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Can you put me in contact with the "tech team" of a political campaign?

I am offering my "time management for sysadmins" training pro-bono to any Dem or anti-Trump digital team, sysadmins, devops team, SRE, etc. Contact me via LinkedIn, DM me on Twitter or email me if you know my email address.

Come one, come all! nycdevops does its first virtual meetup! All are invited!

• Speaker: Adarsh Shah
• Topic: "Continuous Delivery for Machine Learning"
• Time: Thursday, September 17, 2020, 5-630 PM
• Link: https://www.meetup.com/nycdevops/events/272914068/

Hope to see you there!

This month's nycdevops meetup speaker is Nathen Harvey of Google, who will give a talk titled "Introduction to Site Reliability Engineering".

The talk starts at 5pm sharp! (NY is in US/Eastern)

Please RSVP! See you there!

https://www.meetup.com/nycdevops/events/272956481/

(This is a virtual meetup. Everyone around the world is invited!)

The Usenix LISA conference is no more. After 35 years, I have a lot of good (and some not good) memories of the conference. It was a big part of my career and I'm sad to see it go. However I'm proud of what LISA accomplished.

I wrote my personal reflections on the conference in a new article published on the Usenix website. Warning: this article includes some over-sharing.

Read it here: LISA made LISA obsolete (That's a compliment!)

After a 2-year break, my column in ACM Queue magazine returns! It has a new name "Operations and Life".

For many years I wrote a column in ACM Queue Magazine. It was called "Everything Sysadmin" and covered devops, IT, and basically anything I felt like. I stopped writing in 2020 due to the pandemic and a general lack of motivation. My last column was published Nov 2020. Two years later I finally feel like writing again.

The new column is called "Operations and Life". I'm going to write about the intersection of devops and personal life. I believe that most techniques we use at work can apply in our personal life and vice-versa.

These columns will be shorter and more to the point. While my old column would often be 10 or more pages long, my goal now is to keep things to about 2000-3000 words. This will make them easier to read and digest. This format is more web-friendly.

The first article in this new format is out!

Read it here: Split Your Overwhelmed Teams: Two teams of five is not the same as one team of ten

This is how you make simple, garlic kale - just right. If you love sautéed greens, the keys are avoid overcooking, and adding plenty of garlic to the pan. And yes, this technique works with kale, chard, or spinach. Super flexible!

Continue reading Simple Garlic Kale on 101 Cookbooks

Everything I know about making grissini. These beloved, pencil-thin Italian breadsticks are made with just five ingredients. No mixer is needed and you don’t need to proof your yeast.

Continue reading Grissini (Italian Breadsticks) on 101 Cookbooks

A special, triple-bean, vegan chili inspired by Jess Damuck’s new cookbook. It’s bold, flavor-packed and uses a technique to achieve the best texture of any chili I’ve eaten. It’s time to schedule a big chili night.

Continue reading Health Nut Vegan Chili on 101 Cookbooks

These lime scones are something special. Made with fragrant Rangpur lime zest and juice, they’re tender and rustic with golden craggy edges and a zest-flecked icing shell on top.

Continue reading Rangpur Lime Scones on 101 Cookbooks

1. “Wir müssen uns von der Vorstellung lösen, dass Journalismus gleichbedeutend mit Content ist” (journalist.de, Leif Kramp & Stephan Weichert) Bei journalist.de ist ein lesenswertes Interview mit dem US-amerikanischen Journalismus-Experten Jeff Jarvis erschienen, der gleich in der ersten Antwort ziemlich direkt wird: “Während wir die US-Wahlen durchlaufen, frage ich mich, ob es Zeit ist, den […]

1. Automatisierte Bots auf X greifen in den US-Wahlkampf ein (zeit.de, Eva Wolfangel) “Die Sorge, dass das Internet von Bots zersetzt wird, gibt es schon lange. Jetzt gibt es erstmals klare Belege für solche KI-Accounts – manche machen Stimmung für Trump.” Eva Wolfangel gibt einen Einblick in die derzeitige Forschung zu Bot-Netzwerken. Weiterer Lesetipp: Elon […]

