Moving things along

It's a little frustrating, having lost five years of blog posts. So much of what I have to write about are continuations of stories started months, even years, ago. So now I'm feeling a little like the Discovery channel, or HGTV, where they spend half of the time reminding us about what we just saw. Really? If we can't remember what we saw just before the commercial break, then clearly we have other problems to address.

So now, with the blog situation being what it is, with each post I have to decide how much to backlog. I still have all the pictures, I'm thinking that I'll do a series of posts, catching us up to the present day over a few posts. For long time followers (I love you for that), I hope you'll forgive the repeated content. For newbies (welcome!), you'll have the background stories that were lost.

Today, I'd like to catch us up on the progress of the new book. It started last summer. Three days after we hosted Caleb and Elaine's wedding here (alas, another story lost), I began serious work on my next book with C&T. In order to have the book debut at Fall Quilt market in 2012, I chose a rediculously soon deadline: November 1, 2011. That gave me exactly three months to write all the words, take all the layout sample pictures and make all of the projects, several of which were bed sized quilts. Oh, and spend twenty-three of those 92 days on teaching trips. Luckily I wasn't starting from scratch, it was on a topic I've been teaching for years.

The most fun part was pulling fabric for the projects. Some came from my stash (woo hoo!) and some was generously provided by fabric manufacturers.

Throughout the process, being organized was the thing that saved my life. Each project was assigned one of my beloved artbins. In each bin I kept a copy of the pattern so I could make modifications and corrections as I worked. I made the samples for the step outs along with making the quilt. And scraps were stored in the bin until I was sure that I had all the step out samples I needed from that fabric.

Here's the set up that I used to take the pictures. We canibalized a clamp-on swing arm lamp, removing all the electrical parts. My brilliant hubby created a small metal angle fixture to hold the camera, (which is not in the picture, it's in my hand, taking the picture). The light is clamped in place, and uses a trumpet bulb designed for photography. Whoa baby, is it bright!

The least fun part was all the background paperwork that goes with writing a book. When I self published my first few books I could start with the raw parts and photograph each step as I completed it. When working with a publisher, a separate sample was required for each step. Oy vey! But worse than that, each sample needed to be bagged and labled, and entered into a log so everyone knew what was what. This ring binder was my master reference, including text, projects and image and project logs. It saved my sanity, such as it is.

At last, everything was packaged and ready to go. Each sample bag contains the fabric sample and also any special tool that was used in the process. To help keep the slippery bags in order,  all the samples for each chapter were placed in yet another, bigger, bag. I totally love zip top bags for keeping things in order. They are one of my favorite quilting tools.

The scary part came next. The product of three months of intense work was packed up and shipped to California. The quilts had been sent earlier, and had arrived just fine, so I tried to hold on to that success as I dropped the boxes off at the shipper. They arrived without a hitch. And then I waited for the next step, which I'll save for the next post.

Basting Fail

This is the border for Christmas Yet to Come. It was last year's Block of the Month. I'm posting the picture here because my original blog posts were lost. I have the entire quilt top together now, but apparently haven't taken a picture of it just yet.

All that I have left to do is to baste it and then quilt the snot out of it. (Technical term.) In order to enjoy the quilting process it will have to be very well basted.

This is not well basted. This is epic basting fail. Afraid of bearding (when the white batting fibers migrate through black fabric to give the quilt an hazy fuzziness), I decided to try a black batting. This batting is a polyester batting, supposedly designed for easy machine quilting.

Balderdash. By the time I was done basting it was so full of static cling that it was impossible to deal with. Full of nasty bubbles and pleats, the only good part was that I had used my beloved basting gun and could quickly pull the layers apart to start over.

So, the project is stalled, again. I don't know when I'll ever get it finished. I need to do some more research into black battings, or perhaps wool batting and how much it beards. Wool would be nice because it's a big quilt (102 inches square) and already rather heavy. Rats.

Now for something completely different

I've been playing. For the last week or so, I've been playing with pretend stained glass.

