Bold Blossoms by Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett (born 1937) is a world-renowned American-born artist and textile designer based in England, celebrated for his pioneering work in color-rich knitting, needlepoint, and patchwork quilting. Over a 50-year career, he has authored over 40 books, collaborated with designers like Missoni and Bill Gibb, and was the first living textile artist to have a solo exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. I have signed up for the 2026 botanical block of the month club through Quiltfolk and he is one of the featured teachers. Given his age it seems like a good opportunity to see him interviewed and talk about his work and reflect on his career before it is too late but well into his artistic life and work. This book is a has a combination of needle point and fabric there are patterns for both quilts as well as needlepoint work. It has vibrant photography, featuring 25 projects (18 quilts, 7 needlepoints) inspired by floral designs. I would like to highlight the book's high-quality visuals and clear instructions, making it suitable for both, experienced and novice crafters. It acts as a comprehensive guide exploring color palettes and design processes. Kaffe is known for his knitting as well, but that is not featured in this book the highlights are looks at his fabric design which are large floral bright colored prints that are immediately identifiable as his work and very attractive this book is coffee table worthy but it is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Children Of The Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

A little over a year ago China quietly ended its three decades of international adoptions. This cessation came almost a decade after China—again quietly—put an end to its one-child policy, which also lasted more than three decades. While reporting from China for the LA Times, the author uncovered some difficult truths about international adoptions in a country that was supposed to be the among the most ethical in the world. She weaves the histories of both China’s one-child policy and Chinese international adoptions into the story of a pair of separated twins, making for a thrilling narrative that is hard to put down. Identical twins Fangfang and Shuangjie were born in a mountainous village in Hunan province, the third and fourth children in their family. Fangfang, the older of the twins, was a healthy baby, but Shuangjie was a little sickly and needed more care. Fearful of the local family planning office, the twins’ parents worried that they would be caught and punished for having more than one child. They already had a second daughter after their first was born, but they worried they would have a difficult time evading attention with twins. So, they sent Fangfang to live with her aunt and uncle. The author writes about two scandals that plagued Chinese adoptions. The first involved individuals trafficking babies and toddlers, taking them from their homes and bringing them to orphanages. The second involved government family planning offices doing the same. Both the individual traffickers and the family planning offices made massive amounts of money “facilitating” these adoptions to foreign parents. It is hard to know how common this was, and with DNA testing a lot more is being uncovered, but this is a fascinating read.

Kaffe Fassett In The Studio

Ok, the writing in this is maybe not five star material, but it is very good, and the book goes about descibing in pictures and in words the life work of Kaffe Fassett and it does a spectacularly beautiful and broad sweeping job of it. I am taking a class which takes you into his home and studio through Quiltfolk--until I signed up for it, I did not realize just how actively he travels and teaches. He is basically a giant in the area of textile arts. He is an iconic fabric designer, and he works in needlepoint, knitting, and quilting. He has been a working artist for over 50 years and has been a prolific author as well. In 1988 he became the first living textile artist to have a one-man show at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The exhibition attracted such crowds that the Museum doubled attendance figures during the run and the exhibition toured to nine countries afterwards. This book takes you through his living space, which is one of the things I love to see--where people lived and worked. When I am on the road, those are intentional stops for me. Carl Larssen is a Swedish painter known for painting his family, and his home is adorned with painted doors and walls that are evocative of his work--the same can be said for Fassett's home. He worked on this book during the pandemic, when we were all home more or less, and has an intimate feel to it, maybe aided and abetted by the amount of time he spent there that year. If you are a fan, do not miss this--he even manages to include a few patterns, even though that is not what the book's primary aim is, and if you aren't, take it out of the library--you might become one. His fabric isn't exactly my cup of tea, but it is vibrant, distinctive, and I have used small bits of it in quilts to add pop and color. Truely a one of a kind artist.

Heiress Takes All by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

I have generally enjoyed the YA books that Reese Witherspoon has picked for her book club, and this mat very well hit the spot for the target audience, but I did not love it. A daughter, Olivia, who's father is marrying his 3rd wife has invited her to the wedding--she is a product of marriage number one, and when that ended, she and her mother were left penniless, withouth health insurance, and in dept. he mother has worked multiple minimum wage jobs, and Olivia is out for revenge. Ok, that is all understandable, but what I do not get is why her crew agree to help her with the plan to get the codes to her father's off shore bank accounts and transfer the fortune she sees as her birth right, but why would the rest of them aid and abet her? So once that disbelief is suspending we can move on. With the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. But she didn't plan for an obnoxiously nosy wedding guest, an interfering ex-boyfriend intent on winning her back, greedy European cousins with their own agenda, or a vengeful second wife. When everything seems like it's going wrong, Olivia has to keep her eyes on what really matters: getting rich. It is slow going and a few plot twists along the way--which set us up for a sequel--and all does not turn out as hoped.

