters won't eat them. My husband chose a watermelon plant, he LOVES watermelon. No idea how the fruit will do with our mild temps, but experimentation is good. And the petunia

Pretty prints! Nothing borrowed but definitely plenty of blue; so goes a quilt back, which I often don't mention except in making one. Yet as I pressed open the seams of this particular quilt back, I considered the phrase something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue , although none of the above fabrics were borrowed. Yet I could say I robbed Peter to pay Paul, in that the two small lower left prints are remnants of what my eldest granddaughter chose for a possible quilt ages ago, back when she was three and I took her shopping on my fabric escapades. She was an enabler if ever I met one, gushing at how pretty was this print, how nice was that fabric, how perfect was that bolt Grandma, LOL! She suggested a quilt for one of her friends and I happily acquiesced in collating a wide assortment of spring-themed fabrics that after time were used for other purposes. And on this quilt back, the last bits fill out a corner, with a tad leftover that I'll use in a f

Another rainbow quilt; I'm really into ROYGBIV right now. I finished up a quilt top today, only a minor snafu in the bottom row; the first two vertical stripes should be at the end of that row, but I didn't notice the mistake until it was far too late to rip out way too much to correct it. Ah so, as my Vodali folks would say. Otherwise I am very happy with the pattern, which I saw on Cath Hall's Instagram a few weeks ago. I sewed it up as though regular patchwork, nesting seams and all. When I make this design again, I'll avoid using jelly roll cuts, only in that the pinked edges make for a little trickiness when aligned against straight cuts. And I'll mix up the fabrics, using prints for the eight and a half inch squares instead of solids. Initially I had a different title for today's post, but that was hours ago, and now it's like a different day has occurred. Not that catastrophic drama happened, although my husband had a tooth pulled this afternoon and

A plethora of pleasing prints, just need more batting. Today's title isn't meant in a negative manner, merely what I thought when making mug rug sandwiches this afternoon as well as reading through the fictional WIP. Maybe crafting a series lends itself to feeling like ticking off boxes; write a book, write another, write another.... As for the coasters, I have many to make and find working on five or so at a time isn't overwhelming. I stitch some together, then arrange the backing, which today meant sewing pieces I had cut previously, lol. Dig through the scrap batting bag, sew some strips together, plop them between the front and back, then pin. One EPP hexie flower amid these nine-patch tops, and one washed and SHRUNKEN, ha ha! The squares are two and a half inches before laundering, the solid from Kona in Buttercup, the prints Kaffe Fassett jelly roll treats! Some blues, reds, and yellows equal lots of bright joy! And many more of those left to construct. Kinda like how

View from my bedroom window last night; amid the clouds Venus shines brightly! Right now I am Future Me, not merely due to achy fingers from perhaps a little too much hand stitching last night. Right now it's 2023, but for the last several weeks I have been living in a fictional era twenty years in the past. Phones weren't ubiquitous, which might be the biggest difference, but it is a large one. Yet I'm leaping into modern times with the next installment of my series, aging my characters and placing smart phones front and center. And in this future, time is a bit.... uncertain, both for how much a character has, and what's happening to everyone around them. In the future, which coincides with the present, I'm also facing deconstructing, then reconstructing a manuscript. Some of the descriptive hoo haa I typed in February will be omitted, in that much of this cast has already been introduced. In this now second book, I also gave a 'voice' to those living near

Another series in the making; this coaster is the first of six, all of which were machine-quilted yesterday, woo-hoo! I just finished reading through my recently completed novel. Or draft of a novel, or rough draft manuscript; different terms for the same thing, the basic completion of a story. I'm pretty pleased with it, which is always a good sensation, also aware of at least a couple of chapter starts that require reworking, as well as other issues every first draft possesses. I'm VERY HAPPY and equally relieved that one of the last chapters over which there was much hand-wringing is actually....great, lol. Great in that for how long I spent on it, those hours were not wasted. For me, rough drafts come together fairly quickly, big revisions occurring later. But a couple of the final chapters were like pulling snot from my guts, yet worth the relative discomfort. So what happens next? Well.... Tomorrow we're hosting friends for lunch, but Wednesday is a calm morning, prob