A Contemplative Life

Not that I'm planning to live till I'm one hundred twenty years old. Only that for however long I reside on this planet, it's as though I'm starting over.... My birthday has come and gone, but my goodness it was wonderful! Shared with a variety of beloveds, the weather cooperated, and we celebrated in myriad ways, with an old episode of Great British Bake Off enjoyed by all. That series is one my grandkids all love, and we watched with glee as Martha recovered from an awful tart in the signature challenge in taking first place in the technical by baking poached pears wrapped in pastry. Kate was that week's star baker, but we said goodbye to Norman in a season made perhaps before my eldest grandchildren were even born. Lego flowers I received for my birthday; I completed bags 1-4 (out of ten) last night, might finish this ensemble later today! Hence is the basics of aging; we can watch reruns on TV via any method, but time keeps marching, and I came up with the end ...

Fabric with dots is Aerial View. The other is Lands End. I like the colour blue. In lots of shades. And pink. In many hues. And I like the weight of Ruby Star Society fabrics, especially for EPP. Put those together, and tonight I have much of another block for my Eden quilt sorted. I also like making blocks that have a center hexagon, lol! Cornflower blocks , Eden blocks; what I appreciate is simply stitching around a basted shape, not worrying if center points meet up. I realized that while making the Cornflower blocks, and it's reinforced with these little beauties. Earlier today I put fabric on the design wall, but I'm keeping this quilt under wraps until it's gifted, as it's a surprise. Not in time for Christmas, but hopefully before February. Large squares will lend themselves to being quickly turned into a top, but as I plan to hand-quilt this project.... It's going to take a few weeks of evening stitching. Yet having completed the design element freed me to ...

Crystal Manning fabrics (with a Speckled center) from a few years (or more) ago. This will be appliqued onto a light pink t-shirt, once of these days. Gotta fix a cup of Metamucil, then I'll be back to expound upon this ominous title. Okay, so getting used to life without gluten, dairy products, and red meat and NO CHEATING on those edicts has been...fine. Kinda like using Draft2Digital is FINE . It is what it is, and you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. My eldest granddaughter used to say that when she was little, but now at ten years old, I don't hear it from her much anymore, LOL. I don't mind the Metamucil, although it will be a cold day in hell before my husband drinks it, as it figured heavily in the lives of his elderly parents. It wasn't anything my parents used, and it still tastes like watered down Tang, no big deal. I feel good, have lost six pounds, and my knees don't hurt, so if dairy was aggravating those joints, it's a trade-off wor...

Some of this year's fave quilts! I've been pondering this post for a few days. Possibly in that I published novels this year, woot woot! The quilting felt luke-warm until I scrolled through photos, which revealed I'd made ten quilts, all simple patchwork save an English paper pieced finish. Another woot for that, as well as only three of them remaining at my house, lol. 2024 was a year of.... Change. No kidding! I had covid for the first time, which sidelined half of summer. My sewing machine has never been under cover for as many WEEKS as it was, and still is. The defeat of Kamala Harris was, and still is, gut-wrenching, yet the passing of Jimmy Carter could mitigate the agenda of the incoming administration if people choose to honor selflessness and service to others over narcissism and greed. We'll see what happens. Yet this post is not about the future. This entry regales what doesn't go in our Christmas/Hanukkah letter sent to family and friends. To them I ment...

Going through a manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, or the equivalent method of revising. Or deciding the next stage of a medallion quilt. Or how to use one's energies to oppose a false democracy. Well OKAY Very Recently Past Me, ahem. Very Recently Past Me (VRPM) seemed to be teetering on the edge of her high horse, but sure, I'll run with this prompt. Uh, yeah.... I'm only hesitant because VRPM made this post because 1) I mostly liked the title in conjunction with editing a new (LOL) book. Not that Give Her My Love: The Hawk Book One is old news, but I do like me a shiny, the shinier (and seemingly more labor intensive) the better. Okay, so that's the main reason for this post. The current round of pink-ish and green hexagons is halfway done, woo hoo! The second reason is.... 2) The above quilt! Or what's emerging as nightly I ecstatically stitch away on Alexandria. OMG I am SO IN LOVE with SEWING this QUILT! I'd been deeply (DEEPLY) concerned if a medallion...