1. RSF verurteilt israelische Nachrichtenblockade (reporter-ohne-grenzen.de) Die Organisation Reporter ohne Grenzen (RSF) verurteilt den Umgang der israelischen Armee mit Medienschaffenden. “Aus dem Norden des Gazastreifens dringen immer weniger Informationen heraus, und gerade deshalb wird Journalismus immer wichtiger”, so RSF-Geschäftsführerin Anja Osterhaus: “Die israelischen Streitkräfte verhindern zunehmend Bilder und Stimmen von der Realität des Krieges und […]

The hepatitis E virus protein ORF1 contains a region that scientists have struggled to characterize, making the structure and function of this region the subject of much debate. Now, Princeton scientists show that this region of the protein does not behave as a protease, as has been previously suggested, but instead serves as a molecular scaffold to stabilize the rest of the ORF1 protein.

Getting hit with one hurricane is bad enough, but new research from Princeton Engineering shows that back-to-back versions may become common for many areas in coming decades.

Princeton chemists used MacMillan's µMap, a molecular mapping technology, to watch tiny changes in a DNA-protein complex called chromatin — essentially, an architecture that allows for the compaction of DNA — in the presence of genetic mutations associated with cancer.

The landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has committed nearly $400 billion to mitigating climate change. Nine research teams across the U.S, including a Princeton team led by Jesse Jenkins, have now modeled the law's effect on U.S. carbon emissions.

Scientists have long known that magnetic fields probably extract energy from spinning black holes — they just didn’t know how.

Research on a massive storm at Gorongosa National Park offers strategies for wildlife managers around the world.

A new report led by Emily Carter and Elizabeth Zeitler *14 offers research and policy ideas, including carbon fiber replacements for rebar in construction and titanium in high-tech applications.

A leader in her field with over 35 years of experience, Shroff has transformed Princeton’s audit and compliance functions during her more than 17 years at the University.

“Close Encounters: Facing the Bomb in a New Nuclear Age” is on display at SPIA’s Bernstein Gallery through Oct. 25. 

A commitment to the liberal arts is at the core of Princeton University's mission. A new cohort of outstanding postdocs has joined the Society of Fellows for three years of teaching and research.

In the Class of 2028, 71.5% of students qualify for financial aid and 21.7% of the class are lower-income students eligible for federal Pell grants.

Jordan will also receive the American Historical Society's Award for Scholarly Distinction in January.

I was one of the outside readers1 for a volume in Cambridge University Press’s enormous “Elements” series, The New Witches of the West, by Ethan Doyle White. (Link is to Amazon US) To find that title, go to the main … Continue reading →

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with LPCollins, who volunteers as a Dutch translator and beta reader for the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I am part of the Translation committee, more specifically as a translator and beta reader for the Dutch team. (Hallo, iedereen!) I have also recently found my way into the Tag Wrangling committee, but that is all still very new and shiny, so I’ll be focussing on my role in Translation for this post. That role pretty much means that I help with the translation of the AO3 FAQs and tutorials, news posts, email templates and the occasional tag or user ticket that arrives in Dutch, a rare treat when speakers of your language are very accustomed to using English in online spaces. I am very proud of the role that our committee gets to play in diversifying the OTW and slowly but surely making it more accessible for users world-wide. Compared to the userbase speaking Chinese, Spanish or Russian, Dutch may seem like a very tiny, not-so-important piece of that puzzle, but doesn’t that only make it cooler that we can support such languages too?

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

One of my absolute favorite things about the Translation committee is that you get to schedule the work according to your own needs. I am a chaos demon with fluctuating energy levels, so I’m not sure about having a “typical week” and that’s perfectly fine with Translation.

Basically, at some point one of our lovely volunteer managers will send me an assignment, either a document that needs to be translated from scratch or a translation from one of my teammates that I need to beta read. Assignments always have a deadline too, shorter ones for urgent news posts and longer ones for longer documents. Depending on the length of the document, what I need to do with it, my mood and the alignment of the stars, I might do it right away, or spread it out over a week, or just do it on the day of the deadline. Then I let our staff know that I’m done and they send me a new task and so on. There have been weeks when I didn’t complete a single task and there have been days when I completed two, and it just works for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Look, I seem to be living in a world where all the paid jobs aren’t very interesting and all the interesting jobs aren’t very paid. (Will take recommendations for other worlds.) Point is, I am always drawn to ways to help organizations that I care about with a hands-on approach. Before I joined the OTW, I was a volunteer for IMAlive’s crisis support chat (big shout-out to Random Acts for providing my training), which I loved doing but unfortunately became too time-consuming when I needed to start working on my master’s thesis. Since I had been spending a lot of time on AO3 for years at that point, the OTW was an easy next target for when I did have some spare time again.

