Princeton chemists are expanding our understanding of the universe by identifying complex molecules in interstellar space.

Two projects — one that maps the function of the brain’s neuronal network in unprecedented detail and another that combines robotics and light-based computer circuits to create safe self-driving vehicles — have been awarded funding through Princeton’s Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund.

So this was my first triathlon, so I was a bit worried about how it would go. The swim was always going to be the challenging part, I had been doing swim lessons for the 6 weeks previously and only the week before I managed to swim 100m of front crawl without stopping. So the … Continue reading Crystal Place Tri 2022 →

Events this fall include a sold-out conversation with Icelandic-Chinese recording artist Laufey.

Princeton's first alumni affinity conference since 2019 welcomed more than 600 alumni and guests to campus Sept. 19-21, for “Every Voice: Honoring and Celebrating Princeton’s LGBTQ+ Alumni.” 

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.

An international team of researchers and gamers, led by Princeton’s Mala Murthy and Sebastian Seung, mapped every neuron and every synaptic connection in an adult fruit fly's brain, building a comprehensive “connectome” that represents a massive step toward understanding the human brain.

Craig B. Arnold has been named Princeton’s first University Innovation Officer and heads the new office.

Hopfield, the Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences, Emeritus, and professor of molecular biology, emeritus, shares the 2024 Nobel Prize with Toronto's Geoffrey E. Hinton.

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

Xie, a materials engineer, won a 2024 Packard Fellowship for creating atomically thin materials. “Thinking and inventing down to an atomic level like Saien is doing, most spectacularly I should add, is the future,” said James Sturm, ECE department chair.

Stone is a leading engineering scholar and pioneer in fluid dynamics research. University Professor is Princeton’s highest honor for faculty.

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.

Princeton engineers and industry leaders have squelched a threat that had lurked for years in the internet’s encryption system.

Voting registration rates among Princeton undergraduate and graduate students have more than doubled largely thanks to the program.

The conference has been scheduled for Oct. 9-11, 2025. All Princeton alumni are invited back to campus for the gathering. 

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

The 9 a.m. service on Monday, Nov. 11, will also be livestreamed.

See the Shaggy Parasol mushrooms? They were not there two or three days ago. Yet Lammas comes and they burst forth, full of fungal goodness. Here just north of the Colorado-New Mexico line, August is the heart of mushroom season. … Continue reading →

Download links (Spotify, YouTube, Apple) here. Learn more about the Pagan History Project here.

The New York Post had two articles recently on apparent animal sacrifice in the Jamaica Bay area of Long Island (politically in both Brooklyn and Queens). “Animal Sacrifices on the Rise in Queens with Chickens, Pigs being Tortured in ‘Twisted’ … Continue reading →

Register here for the live cast I am not a Pagan teacher, Witchcraft influencer, or anything like that. Usually i see myself as the person approaching a panelist at an American Academy of Religion session, saying, “Would you consider turning … Continue reading →

Let the velvet-voiced Dr. Puca explains how the festival of Samhain gained its present form — and remember, Samhain is a season, a -“tide.”

Do you remember that one fanfic that kept you reading until dawn for the very first time? Or the fan art or video that led you to dig out all the works its creator shared? Have you ever tried to look into the stories of the authors who wrote fics before you were even born? You can find all this and more on Fanlore - the wiki for fanworks, fan creators, and fannish history!

Fanlore is a project run by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) with the goal of providing fans a place to record and share their histories, experiences and traditions. Fanlore records both the history and current state of our fan communities – fan works, fan activities, fan terminology, individual fans and fannish-related events. You can read about what fandoms were like in the olden days and document memorable events in your own fandoms, all on Fanlore! Check out the wiki’s New User Portal or join the Fanlore Discord server to connect with other editors and users.

We would not be able to preserve these cherished pieces of fandom history without the generous donations of our fellow fans and volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to keep all our projects running. As always, we have some shiny new donation gifts!

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We hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and become a member to support projects like Fanlore, Open Doors, Legal Advocacy, Transformative Works and Cultures, and the Archive of Our Own. Your contributions help keep our projects successful for new and long-time fans alike!

The Organization for Transformative Works's October membership drive is over and we are delighted to say that we are finishing with a total of $214,698.86 raised. We are particularly pleased that 6020 donors chose to either take up or renew OTW membership with their donation, far exceeding our goal of 4,500 members.

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This is the first solo exhibition of my work! I am very pleased and honored that the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum offered me a show in their new Local Artist Exhibit Program's first-floor Landmarks Gallery.

Every Child Should Have Her Own Tree, hand-dyed, beaded, embroidered fabric collage

I hope some of you will be able to come see my work, as well as the work of the other two featured quilt artists in the upper floor galleries.
A couple of readers have contacted me asking if the above work, or any of the other pieces will be for sale...  Nope, afraid not... exhibition only, although the museum's excellent gift shop does carry my books.

As followers may recall, I started hand stitching hexies for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in March, 2012... three years ago. Watching my friend, Christy, basting sweet, reproduction fabrics around paper forms, making little stacks of 3/4-inch hexagons, I just couldn't resist! These Beadlust posts show the various steps to making the quilt top and the start of  hand-quilting in more detail than this post.

Although I'm still hand-quilting, the end is in sight now. I'm hoping to finish in time for our County Fair in August.

