A Contemplative Life

Ah, another Mandolin quilt is completed. The EPP portion that is, lol. Not that the rest of it is going to be complicated, other than adding to the fleece backing so it's large enough. No batting, as an English paper pieced quilt top is heavier than a machine pieced top, or mine are because I use wide seam allowances, adding to the heft. I'll stitch the top's perimeter onto the fleece, then do some hand-quilting, and BOOM, there's a completed cozy. However... I want to make some notes, just on the very obscure chance I ever start another EPP project. Seven await my attention, ahem, so even pondering another is ridiculous. But I learned A LOT in making this quilt, much of it upon studying the photo above. How chaotic it appears to me, sigh, because I used two different fabrics in constructing the joining blocks, not including the center hexagons. Yet the last Mandolin quilt I made looked, well, dull, what with white joining blocks edging hexagons from a sunflower print. ...

Writing, sewing, um, life. A new day, another chapter in On Being Brave , and the proper photos taken of a brand new quilt! It's a Monday kinda like no other, other than it's simply another Monday afternoon. But joyful bravery adds a new dimension to my life as though I'm the alien, newly arrived on Earth, wondering how cool is this rather gray-skied planet in this little corner of a tremendous world. Washed and decently crinkled; I'll take it! Once again the North Coast is smothered by clouds, but it's good for the Mile Post 18 fire, the inversion layer lessening the oxygen, trapping the smoke, keeping the blaze slightly under wraps. If I was newly landed on this planet, I'd be shocked at how many fires burn, but compared to the enormous fires from years past, California is getting off easy. Canada and the rest of the Pacific Northwest not so much, but as an interloper from outer space, I wouldn't realize that, nor would I actually be aware of how blessed C...

The last heart, almost done! Ten hearts remained after Friday night's stitching. Ten out of over two hundred. Ten hearts that were randomly scattered, a few clumped together. And now all those hearts are hand-quilted, and I'll wash it tomorrow, then mail it off to a lovely person who adores hearts. What could be better? Yet, an English paper-pieced quilt doesn't happen overnight. This particular project began late in 2024, a kit by Jodi Godfrey . I dove into it as, well, as hearts seemed wholly necessary to embrace, as my country fell under an influence absolutely dark and menacing. As I cut fabrics, basted jewel shapes, then stitched them into hearts, my chest muscle was slightly assuaged. And the more I worked on it, amid learning the Kawandi method, the better I felt. Defiant hearts. Strong hearts. Supple hearts. Beating hearts. Wearing my heart on my sleeve hearts. You get the idea. June 2025 Then in June of 2025, I finished the top. What a monumental completion! And a...

The end of one round and the beginning of the next! From teal to medium green, decreasing by four squares, woo hoo! Usually I enjoy the Peace Round the World quilt on Wednesdays. With only seven of fifty-six squares left to add, I retrieved it this evening, thinking I'd do three. Well, four. Then on Wednesday, I could easily finish, as I get about four squares added in one Wednesday sitting. Well, tonight I went all out, which this quilt kinda calls for; seven teal squares DONE. Added one of the next round, just because. (Green, in case you're wondering.) Now it's after eight p.m., but I wanted to document this, especially since tomorrow the grandsons are coming for a week, and I don't think I'll be 1) sewing much or 2) blogging much. Lol. (And if you're wondering why it's called swan solstice it's because from here to the end, no more round the perimeter rows. The decrease begins.) Such a labour of love! So tonight was the night, the last of July, and n...

Today's teal progress on the quilt. This Peace Round the World quilt has been going on for over a year. The last few rounds have mostly been sewn left-handed simply due to my wonky right shoulder. However, with one last side of swans, etc, left to go, I'm writing a little something related to how much I love making this quilt, because sometimes beloved projects don't get enough airtime. They're favored, but not savored aloud. They're pined over, yet not yapped about. They're stitched left-handed when one is right-handed because super slow stitching beats no stitching whatsoever. The reason for this quilt is I saw it on Jodi Godfrey's blog , not that she made it, but Lisa Sliva did. And I fell in love with it and had to fashion my own. This started sometime late last spring maybe? And I was pretty go go go with it until late last year when any EPP sewing went out the window after my right shoulder said No mas . But I've taught two of my three left-hande...

Quilt sandwich on the work table! Sometimes getting it there feels like a battle, haha.   WOO HOO! I am SO HAPPY (*like really happy*) to have the Warm Hearted quilt basted! Half of the perimeter is secured, a slow process that I'm doing at my work table instead of with the quilt splayed out on the guest bed. Easier on my back to not lean over awkwardly, if not as pleasant on my right shoulder, but.... And....it's basted! Every half heart has a safety pin, for which I needed to pull out the back-up pins. Definitely no shifting for this project, and how satisfying it will be to remove said pins as each heart is quilted!   Having begun that process truly gives me peace, as well as the giddy thrill of anticipation of hand-quilting all those gorgeous HEARTS!!! How cool will that be, oh goodness! Very cool. Super Cool. TRULY COOL!!! And on this cloudy, rainy day, Warm Hearts are the coolest thing around, lol. Every time I see this quilt, I feel such joy; this is steeped in happine...

All I need to do is baste the above quilt. How I deal with the edges will appear another day. Isn't that often the way we work? Stressing out about this or that when truthfully all we need to focus on is one small detail. I realized that this morning, as in truly grasping it with all gears. LOL. And of course, as these things go, my laptop just notified me the battery is SUPER LOW. So I've plugged it in, and will continue this as soon as possible.... Okay, I've eaten breakfast and am ensconced at my office machine. Probably the laptop is fully charged by now, hah, but as I was saying, we freak out or worry or over-analyze this, that, or some other and if all we'd done in the first place is to deal with the initial step, voila! All our anxieties would be gone. That sounds SO SIMPLE. So EASY. So, so, so.... So something, ahem. What in our human natures seems to crave drama, fretting, over-analyzing. Why can we live and let live? Why, why, why.... Why's as deep a subje...

Colour does the heavy lifting in these six-inch squares with splashes of low volume to add sparkle. Despite two broody hens, one of which is a NEW BROODY HEN (ahem), I finished a definite quilt back this afternoon. It will be the back because the front is an EPP heart beauty, and this brightly coloured extravaganza will complement that warm-hued top just FINE. Life right now feels very....interesting, in a slightly overcast, marine layer sort of way. Revisions I wanted to do this week didn't happen. An extra broody hen wasn't in the plan. Completing this quilt top, however, was a goal, and I met it, and feel good about it. Certainly a win! Today my husband and I walked along Samoa Beach at low tide. The sand was packed and sturdy, the waves were loud, the wind blowy. I thought about how this setting could be incorporated into Noth's next storyline in The Enran Chronicles , as well as what looked like a driftwood forest there on the sand. Pondering that idea lifted my spirit...

Diagonal Colours is an apt title for this quilt top/back, what I discovered a few paragraphs below, hehehe. I'm kinda on the last phase of revisions for Can't Be Done Alone: The Hawk Book Five , reading silently instead of out loud, although a few sentences have been murmured, making sure this or that wording is what I wish to convey. When I started this saga over twelve years ago, what I wanted to convey wasn't necessarily magical realism and historical fiction served in a women's fiction sort of way. What emerged was, well, all that and more. This is made from leftovers of a recent Rainbow quilt as well as newly beloved prints from Shell Rummel's beautiful Daybreak collection. Nearly halfway through a long tale, this installment starts to veer in different directions, not merely dealing with Eric's transformations or Lynne dealing with them or her assumed infertility. The chapter I've included below hearkens to other elements of the story, that of faith, ...