In the room off the dining room, the one that first was my sewing room/office, then became the computer room, then my youngest son's lair and finally has become a for-real den, we have lower cabinets that are in desperate need of help.

Originally the cabinets had a tacky sort of fabric stapled in the center panel. Since the folks who owned the house before us were rather wealthy, I'm guessing that they paid a lot of money for the yucky stuff. (After pulling it down, we discovered that the hideous wall paper in the master bedroom was hand screened by a famous artists of the sixties. No accounting for taste, I'll let you decide whose, mine or theirs.)

Since I was raising galoots, once the room was turned over for their use, it was only a matter of time before the fabric was bashed in. The monsters (umn, rambunctious boys) even broke one of the doors, wrestling over a game controller, I think. Or so they say.

Now that we have an empty nest we figured it was time to start fixing the stuff they broke, and maybe even improving the place some. So, I started by paging through my applique design files. Grabbing a flower from one, the butterfly and leaves from another, I played with them until I had something I liked. Printed out and glued together, these cartoons became my guide lines.

Following the lines, faux lead caming was applied. I really enjoyed this step, it was very relaxing to lay down the self-sticking strips of lead, curving them gently and slicing them to length with an exacto knife. Liquid lead dots cover the joins. I kind of like them at this stage. Simple and graphic.

But of course, my unending quest to capture a rainbow spurred me on. I didn't really have a plan when I started, but I figured it out as I filled the spaces. Peachy orange flowers on a sky blue background seemed to be just the right thing. The little squares of color in the border make me smile. By the time I finished the fourth panel I had it down to a recipe, mixing colors to get the effect I wanted.

We couldn't decide, should all four panels be the same? Or perhaps I should create four related designs, just so I wouldn't get bored with it. In the end I decided to do two mirror imaged sets of the same design. And I found the filling of the spaces just as restful and enjoyable as leading. By the way, it's called Gallery Glass, by Plaid, and I bought most of the stuff at our local Jo-Ann's.

The dark spots are areas which still need to dry. Kent is going to put small LED lights inside the cabinets so the windows will glow. Now that my part is done (the panels aren't mounted yet), I've been wandering the house, looking for another spot of glass to color.













Pilgrim and Roy Invitational Challenge

Once again I have been invited to create a quilt for the Pilgrim/Roy Challenge. Each year a dozen or so national teachers are selected to make a quilt from preselected fabric. We're not required to use all six fabrics, and we may add up to two more. I've added the light green and the off white at the bottom. The quilts will make their debut at this year's AQS show in Paducah, then they will travel for a year. Next year, in Paducah, they will be auctioned off to benefit the Quilt Museum.

After giving it some thought, I designed a posy that's sort of a take on a rose of sharon, only it's overlapping stars instead of ruffled circles. Each posy has ten parts, and there are 31 posies. That's a lot of parts. Using my addressing system, though, made quick work of the getting the templates done, and the seam allowances trimmed.

Glue basting presented a bit of a problem. The way the petals overlapped made it a challenge to conceal raw edges. After some fooling around I realized that I needed to baste over one of the pointed ends, which would provide a finished edge for the next petal.

Instead of making bias stems, which are quick and easy, I decided to create a template to keep all of the curves uniform. Basting such a big, wobbly piece is pretty much no fun at all. To make it a little easier, I only trimmed away just the inside curve, leaving the fabric on the outside curve side to stabilize it. Once the inside curve is glue basted, it will make it easier to trim and glue baste the outside curve side.

After all eleventy million parts are basted, the posies sewn together, it's time to applique the lot to the background. I couldn't decide, dots or no dots. I made a couple of dozen 3/4 inch circles out of the light polka dot fabric. The original design included them. I put some in place and walked around the quilt for a few days. In the end, I thought the dots made it too busy, so off they went into my dot stash.

To make up for the loss of the dots, I filled the background with bubbles.

Lots and lots of bubbles.

The collection is available to borrow for inclusion in other shows. Contact them to schedule a time to add these quilts to your local exhibit.

