So how are you spending the last weekend of summer? I’ll be deadheading plants, doing laundry and generally catching up after yet another trip to Utah. Three family weddings (including Will’s) had me flying into the Beehive State once a month over the summer. On a clear day, the descent into Salt Lake City is [...]
Amish quilts had a heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. Their bold colors and graphic patterns worked well with contemporary interiors and evoked the rural Amish lifestyle that was portrayed so appealingly in Peter Weir’s thriller “Witness” and Sue Bender’s bestseller “Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish.” In an age of increased [...]
Quilts are more than bedcoverings, they’re also works of art. Marie Strait, President of the Board of Directors for the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles recently told me that “quiltmaking has always been a way for women to practice art while doing something practical.” Strait, an avid quilter and quilting teacher, was one [...]
Ever since I finished a ten-years-in-the-making quilt top on Tuesday, I’ve been happily plucking clipped loose threads off my furniture, clothing—even my hair brush. Now the top (and back) are off to be professionally quilted and I’m savoring the delicious pause between completed and new projects. I’m also taking a little break from fiction writing [...]
Happy Birthday to my husband, M.J. Well before Google was invented, he became the search engine in my world. Brilliant, clever, kind and decent–he’s provided the answers to so many questions in my life. Big and little. Our children mock our geeky courtship–we met in our university’s honors program, competed on the same College Bowl [...]
At the annual Quilting in the Garden quilt show held at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore this past weekend, quilts hung from beautiful old oaks like a dapper giant’s freshly hung laundry. Each year the show features a professional quilter and this year’s quilting queen was Judy Mathieson, master of the Mariner’s Compass. Her exquisitely pieced quilts were [...]
