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.

The MacArthur Foundation honored Benjamin for her critical analysis of how technology perpetuates inequality and for ‘championing the role of imagination in social transformation.'

A leader in her field with over 35 years of experience, Shroff has transformed Princeton’s audit and compliance functions during her more than 17 years at the University.

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.

Decision informed by report of the CPUC Committee on Naming.

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.

The program, now in its fifth year, recognizes and supports outstanding scholars primed to make important contributions in their fields. The 2024 cohort includes disciplines spanning the humanities, engineering, the sciences and the social sciences.

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

Four Princeton researchers won major awards from the National Institutes of Health to support their blue-sky research.

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.

Physical chemist Giacinto Scoles, Princeton’s Donner Professor of Science, Emeritus, died in Sassenheim, the Netherlands, on Sept. 25 with his wife of nearly 60 years at his side. He was 89.

The award supports independent research in the arts and humanities at the American Academy in Rome. Both Princeton recipients are undergraduate alumni.

Princeton University will present the honors at Alumni Day, scheduled for Feb. 22, 2025.

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. 

The Martin A. Dale '53 Fellowship provides grants for Princeton seniors to spend the year after graduation on "an independent project of extraordinary merit." Juliette Carbonnier and Collin Riggins are the latest recipients.

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.

He reflected on literature, compassion, belonging, home and the "qualities which make us human."

I was one of the outside readers1 for a volume in Cambridge University Press’s enormous “Elements” series, The New Witches of the West, by Ethan Doyle White. (Link is to Amazon US) To find that title, go to the main … Continue reading →

This is me, preparing for an evening of copyediting articles for The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. There is in fact a small shrine within arm’s length of my desktop computer, but I usually don’t have so many … Continue reading →

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 →

Edited by Dver, a.k.a. Sarah Kate Istra Winter, Small Gods: An Anthology of Everyday Animism is projected to be an annual zine “featuring art, poetry, and essays describing our relationship with, and giving praise to, the smallest of gods — those … Continue reading →

I blogged here before about things disappearing in my house — kitchen utensils, corkscrews, keys, etc. (See “Pixie Problems, or Working Things Out with the ‘Cousins’ (1)” and Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.) Things have been better since then. … Continue reading →

First, welcome to a bunch of new subscribers! Subscriptions are free, and you receive an email whenever I publish something On a computer or tablet, you will see the sign-up box in the right-hand sidebar. On a smartphone, you have … 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!

You can choose to display your love for fandom with some of our new thank-you gifts. For a US$40 donation, we have a new sticker set featuring popular AO3 tags. You can show off a bumper sticker saying "my other car is a ship" for a donation of US$50. For a donation of US$75 or more, you could carry home your groceries with a white and red shopping bag or you can announce your love for AO3 with our rainbow kudos pin.

You can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Select the gift you want, and if the total for that donation doesn't reach the amount needed for the gift you selected, future donations will be applied to the gift you’re saving for. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members can vote for the Board of Directors – the OTW’s governing board. Donating now and checking the “I wish to be a member” box will make you eligible to vote in the 2025 OTW Board Election.

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.

These donations came from 6,955 people in 86 countries: thank you to every single one of you, as well as to all of you who posted and shared the news about the drive! The OTW would not exist without its users all around the world, and your continued support for us is our absolute pride and joy! We are so glad to know that our ongoing mission to support, protect, and provide access to the history of fanworks and fan culture continues to resonate with the people that matter most of all: the fans themselves.

If you were intending to donate or join and haven't yet done so, don't worry! The OTW accepts donations year-round, and you can always choose to become a member with a donation of US$10 or more. Memberships run for one calendar year from the date of your donation. If you donate now, you'll be able to vote in next year's OTW Board election, which will take place in August 2025. Our exclusive thank-you gifts are also available whenever you donate!

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The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Isis C, who volunteers as a wrangler and Support liaison for the Tag Wrangling Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

My volunteer work fits into three closely-related bins. As a tag wrangler, I connect users' character, relationship, and freeform tags to our canonical tags, and I make new canonical tags as needed. I wrangle about 70 fandoms, mostly historical and SFF book and TV fandoms, with a few video games and RPF fandoms thrown in there.

As a tag wrangling supervisor, I do all sorts of administrative and management tasks related to wrangling. For example, I help manage all phases of wrangler recruitment and training: I evaluate applications, send out acceptances, monitor training progress, and set up training schedules. Sometimes I mentor new wranglers or new supervisors, and there are always random administrative tasks to do.