The History of Sound (2025)

This is a quiet movie, muted in both tone and cinematography, and while that sometimes drives me crazy, the slow lazy pace of it is suited to the material. The one thing that is not restrained is when they are going on about the music. And then it bursts with passion and pure emotion. The folk songs that provide the film’s spine spring from a deeply authentic place, infused with a love of storytelling and a yearning for connection with the past. It is is about the romance that forms between two men who find each other through their shared love of the timeless tunes from country people. One is from Kentucky and the other has visited the villages of England and they are deeply drawn to these often sad ballads. Because of the period when the story takes place, World War I, theirs is a love that cannot be. These two men who couldn’t be more different outside their mutual obsession with music. His story begins in 1910 Kentucky, where, in an opening voiceover (the wise, gravelly tones of Chris Cooper), we learn that young Lionel is a musical prodigy. He has perfect pitch; his mother sneezes, and he can name that note. His ability lifts him out of rural poverty and carries him to the elite Boston Conservatory to study vocal performance. After a brief separation when David goes off to fight in the war—“Don’t die,” Lionel orders as he leaves—they eventually reunite to travel throughout rural Maine, knocking on doors and recording the folk songs that families have passed down from one generation to the next. This section is the heart of the film and gives it real spark--the power behind the vocal performances is undeniable. From front porches and kitchen tables, the ability of music to transform and transcend is evident. Afterwards they head their seperate ways, with this time leaving a shadow across Lionel's life that he eventually needs to unpack, and what is revealed to him is sad and inevitable. The one thing that has stuck with me is that the story is told at a time when this music was under appreciated and catalogued, but that changed in my life time, thank goodness.

The Call of the Honeyguide: What Science Tells Us about How to Live Well with the Rest of Life by Rob Dunn

I enjoyed this book, and there are a lot of engaging stories told in it, but it is not ground breaking when read by someone with a life long interest and participation in science. It opens with a couple of interesting stories about inter species cooperation. The first is the one that the title of the book is derived from. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, birds known as honeyguides once used a specific call to lead humans to beehives so they could split the spoils of wax and honey. The other takes place in southeastern Australia, wild orcas partnered with Thaua people to hunt baleen whales. The Inca empire banned the killing of cormorants and pelicans whose droppings fertilized their crops. These relationships are known as “mutualisms,” and the author suggests such dynamics were once common and could be again in this thought-provoking and wide-ranging exploration of how different species interact in cooperative ways. This is particularly important to think about at a time when so many people are trying to break things rather than fix them. The United States in particular has become a pugilistic bully with a fascist leader bent on getting his way and trampling everything and everybody in his way--instead, diplomacy and cooperation have gotten us so much further and benefitted the greatest number of people. May we go the way of the Honeyguide.

Gradients in Quilting

Johanna Masko talked to our guild about how to think about, design, and operationalize gradients in our quilting. Use of gradation is a prominent part of modern quilting, and there are a lot of ways to think about it. One is the paint chip aisle at the hardware store. There each individual chip shows a particular starting color, and then what happens when you add more and more white to it, or conversely more and more black. This is a familiar and maybe one could say conventional way to look at gradation. Masko advocates thinking about it more broadly--she uses gradents in the background of this quilt, which moves across a large area, and then in each of the dresden plates, she uses it more subtly. I really like the details of her design process, and what she thought about as she was designing this and other quilts that she has made. A couple of take aways from her lecture for me was to use the color apps that are available in order to better train my eye to correctly identify the gradient--so if I want to incorporate it that I can do it right. The other was that when developing a quilt, to think about if this will be a part of the design or not, to think more intentionally about design, and to figure out not only where you are going, but where you want to go. Once again, I feel like the more I learn the less I know--that I figure out more of what I didn't know but am also more aware of the vastness of what there is to know.