Pondering why I write, sew, or do anything really. Lol. That could easily be the blurb for this blog! Or life, if life manages to free up a few moments for said introspection. I had some last night after the latest trio of hexagon blocks were attached to Alexandria; I stared at one from the previous round, made with yellow fabric from a fat eighth surrounding some beautiful Kaffe Fassett jewels, with a navy hexie nestled inside them. To the right are upside down Anna Maria hearts in blue, also a big LOVE! I studied this block for a good ten minutes as yawns rang the bell for bedtime. Posted a snippet on Bluesky about it, then promptly went to bed! Whether writing or releasing a novel or working on a MAMMOTH English paper-piecing project (EPPP), taking a few minutes to question/admire said project seems to happen less frequently than previously. Not sure if it's because lately I've been up to my armpits in STUFF GOING ON, or if aging seems to allow less time to ponder, which mi...

  Last night's accomplishment. Blue and yellow blocks are to remember Ukraine's struggles. To my utter JOY (and no small relief) I am FULL of ENTHUSIASM in my return to Jodi Godfrey's medallion designed Alexandria quilt. W-H-E-W! I've been pining over it for months, but couldn't work on it until after my husband's party because it already takes up space and is only going to grow. Two nights ago I brought down the center, stitched nearly two years ago, then rummaged through the living room tote for hexagon blocks. Then I went to the office looking for another Alexandria tote for basted diamonds. Two totes for one quilt? Oh yes! Meanwhile, I pondered how these medium-to-large EPP projects mirror my medium-to-large book series, lol. Indeed a few parallels going on in my life right now. So, about this quilt. Currently I have four of twelve outer hexagon blocks attached, and am planning (hoping, praying) to continue adding two per night, which includes sewing the bl...

Cards made yesterday morning while avoiding cleaning my house, lol. How editing out of order helps as well as hand quilting the perimeter is occasionally necessary. But when creative time is squeezed, better to adapt than not create at all. Well okay! I thought this up about half an hour ago after spending the early (but not stupid early) morning reading through The Enran Chronicles Book 3. Not like delving into it from Chapter One, more like opening the document, peering at the first paragraph, then smirking at myself because right now there are not enough straight uninterrupted days to begin a proper read-through of the novel. Yet on one particular morning, like today, I could peruse a few chunks, which I did indeed do as I scrolled more than halfway through the story, plopping myself into a scene, then within a few minutes finding a typo! What? Well, okay.... Good thing I landed on that page, with enough wherewithal to notice said typo, then correct said typo. I completed that chap...

  Yesterday we hosted a woman and her husband for whom our house and property are very meaningful. She grew up here, and he's been accompanying her back to her hometown for over fifty years. Two years ago they visited, finding a water tank on the southern edge of the forest from where water used to flow to the house. The outbuilding isn't large; the wooden roof was rotten, mosquitoes finding it a haven. It was her quest to locate the structure, merely to satisfy her curiosity. Yet my husband took it as a challenge, fashioning a new roof which he has turned into what he calls The Lookout. He included the railing, making it safe for all ages, and to their delight, it provides a marvelous vantage point to admire the house and woods. Afterwards we went out for lunch, thoroughly enjoying the camaraderie. She asked what I had been up to, and I noted that in addition to quilting, I was busy with revisions, hoping to publish a third novel later in the year. Both she and her husband wer...

I didn't mean to cut back a dahlia, but sometimes it happens. We might get some rain tonight, so today was spent prepping for it. Leaves were raked, the wood area cleaned, and boy my back is feeling all that exercise! I've lamented not doing more in the garden, but have earned my outdoor stripes over the last few days. Amaryllis have been cut down, blackberry vines among them whacked back. My better half dumped several bins of refuse, bless him! I swept the back patio and am looking forward to how much leftover dust is washed away by the precipitation, perhaps a quarter-inch worth. I can't complain about the impending wet weather, because it's nearly the middle of October and we haven't had much in the way of damp days. In fact, we've enjoyed loads of warm temps for our neck of the North Coast. Yet it's time for a change. Huh, not much about retirement, semi or otherwise, so far in this post. I did feel quite relaxed while raking this morning, the sun shinin...

  My eldest called it the sunflower quilt, maybe that name will stick. I meant to write about this quilt top yesterday, but those HSTs muscled their way to the top of my brain. Yet, this quilt-in-the-making needs some blog love. I started it ages ago, slapping it on the design wall back in April, whoa! That was before summer started, before I got Covid, before, well, before. Sometimes before is recent and sometimes it's ages ago. Right now it feels like far longer than April, maybe for all that's happened in the last four months, not only Covid but twenty-nine times two and a Red Sky at Night, and oh yeah, those half-square triangles which I am ACHING to return to, but first I need to finish this post. Because completing that little quilt top, quite bright and a wee bit busy, has been the catalyst for me returning to sewing. Not that I haven't been stitching; loads of hand-sewing has occurred, including hand-quilting placemats that I assumed I would run under my machine...