In this post, I thought it might interest you to look at how much time it takes to complete each of the steps in hand piecing and quilting a 3/4" hexie quilt, and the total number of hours involved. I'm basing time estimates for all of the repetitive steps on how long it takes me to do a large number in one sitting, after having practiced... in other words, at my best speed.

Step 1 - Planning the Quilt and Getting Fabrics - time: 20 hours

I decided to make a version of the traditional 1930's Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that is less common than the one with a path or ring around each of the flowers. I chose this design. Note the green hexie leaves, which form a vertical-horizontal grid.


The final size is 72 x 92 inches, a comfortable size for a twin bed, a total of 4,694 hexies. I wanted to use as many different fabrics in this quilt as possible.

• flowers = 280 different print fabrics with any background color except green or white.
• leaves = 150 different print fabrics in green
• flower centers (repeats OK) = 25 different solids
• double border = 1 print + 1 solid

Although I had collected 30's reproduction fabrics for a few years, I certainly needed more. From a selection of fabrics given to me, fabrics purchased in an eBay auction, and my stash, I found enough to make each of the flowers unique. Although there were not enough greens to make the leaves unique, I had about 60 different green prints, such that each is not repeated more than 3 times in the quilt. So, in the end the quilt includes more than 360 unique fabrics!

Step 2 - Wash and Iron all of the Fabrics - time: 15 hours

Yikes! A few of the fabrics I wanted to use were already washed; most were not. Knowing it should be consistent, and worrying that the reds might bleed, I decided to pre-wash and iron all of the fabrics. Doing this step in stages, as I acquired fabrics, I'm not really sure how long it took, perhaps quite a bit more than the above estimate.

Step 3 - Cutting and Trimming all of the Hexies - time: 28 hours

For each of the  4,694 hexies, I cut a 2" square of fabric, and trimmed off the four corners. Of course, I cut and trimmed in multiples, except for a few that I fussy cut individually. Again, since I did this step in stages, the above time estimate is a bit rough.

Step 4 - Basting the Fabric to the Paper Hexie Forms - time: 235 hours

Once I learned that using YLI quilting thread for basting makes it go much faster than using regular sewing thread, I was able to baste 20 hexies per hour.

Step 5 - Stitching Hexies Together to Make Flowers - time: 105 hours

Averaging 2.5 complete flowers per hour, it took me about two and a half 40-hour-work-weeks to whip-stitch all 238 full and 42 partial flowers. There are 14-17 whip-stitches per 3/4 inch seam.

Step 6 - Stitching a White Hexie Ring Around 130 of the Flowers - time: 130 hours

On average, it takes me 1 hour to whip-stitch 12 white hexies around each flower.

Step 7 - Layout Flowers for Quilt Top; Note Position on Each - time: 4 hours

I didn't fuss too much about the layout, spreading out the flowers randomly, making sure the red ones were evenly spaced, and that no areas were overly dominated by one color. Assigning each row a letter and each position within the row a number, I marked each flower on the back (writing on the center paper piece).

Step 7a - Half Flowers and Double Border All Around - time 90 hours

This is an update, added Feb. 2018. (I can't believe I forgot this important step when writing the original time line.) To make 42 partial flowers to fill in the gaps around the edges of the top, I cut fabrics, basted hexies, joined petals, and then stitched the partials into the gaps. To make the outer border, I made 522 individual hexies, stitched them into rows, and then stitched the rows onto the top.

Step 8 - Sew Flowers into Small Groups - time: 90 hours

To assemble the quilt top, I grouped 8-12 flowers, and whip-stitched them into a solid piece. There were 30 pieces, which took about 3 hours each to complete.

Step 9 - Sew Small Groups Together to Complete Quilt Top - time: 123 hours

I first sewed the small groups into rows, then stitched the rows together. As the sections got larger, the stitching took longer, making it difficult to estimate the time with total accuracy. I did a couple of time tests at different stages of the process in order to figure the above total. I completed this step on March 1st, 2013, one year after basting the first hexie.

Step 10 - Iron/Starch Top, Remove Papers and Basting Stitches - time: 33 hours

Removing all the basting stitches and papers took a lot longer than I would have guessed. But when I look at the pile of basting threads, it begins to make sense.

Step 11 - Assemble Quilt Layers, and Baste - time: 12 hours

Christy and Lunnette helped me layout the back, batting, and top on the floor; then baste in a 4 inch grid. I think we pinned it first, then basted, then removed the pins. On our knees for most of the time, it sure was wonderful to have their help!

Step 10 - Quilt and Embroider the Flower Centers - time: 70 hours

Choosing a floss in a similar color to each flower center, I embroidered a flower. Intentionally, some of the stitches act as quilting stitches, while others slip between the layers and don't show on the back. Around the edges of the quilt, it took about 15 minutes per flower center. Toward the middle of the quilt, it took about 20 minutes per flower center.

Step 11 - Quilt Flower Petals - time: 106 hours

Quilting around the petals of each flower requires turning the quilt 270 degrees for each petal, which is why it takes at least 20 minutes per flower, longer toward the middle of the quilt when the whole weight of the quilt must be constantly shifted. There are 238 whole and 42 partial flowers. I'm figuring an average of 25 minutes per whole and 10 minutes per partial flower.

Step 12 - Quilt Around White Rings - time: 65 hours

Like quilting the flower petals, quilting around the outside edge of each of the 130 white rings requires turning the whole quilt as I work, which adds a lot to the time it takes. I believe quilting the entire top in a diagonal grid of straight lines would take about half the time it takes to follow the curved, zig-zagging path of the hexie flowers, leaves, and rings.