Easter with the grands

One of my favorite family traditions is our Easter egg hunt. When the boys were little we would host Easter dinner with my sisters and their families. The thirteen Michigan cousins, ranging in age from one to sixteen (mine are the oldest), would dash about our yard, finding dozens and dozens of hidden plastic eggs, filled with goodies galore.

 To keep things a little more equal, we would ask the kids to find and bring back one egg at a time. Some years the kids would keep what they found. Other years we would break the eggs into one big bowl and let them choose their favorites.

We had beautiful weather for Easter weekend this year, making for a perfect day to hunt eggs. This was our first year to hunt with the grandbabies. Such joy!

After the hunt, we relaxed into enjoying the spring weather at the pond. Alex, who is now almost five, loves feeding the fish. Nicole, who just turned two, is quickly getting the hang of it.

They both get a kick out of tossing the small edging stones into the pond. By the looks of it, we could sure use to fill in some spots where they've picked it clean. Both their mom and Auntie Elaine are elementary ed teachers, so it quickly became a game of "float or not float". When mommy asked, "what floats" it was all I could do to keep from saying "very small rocks". (Monty Python fans will understand.)



Embracing Technology

Earlier this year I bought a tablet. My justification was that I could use it to swipe credit cards when I'm traveling, and it works great for that. But it also let me watch Downton Abbey on Netflix while I was teaching at Road to California. (How did I miss that great show the first time around?)

It's a Samsung Galaxy, the larger one, and I love it. I'm hoping to be able to retire my travel laptop and lighten my carry on load. While working on the new blog today I noticed that Blogger has an android app. Wouldn't it be cool if I could blog from my tablet? Wouldn't it be super cool if I could take pictures with my tablet to include in the blog?

So, here we go. Here's my test post.



















Hmm. Looks like I have a little more to learn.

No Fooling

Well, that was fun. Not. For the past couple of weeks we've been struggling with a misbehaving blog. I'm not sure if we were hacked, or if the outdated version of Word Press just finally bit the dust, but some corrupted file kept closing us down. And not just the blog, it would take my entire website with it.

Both disconcerting and a little comforting, the calls and emails came, checking to see if we were still here, still in business. While it's nice to be missed, having to say, "yes, yes, we know it's down, we're working on it," day after day, was very frustrating. Especially since it wasn't me working on it, but my indefatigable spouse, spending hours in front of a computer after spending hours in front of computer at his day job. I do believe I heard swearing, from a man who rarely loses his temper.

In the end it was decided to chuck Word Press, and the whole self-hosting thing, and give Blogger a try. So far, so good. As you can see from the few blog posts, this blog has been dormant for a while. Over the next few days I'll be working on reposting some of my previous posts, especially for ongoing projects like my new book, Christmas Yet to Come, the Pilgrim/Roy Challenge and my gardens to name a few.

I'm looking forward to finally being able to have some of the nifty gadgets that I've so envied on other blogs. Several steps for posting pictures have been removed from the process. That's promising for this camera adverse blogger.

We're kind of funny here, I guess. We drive cars until they refuse to go any more. We stay with jobs after the time to move on has past. We give friends and family the benefit of the doubt much longer than they deserve. We stick it out.

Eventually something comes along to pop us out of our comfortable rut. Change can be scary, and change for change's sake is just silly. (That doesn't apply to rearranging furniture.) But sometimes change is necessary, so we change. And in doing so, learn that sometimes the view is so much better. After all, the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

The Hari-Kuyo Needlebook

I have been a huge fan of Susan Elliott’s blog for ages. She does amazing things with thread. She also does amazing things with her family, making the most adorable Christmas ornaments ever, over the top Independence Day fascinators, charming, just charming! She’s also very thoughtful, using embroidery and words to capture her stories.

This year, Susan introduced me to the Japanese festival of the broken needle, known as Hari-Kuyo. The Japanese embue all things with a life force, which requires that used up or broken things need to be properly mourned and buried. Click here for Susan’s wonderful description of the ceremonies.