I also have a degree in Dutch and English linguistics and literature, so translator was definitely one of the most appealing OTW positions from the get-go. I distinctly remember waiting for a chance to apply, checking every Translation recruitment post that popped up on AO3 to see if they needed someone for Team Dutch yet, as the committee always recruits for specific languages. As soon as Dutch was listed in one of the posts, I didn’t hesitate about applying, and I was lucky enough to be welcomed to the team. Already two years have passed since then and I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Not gonna lie, I have witnessed some big internal discussions since joining the OTW, both about real-world events and about our own processes. I feel like those have been fought over enough, though, so I’ll share a challenge that’s more specific for Team Dutch.

In case you don’t know, Dutch is an official language in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname. Unfortunately, Suriname isn’t currently represented in our team, but we do have both Belgian and Dutch folks, and despite our countries being right next to each other, there are actually some differences between Belgian Dutch and Dutch… Dutch. (Just ask how we end our emails.) They definitely aren’t big enough to separate the languages, but we do try to walk that middle ground in our translations and make sure that everything sounds good for everyone. So sometimes I will be beta reading a document and change something that just sounds way too Dutch to me and sometimes one of my teammates will point out that they would never use my suggested turn of phrase in the Netherlands. As a linguist, I find this very interesting, but it is also quite challenging to avoid colloquialisms when you’re not even always aware of them!

What fannish things do you like to do?

First and foremost, I’m a fanfic writer. Always have been (even before I knew that there was a word for it) and always will be. As a writer, I also have an atrocious habit and it goes something like this: start a very long fic, pour out new chapters religiously for months and months, stumble upon a different fandom, come up with a fic idea for said new fandom that “surely won’t take long and that I just need to get out of my system so that I can return to the existing WIP in peace” aaaaand repeat. Dear reader, if you happen to be following one of my stories, I am so, so sorry, I swear I will finish it one day.

The love of my life is Supernatural and I will always come back to it, but I’m also very good at falling very hard for other fandoms on the side, ranging from The Boys to Danny Phantom to the latest Neil Gaiman-related show to Helluva Boss to anything that Richard Speight, Jr. worked on. One of my favorite things to do is hyperfixate on something new, then grab my friends by the shoulders and shake them until they agree to watch it too so that I can yell at them about it.

Of course I read fanfics too, mostly in short bursts when I’m looking for a very specific type of fic. For my wallet’s sake, I limit the number of Supernatural conventions I can go to to one per year. I perpetually have a Discord tab open to stay in touch with fellow fans, will occasionally scour YouTube for fanvids and spend the rest of my fandom time on the best social media site ever, Tumblr. (Kidding, not kidding.)

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Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

I started this project in October, 2014, so I would have a nice handwork project while traveling for a month in Europe. I love it!!!

A bunch of pre-cut threads and trims, a small package of mixed seed beads/buttons/sequins, a folded piece of felt with various sizes of needles, embroidery scissors, Sue Spargo's book, and 16 wool chicks already stitched to the background wool fit very nicely into a 12 x 9 inch zippered, mesh bag.... perfect to tuck into my backpack! I stitched on the airplanes, in people's homes, and with my beady/quilty friends! At the end of the month, 8 chicks were finished. You can see them here.


Since then, I've been busy making a Travel Diary quilt, and starting another very challenging "Shimmer" quilt, which will be the subject of the next post. However, once in a while, the Chicks are just the right break from machine sewing. Working on them makes me happy and peaceful.


The new ones are in this post... As you can see in the photo below, I still have 2 chicks to embellish, plus one that might need something more.