Step 13 - Quilt Around Each of the Leaves - time: 79 hours

Not only does this step require turning the quilt as I stitch 360 degrees around each leaf, it also requires knotting and burying the tail at the start and finish of each leaf. Also I'm changing color of thread to more or less match the fabric color for each set of 4 leaves. Around the edge, it takes about 9 minutes per leaf; toward the center 11 minutes per leaf. There are 474 leaves total, at an average of 10 minutes/leaf.

Step 14 - Assemble Hexies for the Border Facing - time: 37 hours

To face the double (print + blue) border on the back of the quilt requires 522 hexies. To sew them together, forming the border strips, takes about 1 hour per 14 hexies.

Step 15 - Trim Backing and Batting; Blind-stitch Facing to Border - time: 13 hours

There are 264 hexies around the outside edge of the quilt top. Since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate (blind-stitching 20 hexies together per hour) is somewhat rough.

Step 16 - Remove Paper Pieces and Basting from Border and Facing - time: 10 hours

Again, since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate is based on the time it took to remove paper pieces and basting threads from the quilt top.

Step 17 - Blind-stitch Facing to Quilt Back - time: 13 hours

Step 18 - Quilt Around Print Fabric Border - time: 13 hours

Step 19 - Blanket Stitch Around Outside Edge of Quilt - time: 10 hours

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Total Time to Complete Hand-Piecing the Quilt Top: 873 hours

This is equivalent to nearly 20 weeks or 5 months on a 40 hours/week job. It took me a year. Mostly the time flew by as I basted and hand-stitched the little hexies together. Always there was a new print to enjoy, a new stack mounting in size to admire, a growing quilt top to thrill me.

Total Time to Complete Hand-Quilting: 428 hours

Since this job isn't completed yet, the time is only a rough estimate, based on the times it took to do some of the already completed steps. In all, hand quilting will take the equivalent to 10 or 11 weeks of full-time work. I find the quilting rather very boring. After taking a break for more than a year, I started working on it again and hope to be finished by August this year. Audio books are the answer to the tedium for me.

Total Time, Start to Finish: 1,301 hours

With Steps15-19 still to complete, the total is a rough estimate. Still, it is obvious that making a quilt like this, start to finish, requires more than 1,300 hours or the equivalent of over 8 months of full time work. If I were to be paid only minimum wages (2015, Seattle, WA - $11/hr.), the cost of the quilt would be $14,311 + about $500 in materials, or a total of $14,800.  Good thing I intend to keep and use it myself!

UPDATE, July 4, 2016

By June, 2015, I completely finished one corner, an area big enough to photograph so I could submit an entry form to the 2015 La Conner Quilt Festival, sponsored by the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. On August 7th, 2015, I received notice that it was juried into the show. Wow! That sent me into high gear for sure. After working non-stop, 7 days a week, and an average of 10 hours per day, I inserted my needle into that quilt for the last/final time on Aug. 24th, 2015, just days before delivering it to the museum. It took me 3 years and 3 months, start to finish!


I was surprised, honored, and incredibly pleased to find out it won the Curator's Award of Excellence, one of the top awards, which then qualified it to be shown at the museum for the month following the Festival. Note, the finished size is 71 x 93 inches, and there are 4,700 individual hexagons in it.


Big work for both hands, but sooooo satisfying!


In fact it was so satisfying that I've started another hexie quilt... Can you believe it? So far, I've made 733 hexie flowers for it! Although they are the same size hexies, there are no reproduction fabrics and the arrangement will be anything but traditional. Don't know why I love the hexagon shape so much... but it's certain that I do.

Bringing my beadwork to the Museum

Demonstration prior to the Opening on April 1st.

Exhibition closed - beadwork back home again

Rosie, The Uncaged Hen

La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum

It sure was a lovely surprise one day last fall when a representative from the Bead&Button Show called to ask if I would be interested in sending my beaded quilts for exhibition at the 2015 show in Milwaukee, WI.

Would I be interested? Of course I would!!! But since I'm more of a beader and don't have that many beaded quilts, I suggested they also contact my brother, Thom Atkins, who has made a mind-boggling number of beaded quilts in the last 10 years or so.

Brother-sister exhibition... how fun is that! You can see all 22 quilts in the Artisan Area of the Exhibition Hall if you're attending the show, May 27 - June 8. For those who can't make it, here are my quilts, the ones in the show. When you click on the first picture, you can see a slide show with full-size pictures.

It's really special how,in recent years, quilters are interested in beads, and beaders are playing with quilting, both finding ways to expand their creativity! And it's super fun to show with my bro!

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!

During the past 28 years of stitching beads on cloth, I've veered away from making necklaces, bracelets, and bags or purses, mostly producing wall art pieces. Thus, I've had lots of opportunities to experiment with various methods of finishing and framing my work, making it suitable for display.


I always leave ample fabric margins surrounding the actual beaded area, giving me lots of options for finishing or framing.  One simple finishing method is to wrap the extra fabric around the sides of a manufactured painting-canvas (over stretcher-bars), and lace the fabric snugly across the back, as in the photo below.


But the problem with this method, of course, is that the surface of the beading is exposed to dust and air-borne grime, which over the years may spoil the fresh look of the beading, aging the piece prematurely. So we look to frames and glass to protect our work.