When she offered an online class on making her lovely needlebook, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I have to admit, I was just as curious to see how she presented the material as to how to make the book. I hemmed and hawed on buying the kit just long enough to have the kits sell out. The sessions started while I was finishing up my whirlwind tour of southwestern Florida, so, after I cleaned up the studio and all the paperwork from the trip, I have used the last couple of days to catch up.

While I was in Sarasota I picked up a stack of yummy silk fabric fat quarters. All of my favorite colors, and with this project in mind, I cleared off the shelf! Of course now I have enough to make approximately two thousand needlebooks, but I’m okay with that.

Surprise, surprise, my final needlebook will look nothing like Susan’s. I couldn’t resist adding just a little bit of applique to the cover. I started with small teardrop shapes, free hand cut from Wash Away Applique Sheets. And then cut a couple of leaves.

This was my initial layout, using dupioni silk for the appliques. Isn’t the blue background killer? Gosh, but I love silk.

Somewhere along the line it became this:

Much cuter, wouldn’t you say? I machine appliqued it in place using silk thread. I have such a limited collection that I had a tough time matching the fabric. I guess that means I need to get shopping.

Our first job, after pressing everything, was to embellish the front cover. I am having so much fun adding embroidery to my applique. When I went to bed last night, I hadn’t yet figured out how I would embroider the flowers. I could hardly sleep, I was so excited about working on this little project. This morning I just knew, just knew what the flowers wanted.

The inside of the back cover has a place to park broken or worn needles until next year’s festival. I got a little carried away with the vine and berries. There’s a shock. And the embroidery on my words is a little primitive. Since I have time before our next lesson I may pick it out and try again, this time using a backstitch as Susan suggested, instead of the stem stitch. (Which I would have known if I’d listened to video lesson before plowing ahead into the stitching. Slow learner, that’s me.)

Here are all the parts so far. I’m using bits of fabric from the line I designed a while back. I love this colorway. It’s not quite peach, but not pink either. It’s like the tender insides of a shell. I’m all caught up now, ready and waiting for the next step to be posted on Monday. 

In search of color

It has been a dreary winter, dark, gray and wet, with hardly any snow to brighten the day. It's so hard to keep my spirits up when the world feels washed out, simply drained of life.

What's a quilter to do? For me it's time for a little stash enhancement. I am drawn to clear, bright colors, like a moth to a flame. The fabrics at the top of the post are the silks that I found in Sarasota. I bought almost every fat quarter on the shelf, leaving behind only the brown, gray and taupe. I felt bad for them, and I tried to add them to my stack, I really did. But I just couldn't do it.

Why do I need rick rack? I don't know, yet. But it had just arrived at the shop when I was there to pick up my new machine, and it was so joyful! What am I going to do with it? Well, I think that's a question that no self-respecting quilter needs to answer.
Having chosen a word for this year, I decided that I needed a reminder, for those times when I think I must have lost my entire mind to get on a plane, meet up with people I have never met and put myself at their mercy.

To make it, I used Corel (my fav graphic design program) to find a font to set the right tone, reversed it and printed it out on a sheet of the Wash Away Applique Sheets. I decided that the tiny inside curves would be no fun at all, so I separated the letters into two parts.

And then, since it's been nothing but gray and dreary, happy embroidery was definately called for. The background is microstippled with WonderFil's fantastically fine Invisifil, but I matched the colors so well that it hardly shows. That turns out to be a good thing, since I could hardly see where I was going