  Stacked on many sewing projects (as well as a ruler) are these rows which I am FINALLY stitching together, whew! So today I used my machine. I had to dust it off; despite the cover, two months is long enough for particles to accumulate. It needed to be threaded, and to my slight horror and acute embarrassment, I had to look up which way the bobbin thread needed to go. I also oiled it after sewing two rows together, a strange noise that maybe is how it does sound, or perhaps I need to get it properly cleaned. I pressed open seams while the oil seeped into crevices, then still felt like the clunking remained. We'll see if I take it to a local shop for cleaning. I had started this quilt a few months back, sewing squares into rows because someone was visiting, maybe the grandsons back in March? Now it's mid-August, but I'm not going to ask where has the time gone. I've also cracked open Book 2 of The Enran Chronicles , getting through eleven chapters in the last couple of...

One quilt top completed, perhaps photographed later today. Many scrunchies sorted, and many more to stitch. (Which led to three different fabrics being used up from my stash, yay!) A bowlful of hair adornments! The Lavender Quilt (EPP) is also starting to coalesce, in a manner that will move my butt from the couch to a better place for design, although not the wall because paper pieces don't stick to batting. Lavender quilt being arranged last night. More room definitely required! A Myrtle EPP block is nearly done; somehow that quilt, started at least three years ago, might end up as a near-finish by the end of the year. (Hopefully I haven't jinxed it by such a claim.) New hand-quilting needles arrived this week so I delved into the Cornflower Quilt, hurray! All the inner squares are stitched, but several outer blocks and the perimeter triangles remain, yet I love the new needles and hopefully those will inspire me to finish the hand-quilting and COMPLETE THAT QUILT! Cornflower...

  I wash my dishes. We don't have a dishwasher, although we're planning a kitchen remodel, and at this point it is looking to be a 2025 project. Which is fine, because if I'm happy manually washing mugs, silverware, etc, I'm doing pretty well. Revisions have been my morning focus, as I wash dishes in the afternoon. Every other day I work on Enran Book #2, mixing it up with an older novel that I might or might not publish. I didn't plan to alternate the edits, but in the last several days, that's how it's been going. It's refreshing, both in the switching round and the spontaneous nature of how that evolved. I'm chalking it up to the twenty-nine times two theory, not stressing out about it. But if I wanted to analyze it, just a little bit.... LOL, that's what this blog is kinda about, looking at my life, from writing to kitchen maintenance, through an altered lens. Or a lens rarely considered while I'm poking at prose or scrubbing teacups. Or ...

Buttercup never got far from a quilt, let me tell you.... I'm leaving home today for a week with my daughter and the grandgirls. My son-in-law will be away on business, time for this abuela to lend a hand as well as spend Easter with family. I'll miss my hubby most certainly, but I'm grateful to spend time with other beloveds. I wasn't sure when I'd write this post, but last night as I was packing, the photo above popped up on the screensaver. A hound peeks out from the bottom of what is my first EPP'ed quilt, Buttercup was her name. Before the grandkids, we had a grandbasset, or a basset-beagle. Buttercup loved my quilts as much as a human, and this post is partially dedicated to her. So hand-stitching.... Seems it figures pretty heavily in my quilting life. In 2018, I read a few blogs, some of which are now merely markers to my quilt beginnings. I grew especially fond of Jodi Godfrey , an Australian artist who had found her joy in using paper pieces, which she...

It all started with a trip to Joann Fabrics. It was only about getting out of the house with my eldest while our guys installed a new kitchen faucet. It was a Christmas gift to said offspring, who received a sewing machine from her spouse and a trip from Mum and Dad to Joann for assorted sewing hoo haa. I knew so little about fabrics, other than Boy lots of them were pretty. All my previous visits to Joann were for, um, bra extenders. Recent rains hampered my attempts at an outside photo shoot. But on that February day, 2014, something altered. Perhaps it was my smart-phone savvy daughter, finding all kinds of hand-stitched quilt ideas. None of them were related to English paper piecing, merely that not every quilt was made using a machine. As I collected bright fat quarters, she kept scrolling, and we left the store with a heap of supplies for me, not quite as many for her.  Uncomplicated prints make for a vibrant throw! Thus began my foray into quilt-making. So unplanned, so unpr...