When all of them are finished, it will be time to decide what to do with them. My idea so far is to make them into a small wall quilt, hand quilting around the chicks, maybe adding a few flowers between some of the chicks.  I'll wait to decide, keeping all options open until the chicks are finished.


Most of the chicks are girls, but so far 3 of them seem to have a bit of testosterone...  can you tell which ones are the boys? You'll need to click on the above picture of all 16 to enlarge it enough to find the boys. If you feel like making a guess, let's give them numbers starting at the top left with 1 and going across row by row. As you can probably tell, the one below is definitely a girly girl!

By the way, the lace trim on the above chick is vintage lace from LaDonne Weinland, an Etsy vendor. It was white, which was too "strong" a color for this piece. So I painted dye on it!!! These are the pieces I painted. To give you an idea of scale, the lace is just under 1/4" wide. The chick, from the bottoms of her feet to the top of her crown, is exactly 3 inches tall.

Threads! 

People ask me where I got all the threads I use for these chicks. Here are some answers...

Variegated pearl cotton. I'd estimate that over half the stitches (all the beaks and feet, most of the edge stitches, tails, and top-knots) are pearl cotton, size 8 or 12. I like using threads that are subtly variegated. DMC and Valdani are two brands of pearl cotton that come in a ball for $5 to $7 per ball. I have purchased some Valdani balls from Sue Spargo and some from this site.

But most of my perle cotton comes from African Folklore Embroidery ... Leora Raikin, the owner, packages hand-dyed, variegated, pearl cotton on cards of three colors, each color about 10 yards in length, for $5.  She has a HUGE selection, from which you can have 24 colors for only $40!!! I love the colors, the subtle changes of colors in the variegation, and the quality of the thread. Here's a page that shows her colors in size 8 pearl cotton... mind boggling!

My photo does not show the full amount you get... only how it is packaged, 3 colors to a card!

Embroidery floss.  For finer stitches and details, I often switch to regular embroidery floss. Again I gravitate toward the variegated colors. DMC has put out a lot of new variegated skeins in recent years. If you have an older supply of solid colors, you might want to check out DMC's 24 new colors. Here's an Etsy seller that offers them. Or, if you are in the Seattle area, Nancy's Sewing Basket (on Queen Anne hill) stocks all of them. They are much more subtle than previous DMC variegated floss choices, more like hand-dyed. Anchor has also added nice options to their line.




I also buy hand-dyed embroidery floss when I see a skein that appeals to me. Again, I like the subtlety of it.

Other threads. Sue Spargo offers a line of variegated silk threads in beautiful colors, which she calls Silken Pearl. I bought some of them from her during the class, and have enjoyed using them. The sheen of the silk is a lovely contrast to the more matte quality of the pearl cotton.

In her book, Sue recommends using a wool thread to applique the wool chicks to the background wool. Since it is quite expensive, I used 60 weight cotton applique/sewing thread by Metler, which I already had in a range of colors. It works fine. If I didn't already have the Metler thread, I probably would have bought a set of Genziana wool threads on bobbins on Etsy, here. This wool thread is a bit too fine for embellishment work, but it's great for wool applique.

Novelty yarns, metallic threads, chenille, dazzle threads, etc. all have their occasional use as well. As I tend to like more matte and less bling, I don't often use these threads. But it's fun to experiment with them. I did use chenille on one of the above chicks... can you find it?

All 16 chicks are finished now, and I've started quilting the piece!!! I'm quilting by hand, using a single strand of non-mercerized (not shiny) thread (Anchor brand), which is about the same weight as size 12 pearl cotton. This is how it looks so far...

While I contemplate how to proceed with the quilting, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the design process with you, especially since a few readers have said they might want to try something like this.

Learning the Stitches - Which Ones to Use and Where to Use Them

Sue Spargo's book, Creative Stitching, was very important in my design process. I didn't know most of the stitches when I started this piece. The instructions in the book are easy to follow, and I was able to learn all that I wanted from the book. More than learning the stitches, the photos in the book allowed me to see how she uses the stitches to embellish her wool applique shapes. Also, she writes about the threads and needles she uses. I followed her suggestions for needles, but did not use many of the threads she mentions.