Transitions

Once again my tidy studio is in an uproar. The pilot system for organization (pile it here, pile it there) has gotten waaay out of hand.
It hardly seems like I've been home for almost a week from teaching at Road to California. I loved teaching there, the students were the very best. For a teacher, a classroom full of open, receptive students makes teaching a joy. I'm hoping they will invite me back!
The vertigo started not long after I returned from California. At first I thought it might be a reaction to the sleeping pill I took. But it's lingered on for days and days, leaving me feeling spacy and disoriented, which, contrary to common thought, is not usual for me. Needless to say, my long to-do list has not had many ta-dones.
On February first I leave on the longest teaching trip of my career. I start with a quick visit to the Sinissippi Quilt Guild in Rockford, IL and then head to Florida for the Princess Feather Guild in Tampa. I'll also visit guilds in Ocala, Sarasota and Punta Gorda before I come home again near the end of the month.
On the upside, I'll be in Florida during the longest month of the winter. (We pack extra misery into fewer days, we're efficient like that up here in the north.) It will be nearly March when I get back, which is the beginning of the end of winter.
On the downside, there won't be much sewing going on. Now is not a great time to be starting on anything big.
Burying the lead
It's what newspapers call it when the most important part of the story is withheld until later. It's like reporting on a barn fire, listing the owner, the losses, the number of firefighters before getting around to the fact (in the fourth paragraph) that the fire was started by the crash of an alien space ship.
So here's what the big story really is: There will be no block of the month project from Applewood Farm this year. Oh, yeah, if you were quick you might have seen one posted on my website, and I might get around to it later this year. It really was a bit of wishful thinking, that I could continue to add new things to my life without giving up any of the old.
But for now, I need to go off in a different direction.
I promised myself that this year I would take time to explore new techniques. My goal is to have another book finished by November 1, 2012. But I want to have lots of time to experiment, to have the luxury of time to make mistakes.
Plus the book I just finished still needs to be babied along, approving edits, layouts, marketing plans. (Just wait until you see the cover, it's spectacular!)
So, for the first time in over ten years, there will be no BOM from me. With so much available now on the internet, I'm not at all sure it will be missed. Perhaps, like me, you are still finishing up last year's (or the years before).
I hope you'll hang in with me on the blog, and on Facebook. Who knows what silliness may pop up along the way

The after book

My new mantra: the book is done. I repeat it every time I feel my shoulders creeping up to my ears, or I think about a project that I can't do just yet, or when I realize that I'm not being as productive as I could be. The book is done.
Yeah, the book was put together in a short time, but it's not like I started fresh, with a newly born idea on August first. It's on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, that I've already written about, repeatly, in my patterns, and even taught in my classes. Just dumping my words from other places gave me a major head start on the word count. I don't want anyone thinking it was slapped together, if for no other reason than I just can't do slapped together. It's not fair to the reader.
Any way. I jumped from the book deadline to my Quilt Market deadline. I'm doing Wash Away Applique Sheet demos in C&T's booth, and also Checker Distributor's booth. So, the minute I called the book done, I started right back into making step out. But this time it was all about playing with fabric. The samples are teeny tiny, just the size of a page, so it was a day of instant gratification.
I write this from the Hilton, right next door to the George R. Brown convention center, which, at this time every year, becomes a mecca for quilters. By next week tens of thousands (and that's no exageration) will descend on Houston for Market and Festival.
Today is Schoolhouse, a series of 15 or 30 minute infomercials from the vendors at the show. It's a lot like passing classes in high school. I'm going to try to be a good blogger and take pictures, but I'm not promising.
Market opens tomorrow. It's business, but it's also pleasure. These are my people, other professionals in the quilt industry that I only get to see once or twice a year. I'll be watching for new things, looking for new partners in crime and having one really great time.
Because the book is done.

A thousand paper cuts

There are parts of writing a book that I really love. While I enjoy putting my ideas into words, what I really love is editing those words. Getting the first draft done, getting all those words on a blank page is hard work. But editing is pure joy. Really! Instead of the struggle to find just the right word or to get the sequence of directions just so, editing is bullying those words around to make them earn their keep. I've just finished editing the book, and it's so much better than it was!

Of course, sewing the projects is awfully nice as well. I've sewn more in this month of October than I have in all the last two years put together. It's made me take a good look at how my time has been ordered, and helped me to decide that I truly need to spend more time at home, and especially at home sewing. The projects in the book are quilt designs that I've wanted to make for some time.

