A Contemplative Life

  Glimpses of a quilt-in-progress.... Taking a break this morning from reading The Hawk , although I have been racing through it, thoroughly caught up in the drama. Some chapters receive a minor tinkering, some are left nearly as is. At my current rate of more than two chapters a day, I might *finish* these edits by the end of month, whoa! Yet that is a story I wrote years ago. Nice that I still enjoy it, don't misconstrue, but what I am now longing to write is the continuation of my current series, and not merely one book. Inspiration has been flying through my mind as I hand-quilt the fabric WIP, which is coming along well. Binding is wholly attached, another round of hand-stitches to confirm the entire kit'n'kaboodle will stay as one remains. Yet in that repetitive work, my gray matter fashions plots, characterizations, people's hopes and dreams. These folks aren't real, although who is to say what constitutes the manner in which we live. Not to be overly etherea...

Okay so today is the official beginning of autumn, whatever. I was fairly loopy yesterday morning, and surprisingly I didn't get tired until about seven p.m. I was able to stave off the yawns by starting a little 1.5" diamond cutie, pictured above. More about that, perhaps even in this post. First, however, I FINISHED MY NOVEL. Woo hoo and all that! So let me just say that while I knew the end was in sight, I didn't imagine The End would arrive on a day when sleep was minimal, skies were (and still are) smoky, yet rain is on the horizon. I had hopes of completing this story maybe by Monday? Maybe. And that maybe is mostly due to not wanting to rush myself, as well as the drama, but more me. Taking one's time to wrap up a project is necessary, although a few of my books (and quilts) have been finished in a rather speedy fashion. As this novel is packed with alluded to details, it was a little tricky about what to wholly reveal and what to hint toward and what to spell...

I'm sewing together the autumn quilt for one of my sisters. This sister ADORES Halloween, and I think she'll like the quilt, once the temperatures drop in her area, lol. It's warm here today, a sultry kind of heat, and smoky too. The AQI keeps jumping, then slipping, then spiking again. Fortunately I have plenty of indoor fun to keep me busy and if the air clears considerably, I'll spend an hour outside picking blackberries. I don't mean to rush summer off prematurely, what with fall-like quilts, but summer seems faraway, probably exacerbated by murky skies. We enjoyed a marine layer-free morning, but seeing how far the sun has moved south was another sign than autumn is approaching. Maybe writing also prods my feelings; I became a writer due to National Novel Writing Month, which occurs in November, so the sense of butt in chair truly blossoms as August winds to a close. So, that novel.... I'm not quite halfway done, but edging toward that marker, and I like ho...

With two days left, all that remains on quilt construction is half the binding to be attached to the back and a date with my washer and dryer. Yesterday was a heavy duty sewing machine day, the likes of which made me grateful this morning to have accomplished the bulk of the work. As I pinned the binding, I listened to a an old playlist newly renamed with a few additions, which has inadvertently become yet one more soundtrack for my fictional WIP series. But now with a name, I can refer to it here with an actual moniker: Four Corners . Not that I know what that means in the grand scheme, but it's something. The photo above seemed the perfect shot for this post; the four corners of my fabric WIP, one mitered corner completed. I've been wondering for a couple days what Four Corners means in my story, but for my quilt, it's marvelous to have so much done. It's nice to know I can still knock out not a rush job but a good piece of sewing, even adding some hand-quilting to bo...