Thrift store: I found a k.d. lang CD I didn't have yet (Torch and Twang), a flower-embroidered white-on-white shirt that feels like it was made for me and a purse. Yeah, a purse. It is all leather and apparently similar purses by the same designer sell for about $350. I just liked it because it is well made, not synthetic and has an elegantly simple and understated look...nice clean lines with no foo-foo stuff. It is still um...(cough)...a purse...but we'll overlook that for the time being. I haven't carried an actual purse since I was a teen in Chicago.

When we got home, I traced and cut out the Storm at Sea quilt pattern templates. I'm a bit upset with Paula Nadelstern (the book that had the pattern is one of her earlier ones) because she seems to have been set on making extra, needless, idiotic work. Tell me, please: why should I cut out and sew together 4 right angled triangles to make one square if I can simply cut out on square? Similarly, there are four long diamonds in each block. She has the templates designed so that you have to cut out eight isosceles triangles and join the short sides of 2 triangles to make a diamond that could have been cut out as a whole diamond rather than two triangles. I see this sort of thing all the time in quilting books and publications and it drives me nuts. My time is worth enough to me that I am not going to make something take three times longer than it has to unless there is a good reason for it. Anyway, I fixed the templates to rectify this flaw and will now need to make a sample block to ensure that my version is accurate.

Sigh. There was a time (only about 18 months ago) when I was thinking of majoring in art so I could go into textile design, either designing fabric or things such as quilt patterns. That seems so long ago and far away now. And the thing is, I could have done that. If my kid hadn't stolen my gas money. If I hadn't failed nearly all of my fall classes as a result. And I guess that if I were to move closer to the college, I still could take those classes over again...but really, what would be the point? I can't move unless I want to abandon kids, which I don't.

I suppose that I could freelance it from where I'm at. I was doing that eight years ago, designing patterns for a quilter/businesswoman's book that she was going to publish.

Today probably isn't a good time to think about it though...I am so tired. I dug out all my blue fabric. I am going to make the most beautiful quilt....