Stars in My Hand was awarded Best Machine Quilting at the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta in May. The quilt has now gone into “retirement” to live with my Aunt and Uncle.

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I’m finally here at the computer to write a post (not that I haven’t been at my computer all week for various reasons, just not this reason), and I have so many different things that I intended to write about that I don’t know where to start or which one to choose. I thought about doing a “Sunday Stitch’n'Bitch” type of post every week, with all the little things in it that wouldn’t make up a whole post on their own, but then I remembered that that’s why I created the “Scraps” over there on the right: so that little things can go in there as they happen. You can see I’ve done so well with that.

Another thing I did a couple of times was the Thursday Thirteen. I thought it would prompt at least that one post per week, and some of the lists might be interesting or encourage some fun thought processes and conversations through comments. Problem is, I don’t always worry about what day it is around here. If I don’t have to leave the house and it’s not a weekend (when ITMan is around all day, so it’s obviously either Saturday or Sunday), I don’t necessarily pay attention to the fact that it’s a certain day and I should be doing a certain something. Thursday Thirteen ends up being done on Friday, or worse, Monday the next week!

If there was a way to transfer my thoughts directly to the “Write Post” box on the screen…you’d be seeing new posts daily or more often even.

As I’ve said before, maybe I’m just not a very good blogger. I think about writing sometimes, and if it’s a subject that’s long and I don’t have time to really get it all down right then, I just don’t even start. Yeah, I know, that’s what the “draft” feature is for, right? Start something, save it, come back to it later. I don’t do that much, and when I do, those drafts seem to sit there forever and I never post them up, which says to me that it wasn’t important anyway. If it’s something I really want to say, I want to say it now and get it done, not save it as a draft and finish it later. Of course, sometimes I wish I’d made drafts, Read the rest of this entry »

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As I travel around the blogosphere and visit with my favorite bloggers like Jane Ann and Kristin, I aspire to be as they are: eloquently descriptive writers who take their readers with them on their journeys through life, sharing the good times, sometimes seeking solace and support during bad times, and connecting with their readers across the miles through the magic of the Internet playground. Eloquence is escaping me at the moment, but I’m still going to try for a bit of the rest here.

Quilting has been in short supply here since the quilt day with Kristin, but with good reason: I’ve been working fast and furious this week to get a new website up and running for The ALS Association New Mexico Partner. I began researching ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), when a family member was diagnosed with the disorder early in 2006. It’s really hard to be this far away, and not be able to see her or be with her, or help out if needed. It’s early days and my aunt is doing well, but I wish I lived closer to her. We purchased fabric together when I visited with them in 2005 for a quilt I would make for her and her husband (the quilt that became Stars in my Hand). I had already started work on the quilt, but after the diagnosis, I wondered if I could do more to make the quilt even more special than I already planned for it to be.

I decided to photograph parts of the quilt as it was finished to create a special collection of note cards, postcards, ornaments and treasure boxes for sale called Quilted Whispers, with proceeds to benefit the ALS Association New Mexico Partner. Hoping to reach more people about this special collection and the cause, I created the Quilted Whispers Contest, which you can still enter until the end of June, 2007, and a press release which, sadly, was never picked up by any newspapers as far as I know. At one point, I contacted The ALS Association to try to work with them to start a larger fund raising campaign involving quilts and quilters, somewhat like the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative created by Ami Simms, but The ALS Association declined my proposed effort. Read the rest of this entry »

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