All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett

I have spent some time during my recovery from shoulder surgery getting further along in one of my long term reading goals, which is to read most of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club selections. This is a pretty classic rags to riches romance--sort of. Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. She has an absent father and her mother recently died, so she is running on a mixture of adventure and grief. Her father is unsupportive of her plan to do a master's degree in British Literature in London. When she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach. Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Anna is sependent on tutoring for income, and she has happened upon a sweet gig, which is preparing students who want to study in the US for the SAT. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna's struggle to outrun her past. As any experienced reader of this genre could predict, there are some obvious pitfalls, but never fear, there are people in Anna's court who aren't put off by her impoverished past and who will help her.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

There was so much hype about the second installation in this coming 20 years after the first, and while I remembered liking this when I first saw it, I couldn't remember why, or really much about it, so while recovering from surgery and largely bed bound, I watched it again. Initially when I saw this it reminded me of a college friend who had interned for a year at Women's Wear Daily--which is down the fashion magazine rungs quite a ways from Runway (the magazine featured here) but the lifestyle, where you are on call 24/7, that your life is not your own, and that you are essentially enslaved for a year to an editor in exchange for an entree into a job in publishing that is more about your skill as a writer than as a personal assistant. Her stories and the story that unfolds here share a lot of the same qualities. The selling your soul aspect is the part I did not remember. Since the first time I saw this I have seen all the major characters (Tucchi, Blunt, Streep, and Hathaway) many times over, and have a lot of respect for their work, so fun to see this earlier work again, which was more at the beginning of a couple of their careers. Their work here couldn't have hurt. Overall, not having seen the second one yet, I would recommend a rewatch. It holds up well.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

This is a multi-layered story, where on the one hand it is about dinner parties and petty rivalries, men and their bright resentments and wars against misfortune. It’s about affairs and empty wine bottles and quail with mushrooms and A.I. and animals and how the best poets read their work aloud. Underneath, it is much much darker. This is a world that hasn’t ended, exactly, but has outlived itself. Civilization persists, thinner and more tentative. The seas have risen, archives have vanished and England has splintered into an archipelago. Yet the survivors remain civil--ignoring the roving gangs that are not the least bit lawful. They read poetry, debate the nuances of a long-ago dinner conversation and stroll through their ruined but beautiful world. It’s a very British dystopia—measured, melancholy and devastatingly polite. Set in 2120, the novel unfolds in the aftermath of climate and nuclear disasters that reshaped the planet. Civilization has retreated inland; knowledge is fragmentary; universities now study “the literature of the inundation.” The protagonist, Thomas Metcalfe, is a professor of literature—not a soldier or revolutionary—who becomes obsessed with reconstructing a lost poem. In the end, you have to choose what to save, and for him, this is it. It is a puzzling and unsettling read.

Robert Bosscher: Pushing Boundaries

I am a bottomless pit when it comes to watching lectures on quilting in general and modern quilting specifically. This speaker is a frequent flyer at QuiltCon and several of my guild mates recommended him--I saw him in conjunction with Libs Elliot's Sew Squad. There were two main points that he covered--the first is what is modern quilting. You have to have a working definition of it before you can talk about pushing the boundaries of it. As you might imagine, there are a lot of ways to look at it, going all the way from close to traditional quilting, with some modification in pattern and fabric, all the way to pure are quilts. Then he launched into some of the artists that he enjoys following. My favorite amongst them that I know was Bisa Butler, which he calls an artist working in fiber rather than a quilter, which I agree with, and the favorite that I was unfamiliar with was Kaitlim Rim, who does exploded blocks in a whimsical manner. He is well worth checking out if you get the chance, and he talks about a lot of different things in the modern quilting realm.

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

This is the third instalment of the series, and I have to say that I am sorry to see the whole thing end, I have gotten to know this extended family, and am at the point where I feel like I can anticipate how each and everyone of them will react. The family comedy takes a more bittersweet tone, as the Shang-Young matriarch Shang Su Yi lies on her deathbed. Whereas the first two books lampooned the lifestyles of the rich and wealthy by presenting it through the perspective of an outsider thrust into that world, this installment discards the outsider’s surprise altogether and takes us into each character’s plans and motivations.  Whether it’s dealing with the potential loss of a loved one or fighting to keep the family’s legacy alive, and while their priorities are all messed up. It is a fun and relatable read.

The Royal We (2025)

There are, at this point, a seemingly infinite number of rom-coms about wayward princes and princesses from small made-up European countries that range from comfortingly mediocre to highly unwatchable. This one, which boasts not one but two fake fiefdoms, is both Hallmark Hammy and surprisingly self-aware and goofy, making it far more charming than expected. Plus, it has a whole plotline about its princess teaching girls leadership skills and kings conflict resolution, which really adds some oomph to its feminist fairytale kind of feel. I mean, please still keep your expectations entirely within check. In order to put to rest a 300-year-old feud between the kingdoms of Vostierrie and Androvia, Princess Coralina and Prince Desmond are set to get married, which will allow for the reunification of the Alsinian province and Castle Elora. Friends, that’s a LOT of silly names all squashed in together. Anyway, these two have basically been betrothed to each other since they were babes, so that when they wed the two countries can finally live in times of peace. Or that’s the plan until Princess Coralina ditches Prince Desmond and elopes with a plumber named Cody (Adam Woodward). As you can imagine, social media is all aflame about how you’ve “gotta love a man who can work with his hands.” You know who is not pleased by this? Well, both royal houses, obviously, but who is really peeved is Edwin, Prince Desmond’s butler/valet/main squeeze. The back up plan goes surprisingly well, and all in all it is a diversionary movie that was surprisingly fun.