Among the various methods for covering (and protecting) beadwork with glass, the following is the one I use most frequently, and like the best.  It's not very expensive, or particularly difficult, although it does take a bit of time. Even if you already know about frames, please take a look at the section called Preparing Your Bead Embroidery for Framing in the Tutorial below.

Tutorial: How to Frame bead Embroidery

Choosing a Frame

Last November an odd, rather hard, bump suddenly appeared in the palm of my right hand. A few weeks later, in a routine physical exam, I asked my Dr. what the lump might be. She thought it was a harmless, ganglion cyst. In January, suddenly two more lumps appeared in the same area of my palm, about 1.5 inches below my little and ring fingers. Feeling some concern about this, I made an appointment with a hand specialist, a surgeon, who told me with absolute certainty that I had Dupuytren’s Disease.

You can skip this paragraph if you are not so interested in the disease in general. In the following paragraphs, I’ll tell you about my personal experience with it so far... Some other names for Dupuytren’s Disease are: claw hand, Viking disease, palmar fascia contracture, and flexion contracture. Because it often causes one or more fingers to curl inward toward the palm, it is sometimes confused with trigger finger, an entirely different affliction. It is linked to heredity, Northern European descent, diabetes and other auto-immune diseases. Men are more likely to have it than women, and its incidence increases in older (over 50) folks for both men and women. Often it is dormant until there is injury or trauma to the hand(s). There are currently four categories of treatment: radiation therapy (successful only in the very early developmental stage of the disease), needle aponeurotomy (generally considered for stage 1 or 2 of the disease with 6 to 90 degrees of deformation), collagenase injection (also stage 1 or 2), and surgery (advanced stages).

This is a copy-machine scan of my right hand in August, 2012. At that time, I probably had the disease, but there were no obvious signs of it.

This is a piece I created using the above scan. It celebrates the many blessings of my hand. Who knew that 4 years later it would be in jeopardy.

If you know me at all, you know that I love to stitch! Give me a needle and thread, a few beads or layered fabric that needs hand-quilting, and I am in heaven. If I couldn’t stitch, I’d be miserable. Already, I noticed (in January) that my right (dominant) hand was losing flexibility and strength. I dropped things all of the time because my grip was not as strong. And I could not spread my fingers or flex them backwards. The progression was alarmingly fast at that time, and affected my ability to hold and control a needle, scissors, etc.

To be honest with you, the past two months (Oct. and Nov.) have been miserable for me because of the election campaign and results. Now, finally, the cloak of despair, the fog of depression, is lifting a little.

One evening, as I noticed the challenge kit from the La Conner Quilt Museum on top of my quilting to-do pile, a flicker of an idea passed through my brain. Then, as I awoke the next morning, the flicker became a small flame, which in turn lead me to accept an invitation to spend an afternoon quilting with some friends, which (in order to have something to work on) got me rooting through my fabric stash.

Now, quilters, beaders, and artists of all types, will recognize the phenomenon caused by physically touching your materials, supplies, and tools. Suddenly your wearisome thoughts of the election (or whatever else got you down) are gone! You fondle your stuff lovingly, and with great anticipation, you make the first cuts, fanning the flame, turning it into a nice warm fire. Ah, saved from the chilly fog, at last!

My journey out of the fog began with this vintage block from a quilt that someone, somewhere, started long ago, but never finished. It, along with many others, was donated to the La Conner Quilt Museum. The Curator, Kathleen Kok, not knowing what she would do with all the vintage blocks donated over the years, just kept them in a corner waiting for an idea to form. And form it did!

Every year the Museum has a challenge as a fundraiser, showcasing the entries at the annual Quilt Festival. For 2017, the challenge theme is "Time" and the material provided in the kit is one of the vintage blocks from their collection. The block above is the one I picked. It is just so cheerful... how could I resist? Hand pieced, it wasn't perfectly sewn, but still I fell instantly in love with it. Mine for a $10 contribution!

Of course, it was just the block. In the photo above, I have already layered it with backing and batting, and then hand quilted it.

My idea is two-fold. (1) Since the "time" theme can be portrayed by a transition from these early fabrics to modern fabrics, I decided to repeat the block using Kaffe Fassett fabric scraps left over from my shimmer quilt. (2) Feeling powerless in the face of impending doom after the election, I had to find some ways to assert my beliefs, and this quilt was to be one of them. I've long been concerned about the ever-increasing world population, about all the small, yet constant ways overpopulation is damaging and destroying the natural systems of the planet. So the title will be: Under the Quilts, Time Flies, and Population GROWS. My idea is to illustrate this concept using both color and beads. You'll see.

First though, a few words about making the modern block. At first I tried to make a pattern for the "flower/star" by tracing one of the triangles from the back side. I hand-stitched the required 16 pieces together FOUR different times, varying the seam allowances each time, trying to get it to lie down flat. Obviously, I did not correctly copy the original, because when I finally sewed it so it was nice and flat, it was also too small. Grrr.

A smart quilt friend (thanks Tori) suggested I trace a section from the right side of the block and add 1/4 inch seam allowances all around. Good idea, but there were small differences between the sections... which one to trace? Trying to answer that question, looking at the block, I finally saw how the pattern was derived! (Light bulb!!!)