But, there are parts of writing a book with a publisher that are totally not fun. Perhaps it's because I self-published first. When working on my own I could start a sequence with a partially made block and photograph it, step by step, as I finished that block. Sending the step outs off to the publisher for photography means that I have to make that same block over and over and over again, each time taking the process a little further forward in the sequence. Ugh!
And then we have to keep track of all those bits and parts, which means paperwork, and lots of it. Image logs are spreadsheets that describe the tools and the focus of each step out. Of course it makes sense to have an orderly system. I have to communicate my expectations to the publisher and their photographers. Each step out gets a designation, either <<100.tif>> for a photo or <<100.eps>> for an illustration, for example.

Each step out is photographed as we'd like it to appear in the book. My set up for making videos (yeah, like that happened this year) turned out to be just the thing for taking these "snapshots". Once again, having self published, I was frustrated by the duplication of effort. With just a little more care (the snapshots don't have to be top drawer, just good enough to show what I want), I could have done the photos myself. And I wouldn't have had to make a thousand million repeats of the same block. See what I mean?

So, in addition to the Image Log, the snap shots need to be labeled and printed. More paperwork!
Finally, all the step outs need to be packaged. I started out with eight boxes of gallon sized zip top bags. I have one full box and a few left, meaning that I have prepared over a hundred individual step out samples. Here are the stepouts, bagged and ready to go off to their new home. I have one large bag for each chapter, which holds the zip top bags with each step.

Today is my last day to work on the book. My deadline to have everything to the publisher is November 1. Tomorrow I am leaving for Quilt Market, where I am scheduled to do demos showcasing the Wash Away Applique Sheets, (Which means more step outs!), so it must go out today. But, when the box is shipped I will have met all of my deadlines. I will have written a book, a book I've been writing in my head for years, in just three months time. Two months and a week's time if you take out all the travel time for the teaching I have also done since the first of August.
When I return from Market next Tuesday I will be officially "AB" - after book. Yes, there will still be times when I need to interact with the publisher. There will be another editing, and page layout and book design. But that's more my giving my approval of their work than me working. And it truly is exciting to see the book come to life.
I'm looking forward to finishing my Christmas Yet to Come quilt. And, believe it or not, starting work on the next book! But this go around, since I haven't even proposed it yet, I'll have all the time in the world! (Please don't quote that back to me!)

Still Breathing

Well, hello.
For the last two and a half months I have been singled mindedly working on the book. Dawn to dusk, and sometimes beyond, living the book. But so far I've made all the deadlines, more or less.
I can't help but wonder if I had allowed the same bravado that let me agree to this timeline carry me through the work if I'd be in better shape. I must admit that all too often my courage has failed me and I've considered tossing in the towel. Way too much of my energy has been spent on worry, but then I guess that's what worriers do.
The sample quilts are done and on their way to the publisher. That's a really big box to check off my to-d0 list. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, I hope you will like them too. It's been a really long time since I've made quits that are just piecing, no applique. I did suffer a little applique withdrawal at first, but it quickly subsided as I fell into the lovely hum of my machine. I've sewn more in the last three weeks than I have in the last two years put together. And I liked it very much, thank you.
In the next week I will be working on the rewrite and finishing the step outs. I like editing, I like making the words sharper, cleaner. It's so much easier to rearrange words than to string together brand new words. My editor has given me great suggestions to help me get the words into top form. Somewhere along the way I'll show you some of the paperwork involved in writing a book with a publisher. Let's just say that I've changed ring binder sizes a couple of times, and still need more room.
So, it's back to work for me. My final deadline is November 1, but Quilt Market (which starts on Oct. 27 or so) will cut that short for me. I just wanted to check in to let you know that I was still among the living. Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer an oncoming train.

Making Progress

The book is the center of my universe for the next six weeks. Six weeks and the final deadline will arrive. I'm anticipating that I'll be able to sigh in great relief at a hard job well done. In the mean time, I'm working like a fiend.
Up until now I have had really nothing physical to show for all the time I've put in. It's been hours and hours in front of a computer screen, writing words, moving them around and then writing more. It's intense work, but even still, it's hard to understand why I'm exhausted at the end of the day when I've hardly moved a muscle.
I still have computer work to do, the graphics for most of the projects still need to be done, but now I've tipped over into the fun part. I get to sew!
Sewing is something I don't do nearly enough of. Honestly, months can go by without so much as turning on the sewing machine. But for the next half of the book work, I'll be a sewing fool. It's hard to remember, when I've been away from it for so long, how much I really love piecing. There's something meditative about it: the quiet hum of the machine, handling the fabric pieces, watching something grow from nothing.

