My Favorite Color

Okay, so white is not my favorite color, but this is our creek that Terra and passed on our walk this morning.  Too much sad news in the past few weeks and this overnight snow--the first real snow of the season even though it was only an inch--was very welcome--sort of a reset, a new beginning.

A Challenging Evening

Interconnectedness is one of the recurring themes in my quilts and on a night when the election returns are slowly coming in, I am acutely aware of how connected we all are and how important good government is to us all, a government that, among many important responsibilities, somehow finds a way to keep the playing field level so everybody has a chance in the game, one that makes decisions not based on wishful thinking but on reasoned discourse and independent research, one that responds to the needs of all its citizens, not the desires of the people or the corporations with the most money.  Every year I keep voting, sometimes, as I did this year, even canvassing for a candidate, and hoping my one voice will make a difference in moving government in the right direction. But watching the election returns is getting too stressful right now and I'm ready for a break.

It's been three months since our local challenge group had met and last week another quilt was due. This one had be in monochrome of a color that began with the same letter as our first names.  I had a much easier time of it than some of the other members, like Kate, because magenta, maroon, melon, mint, mahogany, and many more were possibilities for me, but in the end I decided on mulberry. And here is Terrain in all my hand-dyed shades and tints of mulberry:

This quilt is 16" x 15" and the limited color palette suggests interconnectedness without the more obvious knotwork of some of my other quilts, but I did add that woven perle cotton on the lightest patch to make the idea a little less subtly. I had fun with the hand stitching on this piece and fell in love with that twisted chain stitch. I also added some machine quilting for even more variety in texture.

And this one will be hanging in the West End Gallery this weekend!

Now I suppose I must check on how the electoral college is doing. And, if you are still with me, thanks for the company.

Celebration!

In the midst of a chaotic week in which our dining room was reduced to studs and subflooring (this was intended demolition, not the result of something like a hurricane) came an e-mail from West End Gallery in Corning, New York, asking if they could take a look at images of my work online. Since my website is still on my to-do list, I tidied up my Work page on my blog and sent them the link.

The next day I got an e-mail asking me to bring up some work for them to take a look at and possibly choose some pieces from. We scheduled a meeting for Tuesday afternoon, what turned out to be the very Tuesday Sandy was supposed to pass through our area.  Luckily, she moved a little more quickly than anticipated and luckily again our power never went out completely, so I was able to make the trip to Corning as scheduled. And they took thirteen pieces!

My work will be in their gallery for a four-day event, not one of their major shows, but I am still celebrating!