This Year's Hidden Gift for Thanksgiving

-

 Happy Thanksgiving!

The textured fruit of the Arbutus Unedo- the Strawberry Tree

2020 has been filled with challenges for all of us and may leave people wondering why we should set aside a day for thanksgiving, especially this year. 

We are being called to pare down our plans, curtail celebrations, and put our grand gatherings on hold. In essence, we've been asked to simplify and at this point we can view circumstances as an imposition or an opportunity.

The hidden gift of simplifying our Thanksgiving plans, (and possibly all our plans for the traditionally busy, festive holidays between now and January 1), is the quiet space it gives us. It's not always a comfortable or familiar space in our hectic world, but it is a gift to ourselves, a place to really think about past, present, and future blessings and to be at peace.  

This year will pass into the history books; normal activities will eventually resume. A positive side effect of this year of deprivation may be an affirmation of the importance of these holiday celebrations to our culture and individual lives. And with "2020 hindsight" we may find that a blessing of this year is that we've had a lot of space to practice being with our own thoughts because we've heeded the call to simplify.




Note: The photo above was taken on my cell phone during a walk yesterday. It took some detective work to identify the plant, so if I'm mistaken, I hope you'll let me know. 

  


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Ooops, I did it again

-
Image
You know when you make a mistake and you end up thinking " Man, I really should have known better!"? I recently experienced that moment when I took my latest finish out of the wash, hung it to dry, and later found that the backing I used had bled through to the front of the quilt. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if it had covered the entire quilt, but in this case I have a strip of a stronger color on one side of the back: Heartbreaking to think that after all that time and effort, the piece was ruined just because I forgot to turn to the cold/cold setting for the delicate cycle on the washing machine. But then it occurred to me to "put it out there." I posted the problem on Instagram and got back several suggestions. The most popular solution was Dawn dish soap. And I'm happy to report I've met with success!!! It did require some persistence though. First, I tried applying Dawn to the affected areas and then putting it through the wash with a bit of ...
Read more

A Follow Up

-
Image
Shifting Contour When last you heard of this quilt it had been saved from the scourge of fabric bleeding. But I never posted the whole quilt. So here it is.  I have called it Shifting Contour because, in my mind, the patterned fabric plays the role of the background on the left side of the piece. On the right side, the patterned fabric moves to the foreground and becomes a solid shape against the cream background. It is an experiment with the concept of negative space. This year our local guild has taken the lead from our parent organization, the Modern Quilt Guild, and focused on a specific topic each quarter. They covered categories which can be found in the annual QuiltCon quilt show: modern traditionalism, applique, negative space, and minimalism.  I found defining these terms has been really helpful, as sometimes it's difficult to identify why a certain quilt is in a category, in which category a quilt "belongs" when entering it, and even how to deliberately incorpo...
Read more

Q=A=Q 2025 Opening

-
Image
  The first weekend in November was the opening of the annual Quilts=Art=Quilts show at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York.  Q=A=Q Opening Night The show includes seventy quilts created by fifty three artists from around the world, including  Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Kuwait, Switzerland, and the US. This is the second year that I've been honored to be juried into Q=A=Q.  It requires a bit of effort to get to upstate New York on opening night; there are no direct flights from our location. So I'm doubly grateful for the support of family who joined me to take in the experience.  This is very different from a large quilt convention. While you can get up close to the work at any kind of quilt show, the more intimate setting of a gallery brings a unique perspective. The environment elevates a quilt to the status of art. I love that there are so many ways to present my work. I know this is a relatively new phenomenon and it reflects c...
Read more