While I'm piecing I often listen to books on my iPod. Right now I'm listening to Tom Clancy's Dead or Alive. (It was on a special sale on Audible.com.) I am totally addicted to listening to books, it's a multi-tasker's dream.
The top and binding are done for quilt #1. There will be four bedsized quilts and three smaller projects. While the piecing will be a snap, I'm a little worried about getting all the quilting done. Of course I want to do it all myself. But I have faith that it will all work out as it should in the end. In the mean time, I'm off to start on quilt #2.

Lessons I have learned from my boys.

Mother's Day. It's the day we're supposed to take our victory lap, sit back and be served, soak up the praise. This year, the boys (except for the oldest one who has moved just a little too far away, darn it all) were over to help ready the gardens for the big wedding coming up. Watching them work together, listening to them banter, fills me with joy. I got what I wanted the most for them, they have grown up to be friends.
It also had me thinking of all the things I have learned as they have matured. I am not at all the same person I was thirty years ago, when I first became a parent.
Patience. I have learned how to count to ten, repeatedly when necessary. I've learned that "now" is a relative term. I've learned that getting angry later is always an option, but getting angry right away is rarely productive. Sometimes what is not said is more important that what is said.
Perserverance. We are all ADHD in this household, to varying degrees. Some of us have learning disabilities as well. I have watched as my boys have faltered and failed, but never quit, at least not for long. Their victories may not be as flashy at being the top of their classes, but they are just as sweet.
Laughter. I can't imagine surviving this hoard without a sense of humor, and yet, I was rather humorless when I was young. I was so dog-gone serious, diligent, closed even, that I rarely let loose enough to laugh. My boys are quite the comics, and have, on many an occasion, saved their own skins with a well placed quip. It's awfully hard to dress down a kid while you're laughing.
Joy. Tragedies early in my life had me convinced that simple joy was not for me. My sons have taught me that happy moments don't have to be momentous to be profound. And that hugs can cure heartbreak.
Love. Love that doesn't come with strings attached, conditions to be met. Love that just is, just because. Love like no other. My boys (and especially their father), have taught me how to love and be loved, freely, fully and unfailing.
Truly, I am blessed.

Art Quilts

art 1 (?rt) (from Houghton Mifflin online dictionary)
NOUN: Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

It is very interesting to me that this definition of art contains the word "imitate" and does not use the word "original".

For me the term "artist" is not a positive one. I find many folks who define themselves as artists do so in order to thumb their self-important noses at the great-unwashed, as if being an artist means that the box labeled "the rules don't apply to me" is checked on their birth certificate. And then these very same people decry that the world just doesn't understand them, and oh! the pain of the rejection. Geesh, get over yourself, would you?

In my universe (and that would be why I have a blog), art is not the product but the process. Art is not paint or clay or fabric. Art is seeing possibilities where others don't. It can be the manipulation of numbers in science, a turn of a phrase, an elegant assembly line. Art is doing my job to the very best of my ability, whether I'm filing taxes or doing a manicure or pouring bronze into a mold.

As an unapologetically pattern designer my art is in the words. I strive to create appealing designs, yes, but more important to me is the information I can pack into a pattern. As quilters follow my directions they find more than a simple recipe. I slip in technique, humor and even philosophy. It is my life's work and I strive to do it better every day.

Are the quilters who follow my directions artists? I think yes because for me it's all about the process of discovery and doing. No matter what we do, we are following directions, quilt artists just prefer to see themselves as farther away from the directions than others. Even if they are not following a pattern they are still using technique that someone else taught them, design theory that some one else defined, materials that someone else developed.

Am I an artist? If you must. My media are fabric and words. Are you an artist? Go do it.

