It is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift established a feeling-bond between two people.
~Lewis Hyde
Quilting
While there's not much free time here, it soothes me to sew random strings together. Working a few minutes at a time, sometimes only a few minutes a week, I've finished a pile of string sets in a variety of colors. Making the letters takes more effort though. The K took some thought; it was made on New Year's. The other letters ares easier to make with tiny bits of time.
As I run out of one print, I can usually find some more in similar values in the stash... or not. But the solids are a different story. There's never many of them in my purchases. With both yellow and pink used up, there's only this tan left. It actually looks good here. Maybe.
Fortunately there was enough peach for most of the border. It just needed some cornerstones.
 |
| KISS baby quilt |
After four years, my quilt (gardening) gloves are peeling at the fingertips. I treated myself to a new pair this week. These will never be used in the yard. They grip fabric well and last so much longer than any marked just for quilting... at about a quarter of the price.
 |
| New gardening gloves for quilting |
What else but spiral quilting. I do like the way it looks. It's easy to stop and start once the tight center is done.
 |
| Detail of letter K on KISS baby quilt |
The back took a yard and a quarter of this gorgeous print. Somehow it reminds me of those 1960s Peter Max designs. That's all of it and it needed just a bit more for the width. Hello, green. Always nice to find a remnant in the scrap bag.
 |
| Back of KISS baby quilt |
The binding came from the binding scrap box. It's a mishmash of most of the blues there.
 |
| Binding, back, and spiral quilting on KISS baby quilt |
This one is staying here for a bit but I'm sure it will be needed soon. It will be nice to have one quilt waiting in the wings for a change.
Quilt Specifics
Size: 45" x 45"
Design: Coin or String quilt
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Aurifil cotton thread in blue
Quilting: Spiral with walking foot
Approximate yardage: 5.5 yds
Reading
I read and enjoyed Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax series over the years but never realized she wrote a memoir about her time in Nova Scotia. A New Kind of Country begins with the purchase of an old house on ten acres. She discusses her {long past} divorce, the contrast with suburban America, and learning to live quietly and simply. After that I read her first adult novel, An Uncertain Voyage, about a woman asked to deliver a book to Majorca by an American spy. Many of the same themes were there although the novel hasn’t aged as well as her autobiography.
Dorothy herself passed away in 2012 from complications of Alzheimer’s but her last book was published in 2020.