A Contemplative Life

I'm looking very much forward to snuggling under this bright beauty, one of these days.... Anticipating machine piecing. And hopefully novel prepping....  Welp, I've done some novel-prepping, woo hoo! Home and Far Away now has end details and a chapter of the next book that one of these days I'll complete. Lol. But yeah, book stuff is happening! Synopses are next, insert winking emoji here. Truthfully, how to describe this story? Kind of like describing the quilt design pictured above. Fave Anna Maria Parry (AMP) prints old and new with some additional fabrics for good measure. I can't write that as a synopsis, but it correlates, because Home and Far Away is nearly a separate tale from the previous three Enran Chronicles books , mostly about Richard and Gilly Lund adjusting to two humans from outer space and an actual alien arriving with them. Set in rural California in 1971. With overtones of racial disparity and other biases intruding. And it's a love story. Clo...

The original albeit augmented quilt laid out as I affixed the back, the first part of the Kawandi process! Notable tears and rips are visible, why this quilt required a complete overhaul. This is heavy on pictures as I want to illustrate my Kawandi process. Because once I decided how to upcycle Dorothy's quilt, I got right to work as visiting summer beloveds allowed, hehehe. The outer perimeter is attached! I had to be careful NOT to stitch the quilt to the bed, hahaha. I write that due to the fact I started refurbishing this quilt in early May, then it lay dormant for nearly all of June and part of July. When I returned from keeping an eye on the grandsons on this sixth of this month, I dedicated most of my sewing hours to this effort, although the project feels more drawn out than those few months suggest. Rounds accumulate to the point I could sew in the living room, always a pleasure! Especially fun is watching the changing nature of the quilt, although I was slightly aggrieved...

The Kaffe Fassett collection side. Recently I gratefully accepted that all my ongoing projects, both in writing and quilting, aren't a burden; right now I couldn't wrap my head around sorting out something new. I preface this post with that realization because it's good to embrace one's limits and other extraneous forces wafting nearby. Now, to the placemats. I began sewing them in a rather impromptu manner a couple of months ago, having blithely purchased some gorgeous Kaffe Fassett prints. Incorporating my love for Kawandi-style stitching, as well as wanting to use up scraps for the backs, I whipped through four or five, then made my way through three or four more, employing fewer scraps for the backs because that quickly lost its shine, lol. Then I bought a wee bit more fabric (LOL) because my husband actually said he really liked one of the prints, and I found it in three other colourways! And then I found myself with only a few of the original choices left, so I pr...