It's two overlapping squares of the same size, one on point and one not. All it took was to measure the sides of the squares on the original block (which averaged 8.5 inches), cut them out of paper, fold the diagonals and sides, put a pin through the centers to join them, rotate the top one until the folds lined up, tape the two together, and draw along the fold lines. Voila! Now, all I had to do was cut out one of the half-points, add my quarter-inch seam allowances, and there was the perfect pattern for my new block. The rest went quite quickly, and below you can see the quilted result. (Note: I added quarter-inch seam allowances to each of the pattern pieces shown above to get the final cutting pattern.)


You might be wondering why I've layered and quilted these blocks. How will they be joined to form the quilt? The answer is they won't be joined! Instead, they will be bound as separate little quilts (each 11 inches square), and then appliqued to a separate "background quilt."

Here is how they look with the binding.


Notice that the over-all color of the modern block is darker. This matches my concern about over-population of the planet. Time flies, and the population GROWS, making the world a darker place for me, as many species become stressed and obsolete, as the desert lands grow and the forests shrink, as potable water becomes polluted and scarce, as crowded people war with each other. You know. If you watch the documentaries and contribute to various environmental causes, you know. Darker.

Thus, the quilt also becomes darker as the eye travels from top to bottom. Here is how it looks with the two blocks on the background quilt, the transitioning colors from light to dark, representing about 70 years in time passing (estimating the date of the fabrics in the vintage block at approximately 1946). This is an extremely tiny period of world history, but one in which world population sky-rocketed from 2.3 billion to 7.4 billion.

You can probably see the little heart beads, but if you click to enlarge the photo, you'll see them more clearly. The pair at the top represents a couple. They dive under the quilt, have some fun, and produce four lovely children (between the two blocks). These four pair up, dive under the quilt, resulting in 16 children. Under the quilts, time flies, and the population GROWS. That's m' story, and I'm sticking to it.

Now, here's a question for you loyal readers who have come so far with me on this thing.  The quilt looks really pretty the way it is. But originally, I had planned to do more beading on it.  I planned to bead several vines circling the outer border of the quilt (not the binding). Across the top of the quilt, the vines would be light green, with many green leaves, bright-colored flowers, and some critter beads/charms (bees, birds, bears, fish). As the vines trailed down the sides, they would become darker, until at the bottom they would be beaded with dark brown, black, and darkest greens, with no critters, and only a few dark flowers. The visual message (I hope) would be, "this is what happens when we overpopulate the world." What do you think... leave it like it is now or bead the borders?

Global Population Information

Think of it this way. Every single month increasing world population adds another Los Angeles AND another Chicago to the planet. That's 24 gigantic cities worth of people added EVERY year; more than 240 giant cities every 10 years. Imagine how many cities full of people will be added in your life time. Crunch the numbers and see what you think.

Evidence of heavy population demand on resources is all around us. Global aquifers are being pumped 3.5 times faster than rainfall can naturally recharge them. Eventually they will run dry, perhaps as soon as 75 years. Topsoil is being lost 10-40 times faster than it is formed.  Feeding all 7+ billion of us is increasingly difficult, impossible actually.

There is no technology solution to accommodate the increasing demand of uncontrolled global population growth. The only solution is voluntary one child per couple for a couple of generations, on a Global participation level. If all countries followed the lead of countries with the lowest birth rates (Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, and Poland), we could reach a more sustainable Global population of 3 billion by 2100!

Please, talk about this with your child-bearing-aged kids, grand kids, students, etc. We teach environmentally sound practices in most schools, write books and make documentary films about issues like clean water, over-fishing, fracking, etc. But rarely does the topic center on overpopulation. Be proactive. Make it happen.

If you are willing to read (or listen to an audio book) to learn more about Global population, Count Down is an excellent read.

Here is a link to the previous bead embroidery pieces (and poems) I've made concerning population growth.Thank you for reading all the way to the end, and for anything you can do to help people understand what we need to do.

This fabric is called Kékfestö in Hungarian, a word that roughly translates as blue-dyed or blue-dying. Producing these fabrics is a cottage industry in Hungary, which dates back several centuries. The dye is indigo; the cloth is cotton; and the long, arduous process results in a type of batik fabric. The photo above shows a small fold of each of the fabrics I bought at the blue-dyed studio shown below. (As always, please click on the photos if you'd like to see more detail.)

When in Hungary in October, 2016, my quilting/travel friend (Lunnette) and I, as guests of my Hungarian bead sister, Anna Fehér, had the very exciting experience of visiting the hand-dying studio of Miklós Kovács in the little village of Tiszakécske, SE of Budapest. The studio, located behind his home, includes two rooms, one for printing the raw cloth with a wax resist, and the second for dying the printed cloth with indigo. In front of the building, you can see rods above the deck, which are used for hanging the fabric to dry after it is dyed, and a wagon loaded with printed cloth ready to be dyed.

Meet Mr. Miklós Kovács, now in his 80s! Charming and animated, he is explaining his traditional, hand-dying process to Anna. Blue-dying has been the Kovács family's livelihood since 1878, each new generation being trained by the previous Master. It is strictly a family affair. Miklós, his wife, Margit, and their two daughters, Gabriella and Mária, currently produce about 10,000 meters of Kékfestö (blue-dyed) fabric every year. When Mr. and Mrs. Kovács retire, the business will pass to their daughters. This post shows how they turn plain white cloth into beautiful fabrics with white motifs on an indigo background.

