If a colleague whose opinion you value says, “You really ought to meet so-and-so,” agree to it immediately. A few months ago, a Winterset friend (Jerry)* said, “Marianne, you really ought to meet Julie Gammack.” I think the world of Jerry, so I said yes. Julie Gammack is an Iowa native, a former Des Moines … Read more
Because I was obsessed with fashion as a teenager, everything about New York City fascinated me. To my young self, NYNY represented the pinnacle of culture and coolness—jazz clubs, sunglasses, taxicabs, skyscrapers, Central Park, The Plaza, Vogue and Bazaar magazines, Women’s Wear Daily, and, of course, the New York Times. To my way of thinking, … Read more
I’m not a runner, so I’ll never run a marathon, but I definitely have the competition gene. I can relate to people who push themselves to do hard things, like run a 26+ mile race. This morning, as I read about the recent 100th running of the Boston Marathon, I was reminded of Kathrine Switzer, … Read more
This winter, I discovered I can hold a paperback book open in two hands and read it while walking on my treadmill at 3 mph. Podcasts (and audiobooks) are good ways to neutralize the boredom of walking on a looped conveyer belt in a boring basement, but I love the printed page and am always … Read more
Before Julie Silber told me about the sewing and quilt history retreats Leah Zieber holds each year in Southern California, I had not heard of Temecula. Google showed me that the town of almost 111,000 is east of the Pacific Ocean, kind of between Los Angeles and San Diego. Thanks to Julie, I’ll be flying … Read more
During the couple of decades I traveled all over the US (and beyond), teaching and lecturing about quilts for quilters’ guilds and at conferences, I met hundreds of quilters every year. The conviviality among the students in my workshops was one of the many pleasures of my job. Quilters told me often that half of … Read more
Some people think it’s wrong to write in books, but I’m glad my daughter Mary, who gave me my copy of Edward P. Jones’ THE KNOWN WORLD, wrote the date of her gift on the title page. In 2003, I was on a mission to read as many Pulitzer Prize winning novels as I could, … Read more
She became my sister-in-law when I was 21, my ex-sister-in-law when I divorced her brother at age 39. She remained my friend, championed my pursuits, cheered my successes, told me (when I was my family of four’s sole financial support) that if she ever had kids she wanted to be a mother just like me. … Read more
Often, when I’m well into a really good novel, thirty or forty pages from the end, eager to find out how the author will tie up the multiple story threads she (or he) has spooled out in the early chapters, I pause, saving the denouement for the perfect reading moment I purchased Shelby Van Pelt’s … Read more
The first time I told a group of quilters I didn’t have any unfinished projects, they responded with the kind of mild hostility acne-plagued teenagers direct toward the really-nice teenager with the perfect complexion. They were students in a workshop I was teaching at the time—which meant that day they had started yet another project … Read more