A Colorful Thread: September 2023
Weaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life.
Best of Stitched in Color {September}
On My Mind
Experimenting:: with my first Dutch cookbook. My girlfriends gave me a beautiful dessert cookbook for my birthday, my first in the Dutch language. It’s not just the language that’s different though. In Europe they use different measuring spoons than in the States and most things are measured by weight instead of by volume. I managed to make a lemon poppyseed cake by asking Google to convert each ingredient from grams to cups, but that’s not very practical. Time to acquire a kitchen scale and Dutch measuring spoons.
Sponsor of the Week
Dragonfly Quiltworks
I love to make quilts with low volume backgrounds. For a modern vibe, build your quilt on “Modern Backgrounds Even More” by Zen Chic. This is an encore collection with a dreamy array of background hues. It’s available in yardage, fat quarters or a layer cake at Dragonfly Quiltworks!
Psst - also in wideback fabric!
Reading:: How to Fall in Love with Anyone: a Memoir in Essays by Mandy Len Catron. I am listening to an audio book again after something like six months of being too mentally full to challenge myself. Finally my head has space for new inputs! This book is more fun than challenge, but it does help me ponder what love and relationship means to me.
Celebrating:: this Geesey quilt by @RobinOlson31. I do so love flying geese quilts in the fall, and especially when they have strings of geese flying every which way à la my Geesey pattern. Plus the colors of this one are picture perfect for autumn, with the full array of leafy colors and pops of black and dark brown for high contrast. A total success!
Anticipating:: This week I bought tickets to take Floris to the ballet. The United Ukrainian Ballet is coming to our city with a triple program, including one piece which is a wartime elegy. I am very much looking forward to the performance, but I am also feeling grateful that this is something that Floris and I can enjoy together. I am still kind of amazed that he enjoys such a wide variety of aesthetic experiences.
Featured Freebie
Flying Geese: a no-trim Tutorial
Stitched in Color includes a library of free tutorials, more than 10 years in the making. Each month I’ll feature one to spread the good news.
Imagine a method for sewing Flying Geese blocks that doesn’t involve a lot of marking and special cutting, doesn’t waste fabric and doesn’t require you to square up (ie trim up) blocks at the end. In other words, straightforward cutting, simple sewing and voila - a nice block. This is the one!
September was a month with highs and lows. My emotions have been running on overdrive. I have experienced things so intensely and in such a way that I am aware that I’m sometimes not acting or feeling like myself. What an odd experience - to look at yourself critically from the outside while at the same time feeling the raw truth of the emotions from the inside.
Hm. Confusing.
I guess that I am a strong person, but everyone does have their limits. This month brought out some ugly sides to our divorce, which I did not expect. I can only hope that all the monsters are out of their closets and that there are no more bad surprises. But something tells me not to count on that. I believe I am in for a rough string of months ahead. Thanks for reading along through the good times and the bad.
xoxo,
Rachel