As a Tag Wrangling/Support Liaison, I ferry user requests for tags to be canonized or re-wrangled to the wranglers of those fandoms, and I answer user questions about wrangling guidelines and processes. (If you ask Support why a search on Trans Danny Fenton returns a few Hawaii Five-O works, or how to find works with a particular AU Sans when they are all merged to Sans (Undertale), I'm probably the person who will answer.) There’s a lot about wrangling that isn’t obvious until you see it from the inside, but I like answering user questions because if users understand the process better, they’re more likely to tag in ways that will accomplish what they want.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

I have a very flexible schedule and a lot of free time, and I'm online a ridiculous amount of that free time! I find wrangling very relaxing, especially when it's easy - synning misspelled character names to the canonical tags, making relationship tags for characters that already have character tags, and other things that don't need research or a lot of thought - so I like to wrangle for a while before tackling real life things I don't like doing, like taxes or phoning for appointments or vacuuming, or even before writing fic or doing other things that require more brainpower.

Supervisor tasks require a bit more attention, so I like to do them when I have enough free time that I can concentrate on them. Of course I always warm up with a little easy wrangling!

Most of the Support tasks I take on require coordination with other wranglers, and Support requires communication with users to be beta-read by another volunteer before sending out, so I tend to do these in batches as well when I have a block of time. We have a lot of older wrangling-related tickets that have not yet been handled because there was too much work and not enough liaisons, so whenever I feel particularly motivated I try to answer the people who have probably given up on getting answers.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I'm old :-) and have been in mainstream science fiction and fantasy fandom for a very long time, although I didn't get into fanfiction-type fandom until 2002. (Which I realize is probably before many of the people reading this were born!) I get super enthusiastic about my hobbies and like to help organize things, so for example in 2002 and 2003, when fandom was mostly on mailing lists and fandom-specific forum sites, I coordinated an effort to help get fandom going on LiveJournal by collecting invite codes, which were required at the time, and distributing them to fanfiction writers and fanartists. I used to edit various fandom newsletter communities, back when that was a thing, too. Anyway, a fandom friend who was a wrangler encouraged me to apply during a recruitment, and that was all it took! When I became a supervisor, one of the tasks I enjoyed the most was helping out with support tickets, so when I got the chance to be a Support Liaison I immediately said yes please!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

As I mentioned, I'm old, and I started out on mailing lists where tags were fandom, characters, and pairing, and that was it. I never managed to get into Tumblr, which I suspect is where the use of descriptive tags started. Often I look at freeform tags that reference memes, or Gen Z slang, or newer terms for sexual identity, and I am completely baffled! Fortunately, the wrangler chat is a wonderful research source, and other wranglers are always kind about helping this little old lady across the street decipher tags.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I write and read fic, although not so much these days as way back when. (But I still get a smile on my face when my old works get kudos or comments!) I used to vid a little, too, but even though I haven't participated in Festivids for many years, I still enjoy watching the vids people create for small fandoms, and recommending the ones I love best. I also really like to beta read fic, because that way I can help good stories become great stories.

But my most intensive fannish involvement these days is being a fanwork exchange moderator. I moderated a number of small single-fandom exchanges pre-AO3, and wow, AO3 makes it so much easier. I love small fandoms, and I participated in Yuletide nearly from the beginning, so I was super excited to be invited to become part of the moderation team some years back. I also co-mod the current incarnation of the Worldbuilding Exchange, and sometimes I help out with other exchanges.

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Now that our volunteer has said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

The AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is a partnership between the Open Doors committee and fan-run preservation project Zinedom through which fanfiction and fanart originally published in print fanzines is imported to the Archive of Our Own. Fanworks can be imported to AO3 with the consent of either the creators of the works or the publisher of the fanzine in which the fanworks were published.

Today, Open Doors is pleased to announce a list of collections that it has created since September 2023 to house fanworks imported through the FSHP. A collection has been created for each fanzine from which one or more fanworks have been imported, but these collections do not contain every work from each of these zines, and many so far only include one work each in cases where Open Doors only has permission to import that particular work. For full transparency, Open Doors plans to continue to announce collections as they are created that may or may not grow with additional fanworks as additional permissions are obtained from more creators in the future.

As of August 2024, Open Doors has created the following collections to represent fanzines from which it has imported works:

• A Portfolio of Poetry and Portraits
• Amazing Grace
• Astray in the Wilderness
• Beyond Dreams
• Broken Images
• California K/S
• Contact
• CrosSignals
• Daring Attempt
• Enter-comm
• First Time
• Gateway
• Guardian
• Happy Tails
• IDIC
• In the Wilderness
• KaleidoScope
• KisMet
• KSX
• Legacy
• Legends
• Naked Times
• Nightvisions
• Nome
• On the Edge
• One Shot
• Partners
• Potpourri
• Pushin' the Odds
• Quantum Chain
• Scattered Stars
• Sehlat's Roar
• Southern Star
• Spock's Arthropods
• Strange Justice
• The Complete Rack
• The K/S Press
• The Rack & All the King's Horses All the King's Men
• Three Eleven
• Universe Beyond
• Whalesong
• Within the Mirror

For answers to frequently asked questions, please see the FSHP page on the Open Doors website. If you'd like to give Open Doors permission to import any of your fanworks that have been previously published in print fanzines, or if you have any other FSHP-related queries, please contact the Open Doors Committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of any fanzines in which they may have been published on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

Thanks for your interest in preserving fannish history for future generations of readers!