First, they need thousands of meters of fine-quality, tightly-woven, raw cotton cloth, which is rinsed to remove impurities, then carefully ironed and rolled onto wooden rods which fit onto the printing machine. This pile of untreated cotton cloth, manufactured in Turkey, is the remainder of a big shipment purchased at the start of the year.

Next they need a print block or plate. These are made with wire pins of various diameters, which are pounded into blocks of dense wood. Here you see the many plate choices available in the Kovács studio, each yielding a different motif on the fabric. The length of each print block is the same as the width of the fabric; the width is the width of the pattern repeat, generally designed to be about 4.5 inches..

This is the end of one of the print blocks, showing how the design is formed by setting metal pins of different diameters into the wooden block.

And here is the fabric (after dying it with indigo, and removing the wax resist), which was printed with the block in the photo above it. Naturally, a half-meter of this one came home with me!

This is the machine which is used to print the motif on the raw cotton cloth with a wax resist. Mr. Kovács keeps his printing machine, built in Germany 120 years ago, in good running condition with machinist skills he learned alongside his father.

You can see the sprocket, lower right, which is adjusted to advance the fabric through the machine in increments exactly the length of the pattern repeat. For most motifs, the fabric advances 4 to 5 inches after each time the print block is applied to the fabric, thus revealing the next short stretch of un-printed cloth.

Here you can see many meters of raw cotton cloth, suspended on a metal rod at the back of the printing press. There is a leader of waste cloth stitched to the end of the roll which has been fed through the rollers of the machine to get the process started.

At the front of the printing machine, a worker swipes a tray with wax resist, which is tinted green so that it will be visible on the printed cloth. The printing block touches down on the waxed tray, picks up a coating of was, and then presses firmly against the fabric.

After being imprinted with wax resist, the fabric is wound up and down through a drying rack located behind the printing machine.

When it is dry, the printed fabric is folded and stacked until there is a sufficient quantity to begin the dying process. You can see that some of the raw cloth in this pile was pre-dyed pink, blue, or beige. After over-dying with indigo and removing the resist, the motif on these pieces will be pink, blue or beige with an indigo background, rather than the much more common white motif with an indigo background.

This close-up photo shows how the fabric looks after the wax resist (tinted green so that is shows on white cloth) is dry. This is the motif being printed while we were there. Liking the design a lot, I was very pleased to find finished fabric in this pattern available to purchase.

And this is how the cloth will look after it is dyed with indigo, the wax resist removed, and the fabric washed and ironed. As you might have already guessed, a half-meter of this one came home with me!

As we watch the cloth passing slowly through the rollers of the printing machine, Lunnette holds a scrap of dyed fabric which was tied to the machine, indicating the motif currently being printed.

At last, we get to the dye pot!  Here on the burner, a concentrated indigo dye formula is being readied to pour into the dye vat.

Don't forget to wear those heavy rubber gloves, or the skin on your hands will be tinged with blue for a long time.
Mr. Kovács gave a long, animated talk (all in Hungarian, which I only slightly comprehend) about the whole process of blue dying. You've already seen how the cloth is printed with wax resist. The next step is to dye the background.

The cloth is dyed in a vat with the indigo dye-bath at 85 degrees C., then washed to remove the wax and rinsed to remove the excess dye. After rinsing, the cloth is looped over racks to dry outdoors, which completes the dying process. Sadly, he did no dying while we were there, so I don't have pictures or first-hand experience with precisely how it is done to share with you.

However the fabric is not yet ready to use. It must be starched, dried, and then pressed using both steam and steel rollers with heavy pressure, in order to create the traditionally desirable shiny finish on the cloth. Finally, the fabric is folded onto bolts for distribution to shops and end-users.

We learned how they hand-print motifs on cloth using a template, such that after dying, the fabric can be cut out and hemmed as a finished table cloth. You can see the templates hanging on the wall. The desired template is placed over the fabric, and a pencil used to mark the registration points for lining up the printing block. Fabrics which have already been printed are stacked in front of the templates. After being dyed, this fabric will be made into table cloths and runners of various sizes.

This is a section of cloth which as been marked with a template, and hand-stamped with wax resist. After dying with indigo and removing the wax, it will be made into a rectangular table cloth with a lovely double border all the way around.

Mrs. Kovács demonstrates for us how she lines up the print block with the penciled registration marks, and then lowers it onto the fabric. With the stamp resting on the cloth, she lightly pounds it with her fist to set the wax into the fabric. It was obvious to us that carefully making each wax impression all the way around the cloth takes a lot of time and concentration. As you an see below, the results of her hand-printing are stunning!.

Here is an example of a hand-stamped, indigo-dyed fabric made into a round table cloth. Obviously, it came home with me, and is perfect for my kitchen table!  This fabric is quite wide, and takes a great deal of space and time to print. Yet, the prices were very reasonable!

After spending several hours in the studio, we were invited to the house for a shopping bonanza! Fortunately, hoping ahead of time that we would be visiting a Kékfestö studio when we got to Hungary, we had saved our allowances for some months, and were prepared to shop for future quilting and sewing projects. The prices, ranging $10 to $15 per meter depending on the width, seemed very reasonable considering the quality of the fabric, and the extreme amount of work that goes into producing it.

In addition to yardage, both of us bought a table cloth and an apron. Mine is shown above.

What a totally delightful experience we had! Mr. and Mrs. Kovács are as friendly and nice as can be!  If you ever get to Hungary, you can find their fabrics and finished products in the picturesque town of Szentendre, just a short drive or train ride north of Budapest on the Danube River. Here is a website link.

