I can't tell you how happy I am to report that the color book quilts are made and quilted, and the manuscript is finished. I'm smiling, Steve is smiling, I heard my first cardinal of the year this morning and the sun is shining! Oh happy day! 

I have been working non-stop on this book for more than a year—could it be two? I don't even want to think about that now. My editor tells me that I wrote way too many pages but that's better than too few. 

I suddenly have some free time. Not really 'free' but I don't have immediate deadlines weighing me down. I almost don't know what to do next, except that I've got lists telling me what's next. 

For today, I want to share some news from Jan Krentz. Jan, who some of you may know, is famous for diamond piecing (among other things). One of her books, Diamond Quilts & Beyond, was published in Russia some time back.

Amazingly enough, the Sochi Olympic graphics are also very diamond-y.

Jan isn't suggesting that someone there used her book as a inspiration but rather that, if you like what you are seeing as you watch the Olympics, she has a book that can help you make a diamond quilt of your own. (I'm tempted to make one myself!).

Jan is selling Diamond Quilts & Beyond at a special 30% off now. Click here to go to her page to order.

Just for fun, try googling sochi diamond quilts. There's a lot to see!

I'm quilting the last big quilt for the Color book. Before I could begin, I had to figure out what pattern to quilt into it. I pinned vinyl over a block and started doodling. First I tried a curvy pattern with some flow. Not a stipple, but something maybe with leaves or curls, or flowers… 

It didn't take long to decide that that was not it. Next I tried vertical lines.

I've used this before to good effect but there is a lot of moving around shapes. That means a lot of sewing over lines of stitching and I didn't really want to do so much of that in this quilt so I started drawing horizontal lines to get me from one spot to another. I didn't love that so much but it did point me in a better direction…

I really like this! It's a kind of squared stipple. I think it looks very 1950's retro which fits nicely with the clock fabric. And it's fast!

I know I do stupid dangerous things and I've gotten hurt because of them. Thankfully, I have lived and learned. But (thanks to Charlotte Warr Andersen) I found this page from Buzzfeed titled '25 Completely Scientific Reasons Why Women Live Longer Than Men". This is just one…

I promise that in my most crazy moments, I would never do this. Or use a tractor and a crane to trim a tall hedge.

I've been trying to come up with an image of objects arranged to represent a color wheel. I've seen color wheels made out of sneakers, flip flops, cocktail umbrellas, hair bows… all very cute. However, I want to make one out of objects that I already I own, which is harder.

So far, I've got this:

I don't arrange flowers well—perhaps this is a similar skill? If I had more time to give it, I'd go out and about to shops and use objects there as props but I really don't have the time it would take. 

I was visiting with a younger friend the other night trying to explain that I have hit an age where I know I will not get to do everything that I would like to do. Even though I hope to live many more years, I am trying to use my days more thoughtfully—less frittering away of time. I do believe that this is not something I'm going to spend any more time on :-).

Yay! It feels nice to mark that off the list.

Oceanic art is that made by native peoples from the Pacific islands, including Hawaii and Easter Island, and Australia. I briefly visited the Oceana room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week and took this photo of carved sheilds mounted on the ceiling:

And a closer look:

There are some good ideas for quilting patterns!