Layout the Shapes

The wool is felted. I bought already felted (correct term is actually "fulled") wool. But you can make your own by washing wool fabric and drying it in the dryer. Here are some useful instructions for fulling wool fabric.

The first step is to cut out the chicks from felted wool fabrics. (Although I made chicks, the shape could be anything... butterflies, flowers, circles, donkeys...) I used 16 different colors, making each chick a different color. I used "chick colors" for some of the wings; others are from a bag of wool scraps I bought at the La Conner Quilt Festival.

I used 60 wt. cotton sewing thread to applique the chicks to the background fabric. Use a thread color that matches the chick color as closely as possible. Although it's a bit shiny, a single strand of embroidery floss would also work for this task.

Starting to Embellish the Chicks

When I finished appliqueing the chicks to the background wool, they just looked like blobs, barely recognizable as chicks. This is not inspirational for starting to embellish! I found that in order to even want to start, I needed to make them more real, more chick-like. So I gave them all eyes, all 16 of them. That helped a lot, but still they didn't feel real. So I gave them all feet, and then beaks. So as not to get bored, I changed thread color for both beaks and feet. Some of the eyes are made with a button; some with a flower-shaped bead; some with a disc-shaped bead. When all of them had eyes, feet, and beaks, finally they began to be chicks, and I was ready to start!!!

Even so... starting is daunting. I used the same method I use (and teach) for bead embroidery... If you've taken a class from me you've heard me say, "Pick up a bead you love, and sew it on somewhere." That's what I did... picked up a thread I loved, picked a stitch that interested me from Sue's book, picked a chick color that appealed to me at that moment, and started practicing the stitch.

When I finished, I just did the same thing again. Sometimes it was the same chick, sometimes I chose a different chick. I kept picking a thread I liked, usually one I hadn't previously used, a stitch I wanted to learn or really liked, and a chick that seemed "to like" the chosen thread color.

After a while, some of the chicks were fully embellished. Once I learned the stitches and had experimented with various threads, I tended to work on one chick until it was finished. But if  when I got stuck, and couldn't think what to do next with a particular chick, I just moved along to some other chick that appealed to me at that moment.


Another way to get started

If you feel a bit timid about starting, you could make a pincushion, such as I did, shown below. It doesn't take a lot of time or materials, and can give you both practice (particularly in making beaks and feet) and confidence.

Personality

I can't help but think of the chicks as youngsters, maybe early teens, with emerging personalities... each, as I work on it, starts to have a story which plays out in my head while I stitch. Once the story begins, it's easier to choose stitches, design motifs, and threads which further develop the story or personality of that chick. Thinking about the chick's personality and background story, keeps me from getting bored, and makes it really fun to work on the piece.


Thread Hints

I already wrote about threads, adding it to the bottom the previous post (or, scroll down one more post).

What's Next?

As usual, I don't know. I take it one step at a time, trying not to figure it all out before I start. I do what I know to do. If there isn't anything I know to do, then I wait... wait for an idea, for inspiration, for a solution... wait until I know what to do next, but only the next thing... I try to ignore the question of what comes after the next thing. That's what I'm doing now... waiting to know what the next step in the quilting process will be.

A week of finishing!!! Oh my, it feels good to finish things, doesn't it?!

Last October, I started the applique process, stitching chick bodies and wings cut from felled wool onto the wool background fabric. Seven months later, 16 chicks, embroidered with threads and beads, run free! Please click the picture to enlarge it, so you can enjoy the fanciful details.

If you are new to this process, you can see the various steps and pictures of the chicks on these posts. Of course, they are inspired by Sue Spargo's exhibit at the La Conner Quilt Museum, by her book, Creative Stitching, and by taking a one-day class from her to get me going. Along the way, other books, embroideries, and drawings also inspired me.


As you might guess, most of the chicks have at least a few beads. Here is one with the main motif embroidered with beads.


And, here is one with just a few beads, the center of the "flowers," and one with no beads at all.

Also note that I've quilted the piece with Danish Flower Thread in a shade which closely matches the background color.

At first, I thought it would be pleasing to embellish the areas between the chicks with flowers, vines, and leaves using three close shades of the background color. Here is an example.


