In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

27 January 2018; two patches already applied by machine. Yet the interior remains untouched, albeit compromised. Amid reading aloud Straight to the Heart: The Hawk Book Three , I did a little photographic research to discuss my latest quilt finish. To my surprise, I found I've had this quilt, pictured above in January of 2018, since the previous summer. That's eight years, my goodness! Where has the time gone? The quilt was already in need of repair when I received it. Yet to cloak the gorgeous stitching took time for me to admit. (Future Me was probably rolling her eyes, fully aware of what awaited this quilt, lol!) Yet this post isn't about time's fickleness, lol. It's about a beautiful English paper-pieced quilt made by a woman named Dorothy, her last name starting with S, inked on the back of the quilt in two places. She deserved such recognition because this diamond star pattern is GORGEOUS. Well, it was gorgeous. Now it remains as one snippet of what has beco...

Most of these scraps were added previously. Under the pink and purple flower is all that remains of the original English paper pieced quilt (white and black stripes and green floral prints). A couple of days ago I bought the necessary groceries for green bean and sausage soup. I was going to fix it yesterday, but better tasks emerged, and I put it off until today. Which was the perfect day because we started out with lots of marine layer unlike yesterday which was sunny from the get-go. Yes it's August, but in Humboldt County, most days are good to have soup. Most days are also good for a heavy-ish lap quilt. Well, many days are right for such a cozy. Last night, with a window behind me open, was the perfect temperature to hand-stitch, and hand-sew I did until I was too tired to stitch further. I really wanted to finish the quilt last night. It simply didn't happen. The yellow-headed pin marks my stopping place. This quilt has been taking up sofa space for...months. Not sure ho...

Little Camilla in the run from a couple days ago. We went away for a brief sojourn, returning home on what's turned into a warm summer's day. Is it late summer already? It's the twentieth of August, and it feels like summer only began. The chickens are eight weeks old yesterday. They seemed happy to see me this morning, also thrilled to be let into their run, lol. After a day spent shopping for groceries and getting resettled at home, I'm sitting down this evening with the usual thrills; handsewing, baseball, then a visit to the coop to collect the feeder and see if the chickens feel like leaping onto my right forearm. Sometimes life is that simple, sometimes. Sometimes driving to the San Francisco Bay Area so my husband can have successful skin cancer treatment intrudes. That's what happened yesterday. But twenty-some hours later we're home and he's feeling okay, and the chickens have little or no memory of being in their coop for a day. A neighbor checked ...

  Roost in the coop. Heads-up: This is about my belief in Christ, America's further descent into authoritarianism, and how those notions weave in and out of my gray matter. Oh, and a little about chickens, quilts, and books. It's Saturday morning. Foggy. Gray. Warm for Humboldt County (Sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit). I wanted to write about the QIP (quilt in progress) in my Go Bag, as I'm prepping said quilt for further Round the World installments. But I also wanted to share the great roost my husband built a couple of days ago for the chickens, although they aren't super keen on it, yet. Only Owl gives it nod, again this morning hopping onto it, then reaching the second rung, then jumping to the floor. One of these days all the chicks will be perched on it, and not that far in the future. Go Bag quilt: Small. Pretty. Peaceful. Necessary. My heart this morning is torn; Washington D.C. is becoming a different city than what I visited a few years ago, what with the admini...

  Nadia Barnevelder in the mood to pose. All photos courtesy of my husband. As if I'm on the cusp of eighty instead of sixty, ahem.... Well, that's how I felt a few days ago when I considered this post. I've achieved some good sleep in the interim, but I am NOT the woman I was three decades past. This is in regard to spending ten days with my grandsons, finding my energy levels depleted in a weird way that I chalk up to being close to sixty in the general realm. That actually happens next spring, but oh my goodness I felt every one of my fifty-nine years after saying See you later to those adorable grandkids, their mum, and her mother-in-law. Now that I've been home a full week, I am indeed rested and somewhat relaxed in the grand scheme. The previous post notwithstanding or how Washington D.C. is being enveloped in an evil attempt at a dystopian but all too realistic dictatorial takeover, I am not exhausted or feeling extremely aged. The chickens help; I've spent ...

Twenty-eight-year-old Palestinian journalist and videographer Anas Al-Sharif was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. His team died as well , when their media tent was struck outside the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed he was a member of Hamas, but have offered no proof as validation, which has been strongly denied by Al Jazeera Arabic, his employer. They counter that Israel is smearing him to justify this murder. Today's devotion in God Calling begins like this: Remember no prayer goes unanswered. Remember that the moment a thing seems wrong to you, or a person's actions to be not what you think they should be, at that moment begins your responsibility to pray for those wrongs to be righted, or that person to be different. A few months ago another Gaza photojournalist, Fatima Hassouna , was killed in a manner similar when her family's home was struck by an Israeli missile. She was touted by the IDF as "a Hamas membe...

My patches amid what's left of an EPP masterpiece. All that dwells under the re-quilting.... Now back in my stitchy-novelistic realm, I spent late yesterday afternoon and early evening adding another round to the Kawandi-style lap quilt. It's hard, in one way, re-covering this particular cozy because its original design is a gorgeous EPP diamond star pattern. However it's been in disrepair for a long time, sporting patches adding by yours truly, and in desperate need of an overhaul. Kawandi is the perfect vehicle to upcycle it; even if the beautiful English paper piecing is obscured, the quilt itself remains a viable (if not weighty) blanket for many years to come. Decisions about what patches to save, as well as if I choose to salvage any of the EPP, make for slow work in adding new inner rounds. I did half of the current round, then required a break to gather the mental acuity to move forward. Sounds like an apt metaphor for life in general, lol, which is why this post ex...

Some GORGEOUS Anna Maria Parry fabric that HAD to be included. How it fits is shown below, past the chicken photo. Hard to believe it's already the eighth day of the eighth month of the freakin' year! I don't mean to malign 2025, but dude it feels (at times) like a year from, well, some back and beyond era that I thought was over. And then there's chickens.... Thankfully they remembered me after a five-day absence while I hung out at my daughter's residence, keeping an eye on those grandsons. My husband had chick duty, but yes I came back to pullets who still respond to my chicken voice, admittedly not as cute as my youngest grandson's chicken voice, but certainly familiar enough that last night one jumped from half a hay bale onto my shoulder! And it was a chicken that doesn't even like being picked up, whoa! Chicks this morning in the run.  It was sunny here today, in the mid-seventies Fahrenheit in our neck of the North Coast, and I soaked up some of thos...

My hubby has taken the grandsons to the beach this evening. I was up at stupid O-dark-thirty this morning, and while I went back to sleep (and had a half-caff tea at 2 p.m.), I am wholly TOAST now. But (BUT!) I have enough brain cells (barely) to craft this post. Because it's been days since I wrote more than notes to friends while at the same time encouraging my grandsons to write/draw letters for their cousins. And sometimes (SOMETIMES) a little plug-in to one's usual reality means the world. The week has sped past, as all weeks seem to do. The boys have enjoyed themselves thoroughly, although my youngest grandson is pretty much ready to go home. He's six and a half, could jump on the trampoline for most of the day if permitted. His elder brother could hunt for wild plums and sticks and play cards with me or watch baseball with Grandpa. We had sunny days to start, typical cloudy days for the finish. I drive them home on Sunday, spending a few days with my daughter as well...