We The People by Jill Lepore

This is it, the exhaustive look back at the US Constitution--well, not so exhaustive that it starts with the Magna Carta, and at no point does the author go back to what had happened in England that led up to England's colony rising up and breaking away--she really starts at the post war Constitutional Convention, and how we ended up with the mish mash that we got. The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world—and one of the most difficult to amend. At what cost? In this landmark, lavishly illustrated book, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore argues that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. Challenging both originalism and the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation, Lepore argues that the framers never intended for the Constitution to be kept, like a butterfly, under glass, but instead expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, improving the machinery of government. The argument against "originalism" is the best part of the book, where she refers to to the writers of the constituion said about it at the time--and that the Federalist Papers were published in a newspaper well after the constitution, and were not even generally available until the last 20th century. These originalists just basically made that all up and nobody fact checked them. At the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding and in an account as radical as Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the United States, Lepore offers a sweeping, lyrical, and democratic constitutional history, telling the stories of generations of Americans who have attempted everything from abolishing the Electoral College to guaranteeing environmental rights, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution.

Sarah Goer Quilts

My quilt guild had a spring retreat that happened two weeks after I had should replacement surgery on my dominant arm. I did not sign up for it, appropriately worried that I would not be able to participate, but then 5 days ahead I got my brace off and was just in a sling. When I asked if I could sew, the APP seeing me saud "Sure." Things were looking up! The next day they were again dashed, because my physical therapist said that I could do nothing that essentially required me to shrug for several weeks, if not months, and surely sewing was again off the table?? I got an adjustable table that made typing at least possible, and waited.

The day before the retreat I decided to pull the trigger. The cost was modest, and I knew I could at least attend the lecture--which was with this improv quilter--this was such a gentle gateway into how to start improving, I really loved it. She does teach some on line classes, and I will definitely consider them once I am two handed again. The retreat itself went well. It turns out I mostly sew left handed--not sure I could sew without the left, but sewing with an impaired right was quite doable. I had cut out my BOM and not gotten it together and managed to finish that month and start the next. I also won a door prize of essential notions and so the cost of the retreat was practically nothing, and the abilty to spend a whole day with my guild mates was both fun and distracting. Two thumbs up!

The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King

This was another miss for me from the Reese Witherspoon book choices--which is not the norm at all, but I am on an unfortunate streak. The Phoenix Pencil Company is essentially told via diary entries, whether electronic, handwritten, or magically recorded, split primarily between two perspective characters. One is a contemporary computer science student, working with a professor to code an app that connects people based on common interests expressed in social media posts and diary entries. The other is her grandmother, who had worked alongside her mother, aunt, and cousin at a magical pencil factory during World War Two before immigrating to Taiwan and eventually America. When the app puts one of the leads in contact with another university student who had met her grandmother’s cousin, it triggers frantic remembering on the part of her grandmother and a bit of romance on her own part, with both stories heavily seasoned with difficult questions about the ethics of privacy and preservation. There are a lot of good points about the story, and it is written competently, but it just didn't hold together for me.

Champagne Problems (2025)

This is a movie of the lightest variety--a romantic comedy that is heavier on the romance than the humor. I chose it because I am recovering from a choulder replacement on my dominant side and the inactivity has been quite challenging for me. Initially I read incessantly, but that got my brain revving along at a rate that was uncomfortably fast while my body was geared more for slow living. This fit the bill. The story line is entirely predictable and really, that is what I was going for. It is set in a French vineyard, and that was a definite plus for me. The timing is pre-Christmas--for some reason, a plot that revolves around a take over of a beloved company right before the holidays, where the person who goes to do the taking over seems to have no family obligations and no concerns about gettinmg back home on time--which is inevitably not going to happen--is a recurring plot line. In any case, this hit the spot, in the midst of working my way through some short listed international movies, which are weightier and require more bandwidth in terms of attention than I have had at times in the recovery process.