To end our visit at the Kovács studio, here is a tribute photo of the elder Mr. Kovács, who during his boyhood in the 1920's was immersed in the world of his family's blue-dying business, and who continued producing Kékfestö indigo-dyed fabrics for his entire life, while training his own son to continue the trade.

Like his father, the younger Mr. Kovács has trained his daughters to continue when he retires, although I'm sure he has many more years to go, probably well into his 90s..

My last two photos in this post are a little surprise for you. Before falling in love with beading and quilting, my main passion was Hungarian folk dancing. I danced in a performance group for 10 years (and later became one of the group's choreographers), performing at many events in the Seattle area, including Bumbershoot and the Folklife Festival. We also performed at the World's Fair when it was in Vancouver, British Columbia. I and several of the other dancers in the group made most of our costumes using Hungarian fabrics and original costumes as patterns.

It was folk music and dance that first called my heart and soul into Hungary, where I have since spent a cumulative total of well over a year of my life, spaced over 14 different visits so far.

So, here you go. This is me, wearing a costume I made with Kékfestö fabric for performing the dances of the Szatmár region, located in northeastern Hungary. This photo was taken in September, 1986 at the World's Fair in Vancouver, Canada, where we performed on two separate occasions.

And this is me on stage at a festival in Redmond, WA, happy as can be, Hungarian folk music, song and dance, filling me with joy!  Michael Kappleman and I are the second couple from the left.

So you see...  Kékfestö and I go back a long way. Next, I'll be quilting with it!

*****
My apologies to Hungarians for not using the correct accent mark for the last letter of the Hungarian word Kékfestö. I spent 4 hours trying to do it, but could not get Blogger to accept anything I tried.

With very mixed feelings, sadness and joy all jumbled together, I closed my business with the state of Washington today, retroactive to December 31, 2016.

It's super great to think about never having to keep track of business miles, save receipts for every little business expense, do the tedious bookkeeping, take end-of-the-year inventory, or prepare everything for taxes.... Not ever again will I have to do any of those odious tasks!

Me, celebrating 41 years in business as Artist - Teacher - Author

On the other hand, my business has pretty much been my "identity" since 1975. That's 41 years - more than half of my life. What am I now? How will I respond when somebody asks, "What do you do?" Will I say, "Oh, I'm retired now?" Will I say, "I'm an artist?" It feels a little like I'm walking around 3/4 naked, the clothes of the past 41 years gone, the remaining artist clothes not enough to cover my nakedness.

But, we will not have any crying over spilled milk; the deed is done; the authorities officially notified. And, with respect, I thought it might be fun to share a few photos here, photos of the business me, and the story in more-or-less chronological order.

It all started when I met Liz Chenoweth, who is still my closest friend, and who at the time was studying metalsmithing at the University of Washington and I think working for a commercial jewelry manufacturing business in Seattle. I got the bug from her. After taking a short class in soldering sterling silver to make jewelry, I bought a workbench and all the tools, getting into it full-tilt-boogie! Liz helped me, teaching me all that she knew, and helping me to realize the design ideas I had.

Liz (on the right) and me in our metalsmithing shop, The Fort

I don't recall the exact date that I drove to the Department of Licensing to get my business license, but on that day, I named my business Atkins Creations, because I intended to make and sell sterling silver (and a little later, gold) jewelry. I bought a handsome, red, ledger book, and began the 41 year process of keeping track of all expenses and all income, mostly for tax purposes.

Sterling silver ring, commissioned by a male customer

New-beginnings.... in the spring of 1975, Liz and I decided to set up a metalsmithing shop in the spare bedroom in my little home in Ballard. Removing all other furniture, we put in side-by-side workbenches, and installed a polishing table/motor. We called our shop the Fort, because we were just like kids in the summer, when we couldn't wait to be in our "fort," our hideaway, our own special place. We both had day jobs, but we lived for spending time in the Fort. My job was 5 days on, followed by 5 days off, which was great because I could work with metal for 5 consecutive days at a time.

Jasper stone set in sterling silver, sterling clasp, leather cord - this is a man's necklace

We sold our work at some of the craft fairs of the time, but mostly we held "open studio" days at my home, slowly building a fairly decent client list. Eventually we made most of our money doing commissions. It was a marvelous, fun time in my life. That's for sure!

This is the display of my silver and gold creations at our second "open studio," 1977

Three years later, in 1978, I started a new "day job," one which quickly turned into something much more demanding of both my time and creative energies than had been my previous job. Soon, I could no longer continue making and selling jewelry at the previous pace. And, by the early 1980s my jewelry tools and supplies were lonely and dust covered. But, I didn't close the business officially.

Multiple strand necklace in style taught by Carol Berry

The hook was still set, because in 1987, I took a 2-day class from Carol Berry on making multiple-strand beaded necklaces. BEADS! In those two short days, I fell absolutely bonkers in love with beads, and within a few months, I was back in business again.

Multiple strand necklace I made as a "project" for Margie Deeb's book, The Beader's Color Palette

This time, I added the name Beads Indeed! to the official license, making it Atkins Creations - Beads Indeed!  Nice, huh?! Plus I quit my day job, deciding to support myself somehow with beads. Not easy. Especially for the first few years. Hard work and lots of rice for dinner. Since the selling part of making gold/silver jewelry was never fun for me, I decided to make my living this time by selling beads (just the "raw" beads, not made into jewelry) and teaching classes. If I sold a few pieces of beaded jewelry, that would be fine, but there would be no pressure to pay the bills by promoting my own creations. On the other hand, selling beads WAS fun; and buying beads to sell was even more fun!