It looks OK when you look at just four chicks with the flower/vine motif in the center. But when I had finished 6 of the areas (sorry no photo), some of them with larger spaces and larger vines/leaves, it looked too busy. It took away from the chicks. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to look at the chicks or the flowers. So I picked out the vines and leaves, leaving just the flowers, which weren't such a distraction.


After sewing on the binding, the chicks seemed to need a little warming around them. So I added a line of stem stitch in variegated pearl-cotton in a magenta color. It pleases me!


Oh, and one more thing... This is a quilt, designed to hang on the wall, with lots of details to enjoy as you view it up close. But what happens to wool felt when it is out in the open? MOTH DAMAGE and DUST are the enemies. My solution? Find, buy, or have somebody make a wall-mounted display case, with a hinged door. Hang the quilt inside the case, which remains closed except when somebody wants to take a closer look. The above, found on the internet, is close to what I have in mind, with a white background of course.


What's next in chick-land? Well, my dear niece just got married... Here is the start of her wedding gift... I'll post a finished photo soon.

Oh dear, busy me, four months since I've posted here. Lots of quilting, a little beading, some travels, and recently several sets of house guests have made "retirement" a bit of a joke. For now, since the La Conner Quilt Festival is just around the corner (October 2-4), my subject is one small exhibition on the first floor at the Museum, which is currently up, and will remain through the Festival.

Last year at the Festival (and again this year!) Sue Spargo taught workshops on her wool applique embroidery methods. Those of us who were lucky enough to get in were invited by the Museum to exhibit our finished pieces. These marvelous creations are the subject of this post. Uneven lighting makes it difficult to get good photos, so please forgive poor color or tone on some of these photos.

In case you are unfamiliar with Sue's work, below is an example of her work. Students in her class could choose to make chicks, circles, or flowers. Most chose the chicks. Eight of her students are showing their work in the current exhibit.

My vote for the most awesome-creative piece goes to Bunny Starbuck for She Has Flown the Coop! Here it is:

Having put my chicks all in neat rows similar to Sue's example, I find it amazing that Bunny's mind took the idea and made a whole different story of it... a coop full of chicks, with two in line on the roof ready to follow the one already in the air. Don't you just love the way the lines divide the space?!




Note Bunny's use of whispy yarn to suggest little chick feathers, her use of snaps for eyes, the one chick turned full front, the one with a bead-tassled braid and glasses, and the one with beaded loop fringe and a gathered yellow ribbon (?) yo-yo. I love them! I'm in awe, Bunny!

Below is Chicks on Parade by Dorie Benson. It's so fun the way they are so close together, with two of them going in a different direction, just as you might see in a little cluster of chicks. If you click the photo to enlarge it, you can see some of Dorie's excellent stitching and hand quilting!

The next one is Chicks by Glenys Baker, who not only did all 36 chicks but also made a second quilt featuring circles (shown further down). Awesome work, Glenys!

And next is Birds of a Feather Can Dance Together by Lorraine Jones. The fun of the title is matched by the fun of Lorraine's embellishments, including her border treatment. (You'll have to see this one in person, because the light from a table lamp, made the lower corner of the photo look terrible.)

I guess most of us like to "swim the other way," as you can see in the next piece, Chickadees, by Carrie Unick. I thought many of Corrie's embellishments were especially fun and creative, so I've also included a couple of detail photos.



Last of the chicks is my piece, simply named Chicks. It was so much fun, that I made another small piece (also in the exhibition), shown at the top of this post. Both are displayed in shadow-box type frames to protect them from dust and moth damage.
Glenys Baker, in one year, made not only a 36-chicks quilt (shown above), but also a 48-circles quilt, Circles. How she keeps thinking of new embellishment variations I can't imagine. Yet each of her circles is completely unique! Her choice of border fabrics is perfect for the quilt, complimenting the flow of color among the circles.


I love the fun color combinations and the way the beads enhance her embroidery on Nancy Anders' Bodacious Blooms, a joyful wall quilt if ever there was one! (Again, I couldn't quite get the color right in the photo, so you'll just have to go to the Museum to see it in person.)


The name of Roberta Roberts' flower quilt, Memories, invites us to look closely at the flower with three ladybugs. I don't know the story, but I can tell there is one here... and I love that. Her embellishments are varied and fun as well.



