Another blog I follow is The NieNie Dialogues. It is written by Stephanie Aurora Clark Nielson. She was nearly killed, and was badly burned, in a small plane crash a year ago.
Before the crash, she was a well-known blogger whose photos of a happy and lovely home made me smile. She is still that blogger, but her story has changed dramatically.

As her blog now states, she is "happy to be blogging again from Utah and recovering too. Four happy
children and one sweet husband make her life as good as it gets." Reading about her life reminds me to be always aware of, and thankful for, all of life's experiences.

There are a number of blogs that I subscribe to – making it easier to see new posts. One of my favorites is Urban Weeds, a collaboration between photographer Lisa Warninger and
stylist Rebecca Westby. It was founded by stylist Chelsea Fuss of Frolic.

The subtitle is "street style from Portland". They take photos of people they see on the streets of Portland. Most posts feature a full-body color snapshot, and a list of clothes and accessories that that person is wearing. However, my favorite part of the post is the black and white portrait of each person. The more of these I see, the more aware I am of just how lovely every face is.

This is Sophia, age 4. Isn't she lovely.

I'm working on a quilt for a new book. This book should be in print in about 2 years. That seems like a really long time but It takes us about a year to design and make the quilts, write the words, and perfect the illustrations. It then takes C&T, our publisher, about a year to to get all that into a book and out to the shops. We don't like to show quilts too early because it spoils the surprise but I think it's OK to share a tidbit, don't you?

I'm having lots of fun with this!

I am about to press "send" on the Piece O' Cake eNewsletter announcing the arrival of a new ePattern to our site. All Around the Neighborhood was first published in 1999 and so many of you have requested it that we decided that now was the time to bring it back. Happy stitching!

This lovely fellow was perched on my tomato plant earlier this week.

I believe he had just eclosed (come out of his cocoon). He was fanning his wings opened and closed slowly. It looked like he was having a good stretch and he made no move to fly. He did shift around on the leaf as I moved around, snapping pictures liked crazy.

Those of you who garden can tell that my tomato plants are not looking so great. They have a bug or a disease and I haven't been able to figure out what it is. My neighbors plants have the same stuff. Maybe I'll figure it out before next year. If anyone knows what the problem is, please share it with me. If you click on either photo it should open up bigger to give you a better look.

I've been meaning to share this idea with you. When I was teaching at the NC Quilt Symposium earlier this year, I met a woman with painted shoes. That she painted herself!

Turns out she taught classes on shoe painting and one of her students was there. Here's her shoe:

I'm a little fuzzy on the details but as I recall they recommended black leather shoes. You need to scuff up the finish so the paint will stick. Use acrylic paint and put a finish on them when the paint is dry. They said it was a great thing to do to a shoe that was showing some wear. I have some Birkenstocks that I really need to paint.