The beginning of spring

While the rest of the northern hemisphere greets December 21st as the beginning of winter, I prefer to think of it as the first day of spring. I have survived another short, dark day. For the next six months or so I will celebrate each extra minute or two of sunlight as the days grow longer.

The darkness is hard for me. When twilight falls before 5 pm it's tough to carry on into the night. I've never been a night person, ever. The night is a scary place for me, where evil lurks just out of view. I'm not much for artificial lighting either. Fluorescent lights make me feel jumpy. The light is cold and harsh. Regular bulbs aren't much better.

The so called natural color lights are an improvement. My studio is illuminated by them, making my time at the sewing machine the perfect cure for the winter blahs.

In two days my family will gather here to celebrate Christmas. What a perfect tonic for the darkness of December: family, laughter, food and the promise of the gift of eternal life. And the earthy presents aren't so bad either.

Stuck

It's a embarrassment of riches, to have so many opportunities available that I can't choose what to do next.

There's always the next book to write, that is my bread and butter, my day job, I guess. But gee whiz, that's a pretty cool day job, wouldn't you agree? The hardest part is getting started.

There's the hundreds of yards of fabric that the manufacturers have sent to me. How cool is that? Free top quality quilting fabric has arrived at my studio door by the box load. And I feel guilty about it! This fabric has real value to me. I take my responsibility to use the fabric in a way that promotes both my designs and the fabric very seriously. So, I'm nervous about cutting into the free stuff. I'm working on getting over myself!

And then there's the possibility of creating my own fabric line. Gosh, that's so beguiling an opportunity that I can hardly wrap my head around it. But I'm not an artist, at least not a trained one. It will take weeks of work to make the designs come alive. And I have a book to write.

So, here I sit, bloggging away. I'm hoping that just throwing down words, playing with them for a bit and moving on will break the log jam in my brain. I think it's working. I cleaned my desk off yesterday. Clearing the cutting table is next. And then I'm going to cut fabric. Really I am.

Taking Time

Yesterday while getting my blood drawn for a routine test the lab tech bemoaned the hurried pace of our society.

Take time to enjoy the day, she said. I thought that was a pretty funny thing to say to someone while poking them in the arm with a needle. Yep, getting stuck with needles is right at the top of my list of things to do to make the most of a day.

Of course then the phrase "take time" stuck in my head. Take time? Where? Where would time like to go? Seems to me that time already goes too quickly. (Unless you have a needle in your arm and then time moves at a disconcertingly leisurely pace.) Time doesn't seem to need my help getting anywhere. Wherever I go, time is already gone.

Take time? From whom? I can take MY time, sure, but can I take yours? I guess if I made you do something useless I would be taking your time too, but most people frown on that. If I take my time can I give it to you? When we do things for others which will free up some of their time. Then they can decide what they are doing with all that extra time.

But my whole problem with time is that once it's gone there's no getting it back. We can redo a task but we can never relive a moment. The remembering takes yet another moment. Time moves on whether I take it, waste it, make it or try to keep it.

The deep midwinter

Okay, it's true. I love snow, and since my inner child started playing with matches, I prefer the cold as well.

There are few things more beautiful than falling snow.
Sometimes the snow is heavy and wet, dropping from the sky in huge, exuberant globs. Other times the dry, crisp snow sparkles its way to the earth.

The sound of snow as it falls is the most gentle sigh, one of deep contentment. The quiet is deep and comforting. The harsh sounds of modern life are buried in the cold blanket. It doesn't hurt that snowy roads slow the traffic on the highway out front. As the break-neck urgency of the present gives way to the cautious crawl on the slippery drive I am reminded that this road, which began as in pathway for the native people, has welcomed travelers from ages past.

Living in an old house is always an adventure. Many of the windows still hold glass created more than 150 years ago. As I watch the snow fall I wonder who else has watched the seasons through these panes. Did she too try to capture the spell of the moment? Did she store up the textures and sounds in her minds eye? Perhaps she was too practical for so frivolous a pursuit.

Snow will come again, but will I be here to see it? I'm watching, listening, learning just in case.