There you have it... 10 quilts by 8 students who learned some methods of wool applique and embroidery from Sue Spargo, last year at the La Conner Quilt Festival. I'm so grateful to be one of them!

When my brother, Thom Atkins, visited last fall, he showed me (and a few quilting buddies) his new method for designing and constructing "scrappy improv wall quilts," a technique that turned out to be a lot of fun for me, especially given my long history with an improvisational, intuitive approach to bead embroidery.

Basically, what we did was to empty our bags or boxes of scraps onto a large table and start pawing through them, pulling out ones that appealed to us at that moment. For me it was all about color - red, magenta, fuchsia, with hints of pink, golden-yellow, orange, lavender, and dark green. All of the fabrics were in my scrap box. We had two days of Thom's demonstrations and guidance. During that time, each of us in our small group produced a unique and very pleasing "piece" or "block," measuring roughly 18 x 21 inches, the size of a fat quarter.

One of my red scraps, cut in a nice arc at one end, was the start of it all because I liked the shape and the color. Next I picked up a small strip of yellow, and held it behind the arc of red. Ooooh! Nice enough to repeat. The scrap of orange/red batik was large enough to cut a similar arc, and the strip of yellow was long enough to go behind that one too. These two arcs formed the basis of my piece.

You can see the two arcs above; the lower right was the first. The yellow strip was only about 3" wide, not enough to go all the way around the arcs, but I cut two shapes that would echo the top of each of the arcs. I layered the remaining scraps from that on top of the arcs along the vertical edges of the design. Then I put a dark green scrap behind the arcs and the yellow, which set them off nicely. The rest was just filling to the edges of the quilt with more scraps, including fussy-cut leaves and flowers.

The next step was to glue it all together along the 1/4" seam overlap, working in layers from bottom to top, and cutting away the excess fabric from the underside after each piece is glued. Cutting away the excess fabric leaves a double layer of fabric only at the seams; the rest is a single layer. The glue is Elmer's School Glue, Disappearing Purple, as shown below. It is an organic stick glue, relatively easy to sew through, repositionable, (in case you change your mind), and purple when first applied, drying to transparent (so you can see where exactly you are putting it).

Thom's method is a type of raw edge applique, typically accomplished with heat-fusible web, such as "wonder under." The typical method, given a complex, layered design such as mine, would have resulted in a thick, stiff, multi-layer surface, which would be difficult to quilt, even with a machine. In Thom's method, there is no web, and in most places only one or two layers of fabric. Like all raw edge techniques, the raw edges must be sewn down, and the resulting quilts are not very suitable for bed quilts unless there is heavy stitching over the raw edges (for example, dense, zig-zag, machine stitching).

After gluing my original (shown above) quilt top, I assembled the quilt, using a spray glue to layer the backing, batting and top. The next step was to stitch along the "seams," the overlapping, glued edge of each piece. From there, it was up to each of us as to how to finish the quilt, perhaps with machine quilting, such as stippling or contour stitches, or perhaps with beading, all of which Thom does on his quilts.

A couple of months went by after getting to the unfinished stage shown above. I liked it, but didn't know what to do with it, until one day when I was at our Senior Center, getting foot care from a trained nurse who comes a couple times a week to help those who need it. Her treatment room, about the size of a walk-in closet, has no windows. Her client faces the door to the room, a plain, wooden door.  "That door needs a quilt," I told her. The rest is history; my scrappy improv quilt, Eclipse,  hangs there now.

Only first I had to finish it. Above is the finished quilt, Eclipse. Below I'll tell you some of the finishing steps and about how I transformed it from looking flat and ordinary to sharp and textured using embroidery embellishments. Please click on the photo so you can see the details!

You might have noticed that the finished quilt is longer (better suited for hanging on a door) than the original piece. That was a challenge, although less than you might expect, because Thom had demonstrated for us how he sometimes extends the size of his quilts. In short, I roughly planned out the addition, the mock-up shown below, then created it using the same process and scraps as the original piece.


