All the fondest wishes

Somehow it’s December again, and that means I’m two months shy of turning 30. Crazy stuff. I sent all my Christmas cards this weekend, and have begun the Christmas shopping. The temps have finally dropped to early winter-level here in the big city, and on Thanksgiving there were even some snowflakes. Mike & I went for a pre-turkey stroll in the sculpture park down the street, and it felt like winter, that water so grey and the flurries coming down.

Painted Bride Quarterly (out of Drexel University, Philadelphia) recently published a little poem of mine based on a Wyeth painting. You can read it here. The print version of that issue is forthcoming. I also have four poems and a little interview being published in the online lit mag, Transom in the very near future. I was completely floored that the editors at Transom chose all four poems, and am still incredulous. I mean, I like my poems, but after so many rejections, I just suspect that barely anyone likes barely any of my poems, nevermind a set of them.

The sister stars crib quilt is coming along swell! Of course, I haven’t done the binding yet (ugh), so there’s still room for messing up, but I hope that all the hand-piecing & hand-quilting will make-up for it.

Hand-quilting is my absolute favorite part; I get to watch British TV shows (I’m so into Midsomer Murders right now) and the quilt comes alive under all that needlework. It looks loved — kinda like the Velveteen Rabbit, but pre-almost-going-on-the-burn-pile. After a very stressful October, where I thought I was going to get this incredible new job and then not being chosen in the final round, focusing on this quilt helped me quiet and make something positive out of that negative space.

I went to one of the only quilting stores in NYC, the City Quilter, and found the perfect backing material. It was actually a material that I saw displayed in one of those online fabric stores (Hawthorne Threads or The Fabric Worm), but it looks even more beautiful in person. The staff at the City Quilter were so friendly, and I’m now thinking of taking a class there in 2015… maybe to improve my binding technique!

After this quilt is done, I’m not sure what to move onto next. My space at this apartment is very, very limited, so I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything intricate.

I’ve been toying with the idea of just piecing random fabric scraps together and creating a hodge-podge quilt. Oh wait — that sounds intricate. I don’t think I ever take the easy way out of anything!

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