City Of Night Birds by Juhea Kim

I would not have found this book without it being a book of the month choice, and it is books like this that keep me reading the Reese Witherspoon choices. This is a story of what it means to be a performer, what might motivate those who choose that life, and what happens when it all comes crashing down. The added layer in the case of a ballerina in a culture that has many restrictions on it is the privledge that such talent afforded the performer. Here is the story-- Prima ballerina Natalia Leonova was once celebrated across the world, her signature bravura in demand on stages from St. Petersburg to Paris to New York. But at the top of her career, an accident forces her into sudden retirement. Injured and alone, she turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past, still haunted by her relationships with two gifted dancers, Dmitri and Alexander. These men were responsible for her soaring highs, her darkest hours and, ultimately, both played their part in her downfall. So when Dmitri resurfaces with a tantalising offer for Natalia, she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to dance again – and for the chance to return to the great love of her life. Painting a vivid portrait of a world in which ruthless ambition, desire and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with profound intimacy and breathtaking scope.

Andrea Tsang Jackson: Transparency

I watched a lecture given by this artist, who trained as a gemologist, and who has translated that into quilt blocks for all 12 of the birth stones--using just 5 fabrics to create the gem effect--reallt remarkable, but that is not all. She does large public art instillations that are quilt inspired, and the lectire I listened to was one where you use on like color tools to get a transparenct effect, which was mind blowing. When I see those quilts in the transparency category at QuiltCon I thought they did it themselves, and maybe some of them do, but you do not have to guess--you can feed in the two colors that will cross paths in your quilt and it will tell you the color that would result in sucha a mixing. More on that later when I play with it a bit. More on this artist first. This is her artist statement: Andrea Tsang Jackson is a Canadian-born textile artist of Chinese descent based in Kjipuktuk / Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her work takes the traditional craft medium of quilting and applies it to a contemporary context, often using bright hues and bold graphics. She abstracts intentionally accessible imagery, inviting points of connection from the viewer to spark discussion and inquiry. Clean and crisp, vibrant but not loud, Andrea’s work uses solid-coloured commercial fabrics, found textiles, hand-dyed and painted fabrics, and more recently Tyvek. Andrea’s work often celebrates community and collaboration, and explores ideas of home and belonging. The rich history of quilting also heavily influences her practice; she sees it as an extension of community across time. Andrea strives to push the limits of the quilting medium — and other textile media — by exploring scale and dimension and moving traditionally domestic objects into the public realm. Through her public art in recent years, Andrea’s work has explored the translation of textiles into other media – drawing, architectural mesh, and acrylic carving. This act of translation continually poses questions of what textiles mean to us as communities and how textile work exists outside the home. The boundaries around folk art, fine craft and fine art are a continual source of enquiry in her practice as she operates within all of these areas.

Art Quilts of the Midwest by Linzee Kull McCray

I have an I am in the midst of a big house organization project and discovered this book amongst other things in a box and realized that while I had bought it I had never read it. That was a mistake. This is a really interesting approach to organizing quilters and their work. The author explored how deeply fiber artists were influenced by their surroundings. Focusing on midwestern art quilters in particular, she put out a call for entries and nearly 100 artists responded; they were free to define those aspects of midwesterness that most affected their work. The artists selected for inclusion in this book embrace the Midwest's climate, land, people, and culture, and if they don't always embrace it wholeheartedly, then they use their art to react to it. The emphasis in this book is on the art. These artists are not known as quilters at least in the modern quilting world. There are a lot of interesting techniques that are on display here and this and this book is inspirational if you are thinking of adding a an artistic embroidery or dyeing or printing component to your personal quilting.

People We Meet On Vacation (2026)

This is a romantic comedy that is lifted directly from the pages of an Emily Henry novel of the same name. One of my kids who has read these along side of me noted that he thought that over time they seemed a little boring, and what I think is that there is a need to suspend belief in order to roll forward with the central premise, and this story is no exception. Told in a nonlinear format, we follow frenetic travel writer Poppy she tries to get her groove back when her job is no longer fulfilling. We soon learn that the heart of the problem lies with her college best friend, the introverted Alex. Ever since meeting cute in college when Poppy joined Alex on a road trip from Boston College back to their hometown of Linfield, Ohio, one summer, the two have spent one week a year on vacation together, both unable to share how they really feel about each other. When Alex finally breaks off with his on-again, off-again high school sweetheart, Sarah (Sarah Catherine Hook) before his brother’s wedding, Poppy impulsively decides to shirk off a work trip to attend the wedding in Barcelona, and possibly finally admit her true feelings for Alex, to him and to herself. The endless approach/avoidance that happens here is tiresome and also hard to believe that people who have been friends the length of time these two were wouldn’t communicate better. In any case it does adhere closely to the book.