I used fusible "tape" made for butt-joining pieces of batting, to add a new piece of batting to the bottom edge of batting on the original (upper) part of the quilt. The horizontal strip of striped fabric overlaps the two parts of the quilt and the joined batting underneath. As you can see below, I added a fussy-cut flower over the striped fabric to break up the horizontal strip and visually join the two parts.


Confession time... I'm not good at machine quilting, and don't even have a proper quilting foot for my old machine (1972 Pfaff). I tried stitching around the fussy cut flowers to secure the glued edges, but failed miserably. What to do? Ah, hand-sew with embroidery stitches and floss? Yes! It took a few tries, but eventually I found stitch and thread combinations that worked.

It looked so good that I decided to add stitching and knots to the yellow arcs next. Wow! That popped the eclipse look! In the photo below, you can see bits of all the embroidery stitches I added. Not only does the embroidery provide embellishment and emphasis, it also further quilts the piece. Click the photo to see the detail and better read the stitch identification.


Here are two more detail photos of the finished quilt (without the text boxes).



Lots of fun, and I like the results! Will I do another one? Well, right now I've finally returned to my hexie project, where I'm likely to remain for many months, but after that, scrappy improv may be just what I need!

Kenneth Strother Jr., director of operations in Princeton University's Department of Public Safety (DPS), has been named assistant vice president for public safety, effective June 1.

The new producing artistic director of the theater and music theater season at the arts center sat for an interview for our ‘What I think’ series.

Ronald Surtz, professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and literatures, emeritus, died peacefully at home in Cranbury, New Jersey, on Nov. 14. He was 75.

Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, a Princeton alumna and current Hodder Fellow who's a composer, vocalist and scholar, has come full circle since the day she sat in a McCarter audience 10 years ago and made a wish to one day be up on that stage. 

Lisk taught biology at Princeton for 30 years before transferring to emeritus status in 1990.

CSDP brings voices from across the political spectrum into conversation with Princeton social scientists and students. 

A lecture on the legacy of Catholic women in the arts and sciences.

Young Democratic Socialists of America - General Meeting

The inaugural Princeton GAASA Conference will be an enriching and dynamic event that brings scholars, activists, historians, and community leaders together to discuss African American history in the state of New Jersey. This year's conference theme is "Institutional Memory and African American History in New Jersey" which brings crucial narratives of African American contributions to the state to the forefront of public consciousness. This event aims to deepen the understanding of African American life, promote meaningful dialogue, and inspire actionable change. The conference will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, November 23, 2024.

The inaugural Princeton GAASA Conference will be an enriching and dynamic event that brings scholars, activists, historians, and community leaders together to discuss African American history in the state of New Jersey. This year's conference theme is "Institutional Memory and African American History in New Jersey" which brings crucial narratives of African American contributions to the state to the forefront of public consciousness. This event aims to deepen the understanding of African American life, promote meaningful dialogue, and inspire actionable change. The conference will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, November 23, 2024.

The inaugural Princeton GAASA Conference will be an enriching and dynamic event that brings scholars, activists, historians, and community leaders together to discuss African American history in the state of New Jersey. This year's conference theme is "Institutional Memory and African American History in New Jersey" which brings crucial narratives of African American contributions to the state to the forefront of public consciousness. This event aims to deepen the understanding of African American life, promote meaningful dialogue, and inspire actionable change. The conference will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, November 23, 2024.

The inaugural Princeton GAASA Conference will be an enriching and dynamic event that brings scholars, activists, historians, and community leaders together to discuss African American history in the state of New Jersey. This year's conference theme is "Institutional Memory and African American History in New Jersey" which brings crucial narratives of African American contributions to the state to the forefront of public consciousness. This event aims to deepen the understanding of African American life, promote meaningful dialogue, and inspire actionable change. The conference will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, November 23, 2024.

The inaugural Princeton GAASA Conference will be an enriching and dynamic event that brings scholars, activists, historians, and community leaders together to discuss African American history in the state of New Jersey. This year's conference theme is "Institutional Memory and African American History in New Jersey" which brings crucial narratives of African American contributions to the state to the forefront of public consciousness. This event aims to deepen the understanding of African American life, promote meaningful dialogue, and inspire actionable change. The conference will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, November 23, 2024.