Four Hearts

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! It is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. – 116th Sonnet, William Shakespeare

Underground Railroad

It's the eve of Valentine’s Day and I have love on my mind. The Greeks had at least four different words for love. Storge was the word they used for a natural affection, like the kind of love parents should have for their children. It could also refer to a simple acceptance, the way you might feel about a tyrant you can’t escape. (That’s exactly how I’d describe my children in their teens and the terrible twos.) Philia describes brotherly love such as the loyalty you may feel towards your friends. Eros is romantic love, passionate and emotional. Agape describes pure, unconditional love; love that gives without the hope or expectation of anything in return. I find all this interesting, if not exactly useful. I can sum up everything I know about love in one sentence: Love is born from acts of service; not the service you receive, but the service you give.

Marbles

I came across a quote last week from the British novelist Susan Fletcher, author of The Silver Dark Sea: “I believe the world is as we choose to view it. Simple as that. Our happiness is, in the end, up to us and no one else.” It reminded me of something President Thomas S. Monson said, “So much in life depends on our attitude. The way we choose to see things and respond to others makes all the difference. To do the best we can and then to choose to be happy about our circumstances, whatever they may be, can bring peace and contentment. We can't direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude.”

Blue Cross

I’ve never watched The Biggest Loser, but I’d have to live under a rock not to have heard about it. This week everyone’s buzzing about last Tuesday’s big loser who went from 260 to 105 pounds for the $250,000 grand prize. Her skinny “after” pictures are more frightening than her chubby “before” pictures. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw once, with an over-slender young woman telling a friend, “I’m trying to get back to my original weight of 6 pounds 11 ounces.” I wonder if the prospect of winning a huge cash prize prompted her to go to unhealthy extremes. I wonder how many impressionable young women will be inspired to follow in her footsteps. If the goal is simply to see how low you can go, it’s too easy to lose sight of the big picture. Your weight is just a number. It isn’t the most important thing about you. It’s not even in the top ten.

Churn Dash

If today’s photo looks familiar, it should. It’s essentially the same block as http://mombowe.blogspot.com/2014/02/hole-in-barn-door.html, http://mombowe.blogspot.com/2014/02/double-monkey-wrench.html, and the little 3” block on the side of the barn in http://mombowe.blogspot.com/2014/02/february-barn.html. They all have half square triangles set in the four corners, with split quadrilaterals in the four sides. The blocks on February 7 and 5 are based on a 3-patch (also called 9-patch) design, so the half-square triangles in a 12” block will be 4” finished. The February 4 block is a 4-patch, so the corners are 3” finished. Today’s block is a 5-patch. That means these corner triangles are 4.8” finished. It would have been a pretty clever trick if I’d managed to construct this with rulers that only measure eighths of an inch. But I’m really not that clever. I just used my Marti Michell template set M. Sure, math can be fun. But so is avoiding it.

Hoe-Down

The challenge fabric in 2011 was full of cartoon farm animals staring straight ahead. I was working on my entry on Quilting Thursday at the Harrogate chapel when two sisters visited from York. They said the print looked like the view from the pulpit on Sunday. I wish I’d used their idea for my design. Instead I ‘fussy cut’ the fabric into triangles for nine kaleidoscope blocks. I put pink pigs in the southwest, black sheep in the northwest, brown horses in the northeast and Holstein cows in the southeast. I used a contrasting print with red roosters for the center block and an inner border. You can’t see it in this photo, but the background fabric is full of printed animal sounds like oink, cluck and moo. I quilted it with nautilus whorls and hearts. It looked like a barnyard square dance to me, so I named my quilt after the fifth and final segment of Aaron Copland’s ballet, Rodeo.