Author Archives: Becky Goldsmith

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About Becky Goldsmith

I am a quilt designer/teacher/author, a wife/mother/grandmother, and certified yoga instructor who is searching for balance, strength, and happiness in all things.

8 Days of magic…

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The most magical part about a week at Disneyworld are the memories that you bring home with you. We will also have photos taken by the Disney photographers (which should be good!) but for now I can share a few taken with my phone and small camera…

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It’s not Disney without princesses, and boy, were they good!

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Some of the coolest visual memories that I have are from the Very Merry Christmas evening spectacular. It’s extra, but worth it. The light show on the castle, the Christmas parade, and the fireworks were, in fact, spectacular!

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We visited all of the parks!

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Jack saw his first ocean mid-trip…

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We got rained on at Hollywood Studios but I got some photos between showers…

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All in all, it was a great trip. We didn’t think about work for a whole week! And, while we are all ready to be home, we’re also sad to be leaving. That is the sign of an excellent vacation!

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It’s magic!

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I am privileged to know Larry Hass, a magician and philosopher. He recently gave a TED Talk at SMU and I think you will enjoy it as much as I did :-).

(Click here if the video above did not open.)

I am captivated by his definition of magic: “Magic is an artful performance, of impossible things, that generates energy, delight, and wonder”. Yes, that’s magic—and that’s why I love watching magic. I don’t want to know how it’s done, I embrace the wonder!

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that this statement could also define quiltmaking. What we do is artful. Quilting looks impossible to those who do not sew. And quilts bring delight and wonder, and they energize. Who knows… maybe we are magicians with fabric! It’s certainly something to keep in mind as we sew.

I hope you enjoy both the TED Talk, and the ideas Larry Hass presents.

This will post as I am on my way to the Magic Kingdom (in Florida) where I will be happy to embrace all kinds of magic

Merry Pre-Christmas Sale!

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Last year, I decided to have our end-of-the-year inventory sale before Christmas. I’m doing the same thing this year. If you get my newsletter, you know about the sale already.

From December 3-10 everything at pieceocake.com will be 20% off (excluding Stella lamps and any eBook that comes from C&T). Enter DECSALE in the coupon code box and the discount will be applied. (If you forget to enter the code, Lorna will still give you the discount.)

I grew up in Oklahoma City and at this time of year B.C Clark Jewelers always has a before-Christmas sale that they advertise with a famous-in-Oklahoma jingle.  Once you hear it, I promise that you will never forget it :-). Every time I hear it I take a trip in the way-back machine to my youth…

In what is becoming a tradition, I am leaving town tomorrow and will be gone during the sale. Lorna is staying home with Elanor, Bear, my mom, and your orders! She actually prefers to handle lots of orders without distractions… and sometimes I can be a distraction. She’ll work hard to ship your orders quickly but depending on the volume, it may take a little longer than normal to ship. I may run out of some things. Lorna will order more of whatever we run out of if she can. She will let you know if something is backordered.

I leave tomorrow for Disneyworld with Jack (7), his dad/my son/Lorna’s husband, Christopher, and Jack’s best friend—his other grandmother, Judy (Lorna’s mom). Three adults to one 7-year-old is actually going to be a very good thing. We are each looking forward to this trip. Disneyworld is all lit up for Christmas which will make it especially magical.

I’ll post pictures on facebook and instragram if you want to follow along. If I have time, I’ll write some blog posts but mostly I hope to just chill out with Jack, Chris, Judy—and Elsa, a princess I have grown quite fond of :-).

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Show and Tell…

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Sara sent her version of my Tree O’ Life quilt. She says:

I started this in 2012, finished it but forgot to send you a picture. I had “Live well” but changed it to “Love God”. There were a few things I messed up on, but went ahead and just went for it!  I figured you and the other people who buy your book would be the only ones to notice.
After Christmas I’ll hang it back up.  It has a place of honor in my home.
Thanks for your lessons in the gray shades of gold for the background.
Sincerely,
Sara

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Made by Sara Ashauer

I actually don’t mind one little bit when a quilter changes one of our patterns and makes it her (or his) own. That’s part of the fun of quilting! Congrats to Sara for doing just that and for finishing her wonderful quilt!

Little sparks…

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I just read The Little Spark—a book designed to help you be creative. I rarely buy this sort of book and never seem to make it all the way to the end of the book when I do, but this time I did.

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This may be the best book cover ever. Happily, the book itself lives up to the cover.

Carrie Bloomston has come up with 30 creativity ‘sparks’ and she writes very well about each one. I admit that not every spark fits me, but more do than don’t. I actually turned down pages and highlighted different ideas and have already used a few! Here’s just one:

If you are like me, you have all sorts of fun art supplies that are put neatly away. Carrie says not to hoard your supplies; instead pull them out and use them! She showed two jars, one with colored pencils and one with markers, that she keeps on her dining table with paper. That way they are out and ready for anyone to use whenever they want to.

Night before last, I pulled my very fine set of Prismacolor Pencils out of the cabinet, sharpened every one, and put them in two vases on my table.

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Last night Chris, Lorna, the kids and mom came over for Thanksgiving eve dinner. (Lorna made shepherd’s pie, Mom made applesauce bread, I made some baked apples… it was all very tasty.) Anyway, before dinner, the kids found the pencils!

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I doodled too, with Bear. Elanor drew a guy throwing up a rainbow (about to be hit with a pizza) and Jack decided to draw one too…

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So, many thanks to Carrie who has already lit some sparks at the Goldsmith house! I suspect that there is going to be a lot of refrigerator art from now on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Today is a time to consciously give thanks and I am thankful for many things:

  • I’m thankful for my family (who love me even when I am stressed and, therefore, cranky).
  • I am thankful for my friends. You know how there are people who have hundreds of good friends? I am not one of those people. I’d like to be, but it’s not my nature. I have a few good friends and I am so very lucky to have them in my life.
  • I am thankful that I am healthy. In fact, I recently found out that I don’t have osteoporosis—just garden-variety osteopenia along with just about every other post-menopausal woman I know. Yay! One less thing to worry about.
  • I am especially thankful that my family and friends are pretty healthy as well.
  • And I am thankful for pie…

Pies

I baked pumpkin, pecan, apple, and cranberry-apple pies yesterday. Steve rolled out the (gluten-free) crusts which was a big help.

I used a new apple pie recipe, sent to me by my mom’s friend, Coralee. It’s from allrecipes.com: Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie. It calls for a lattice-crust which is too hard to do with a GF crust so I used a cookie cutter to cut pieces instead:

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Watch the video and make notes because the recipe itself is not very complete. I realized after 2 false starts that the order in which to add things matters. You combine simmering melted butter with 3 TBS flour to make a paste (sort of like white glue, not a stiff paste). Stir in white sugar (while still simmering), then brown sugar, and then water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer for a bit… they say 5 minutes but I think that might be too long. The point, I think, is to make a toffee sauce.

I made the sauce and let it cool too long. I think it would work a lot better to have the pie ready to pour the sauce onto as soon as you are done simmering. It looks like it is going to be a very good pie!

Next year we will be in NYC with Jeff for Thanksgiving. He is, as I write, sitting in a restaurant watching the parade and having brunch which is a lot warmer than being on the street in the wind and snow.

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Even though I have never been much of a parade-watcher, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade really does look like fun. I’m looking forward already to 2015!

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I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!