 By 1988, I sold my metalsmithing equipment, and turned my garage into a studio/store for both selling beads and teaching beading workshops. For 10 years, that was my life, my identity... Beads Indeed!, open every Wednesday of the year, classes most weekends, open for your beading needs at any time by appointment.

It worked! I could have my cake (beading/beadwork) and eat it (selling beads and teaching classes) at the same time. You have to know that back then I did not in any way consider myself an artist. I knew I was a pretty good craftsman, making jewelry that would last and that looked great technically. But I did not think of myself as a creative person.

Generations, a small pouch, my first improvisational bead embroidery piece

The discovery (made mostly by Carol Berry, with some input by me) of "improvisational bead embroidery" in 1991 caused a shift, both in my sense of identity and my business. Gradually, stitching beads on fabric without a plan, letting a piece develop bit by bit without trying to control it, and thankfully with no intention of ever selling it, altered my perceptions about myself as a craftsman, turning me into an artist.

This was such a huge alteration of identity. It made me feel more sure of myself as a teacher, and gave me the confidence to promote my beading workshops far beyond the walls of my studio/shop. I traveled to many states, teaching at conferences, for bead shops and guilds, branching out to teach beading to quilters and fiber artists, eventually even teaching at art schools. All in all, Beads Indeed!, in Seattle turned into a pretty decent business. I could afford to eat out now and then, plus travel to far away places, like China, Germany, and Eastern Europe, on bead-buying trips.

Those 10 years, immersed in beads, with a growing sense of myself as an artist, gave me the confidence to begin writing books about beading, which in turn, provided another source of income, income I would need after moving from Seattle to San Juan Island, where I could no longer depend on selling beads to support myself because the population base was so small.

Marriage Bag, a small purse I made while deciding if I should marry Robert

That move, in 1998, was because I met Robert Demar, who a few years later became my husband. He already lived on San Juan Island, which was a plus for me, because I love it here, much more than living in a big city, even though Seattle is quite nice as cities go. After we married, I still traveled widely and fairly frequently to teach beading workshops, but I needed to fill the time when I was home and also needed to earn more money. The answer came easily... write books about beading! My first book, One Bead at a Time, was published in 2000, and was re-printed 3 times. Including two small booklets, there are currently nine books with my name as the author.

My first book, published in 2000

My most recent book, published in 2013

I guess my business identity, for the past 41 years, can be summarized as: "teacher-artist-author." But, in the last two years, it's been mostly "artist," with much less teaching and no further book writing. Business income has dwindled to a pittance, I'm 74 years old, and I don't enjoy the record-keeping. Even my accountant agreed. So today I pulled the plug on Atkins Creations - Beads Indeed!

Already there are new questions facing me, questions such as:

1. What shall I do with the remaining inventory of my book, Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery?
2. Shall I keep paying for my website (my domain name and web service), which includes my primary email address, and which badly needs to be updated?
3. Shall I continue teaching now and then, maintaining the necessary supplies to do so?
4. Can I immerse myself in creating things (quilts, art, bookmaking, beading, etc.), with no intention of doing anything with the things I create, not using them as examples when I teach, and not selling them?
5. And, of course, there's the question at the top of this post.... who am I now?

Home, one in a series of bead embroidery pieces about gratitude

 

It All Started with Hexie-lust!

Getting Hooked on Crochet

Original Crochet-Along, Frida's Flowers

Bored with making 6 identical flowers - Colors calling us!

Designing Our Afghans

Entering at the San Juan County Fair

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.

Charles (Charlie) Tennyson has been appointed Princeton’s new director of Transportation and Parking Services following a national search to fill the position. He previously served for five years as deputy director of the department.

Alban Forcione, an internationally renowned scholar of 17th-century literature of “Golden Age” Spain, the Walter S. Carpenter Jr., Professor of Language, Literature and Civilization of Spain, Emeritus, and Princeton alumnus, died Sept. 14 at age 82.

Gilbert Harman, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, died at his home in Princeton on Nov. 13 after a long illness with Alzheimer’s. He was 83.

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.

Eric Franklin Wood, a world-renowned hydrologist who did groundbreaking work in drought prediction and served on the Princeton faculty for 43 years, died from cancer in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 3. He was 74.

Jacques R. Fresco, the emeritus Damon B. Pfeiffer Professor in the Life Sciences and an emeritus professor of molecular biology, died on Dec. 5. He served on Princeton's faculty for 53 years before retiring in July 2013.

The Princeton microbiologist has also created a non-infectious version of the COVID-19 virus that researchers can study safely.

Arden helped usher computers into widespread use and played a key role in establishing Princeton's Department of Computer Science.

In honor of his parents, Chemistry Nobel Laureate David MacMillan has founded The May and Billy MacMillan Foundation to provide educational opportunities for financially disadvantaged students in Scotland.

Austin Newton, a founding member of the Department of Molecular Biology, established a new experimental system and mentored generations of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He died May 13 in Princeton at age 85.

Daniel Osherson, Princeton’s Henry R. Luce Professor in Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, Emeritus, known for his  creative scientific explorations with collaborators in many disciplines, died at home on Sept. 4.