- The Open Doors team

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on 18 November. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

In order to make AO3's rules clearer to our users, we intend to update the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS) in mid-November 2024. Once this occurs, all users will need to agree to the updated TOS to continue using AO3. The full text has been posted for public review, as well as a detailed explanation of what has (and hasn't) changed:

• AO3 Terms of Service: 2024 Update Guide
• AO3 Terms of Service: 2024 Draft
• AO3 Terms of Service FAQ: 2024 Draft

Summary of changes

As part of reorganizing the TOS for better clarity, the new TOS is structured differently than the old one. A detailed explanation of what was changed and why is available in the update guide. These are the highlights:

• We've clarified the Content Policy, but we haven't changed what works are or are not allowed. If your fanwork was allowed on AO3 before, then it is still allowed.
• The TOS has been split into three pages (General Principles, Content Policy, and Privacy Policy). This should make it easier to find what you're looking for when you want to know about a specific part of the TOS.
• We've simplified the language throughout the TOS and removed redundant or overly specific phrases and passages. When longer explanations would help to provide clarity, we've added new questions to the TOS FAQ instead.
• We've updated the descriptions of how we and our subprocessors collect and process user information (including personal information) in the Privacy Policy.
• The Abuse Policy has been generalized to provide the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee with greater flexibility to determine how to address TOS violations, while still providing protections for fanworks in accordance with AO3's mission.
• The "Underage" Archive Warning, which is used for works that depict or describe underage sex, is being renamed to "Underage Sex". This does not change the meaning of this warning or how it is enforced. When the TOS update occurs, all works with the "Underage" Archive Warning will be recategorized automatically to display the new "Underage Sex" Archive Warning label instead. If you have a work that carries the "Underage" warning and you don't want it to display the "Underage Sex" label, you can replace it with the "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" label at any time.

You can read the proposed changes and comment here on this news post with any questions, suggestions, or feedback you might have about the new TOS or TOS FAQ. Comments will remain open until November 18th, 2024. After comments close, the Board of Directors for the OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works, which is AO3's parent organization) will vote on the proposed changes to the Terms of Service. If the Board votes in favor, the Terms of Service will be updated and all users will be required to agree to the new TOS to continue using AO3.

To make your opinion heard prior to the Board vote, make sure to submit your comments here before November 18th.

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ETA: We appreciate that all of you have many ideas, but please keep in mind that the Policy & Abuse committee handles AO3 rules, not AO3 features. If you have ideas for a feature (for example, improvements you want to see to Search and Filtering), please contact the Support committee about them instead. We won't be responding to feature requests on this news post.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with LPCollins, who volunteers as a Dutch translator and beta reader for the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I am part of the Translation committee, more specifically as a translator and beta reader for the Dutch team. (Hallo, iedereen!) I have also recently found my way into the Tag Wrangling committee, but that is all still very new and shiny, so I’ll be focussing on my role in Translation for this post. That role pretty much means that I help with the translation of the AO3 FAQs and tutorials, news posts, email templates and the occasional tag or user ticket that arrives in Dutch, a rare treat when speakers of your language are very accustomed to using English in online spaces. I am very proud of the role that our committee gets to play in diversifying the OTW and slowly but surely making it more accessible for users world-wide. Compared to the userbase speaking Chinese, Spanish or Russian, Dutch may seem like a very tiny, not-so-important piece of that puzzle, but doesn’t that only make it cooler that we can support such languages too?

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

One of my absolute favorite things about the Translation committee is that you get to schedule the work according to your own needs. I am a chaos demon with fluctuating energy levels, so I’m not sure about having a “typical week” and that’s perfectly fine with Translation.

Basically, at some point one of our lovely volunteer managers will send me an assignment, either a document that needs to be translated from scratch or a translation from one of my teammates that I need to beta read. Assignments always have a deadline too, shorter ones for urgent news posts and longer ones for longer documents. Depending on the length of the document, what I need to do with it, my mood and the alignment of the stars, I might do it right away, or spread it out over a week, or just do it on the day of the deadline. Then I let our staff know that I’m done and they send me a new task and so on. There have been weeks when I didn’t complete a single task and there have been days when I completed two, and it just works for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Look, I seem to be living in a world where all the paid jobs aren’t very interesting and all the interesting jobs aren’t very paid. (Will take recommendations for other worlds.) Point is, I am always drawn to ways to help organizations that I care about with a hands-on approach. Before I joined the OTW, I was a volunteer for IMAlive’s crisis support chat (big shout-out to Random Acts for providing my training), which I loved doing but unfortunately became too time-consuming when I needed to start working on my master’s thesis. Since I had been spending a lot of time on AO3 for years at that point, the OTW was an easy next target for when I did have some spare time again.

I also have a degree in Dutch and English linguistics and literature, so translator was definitely one of the most appealing OTW positions from the get-go. I distinctly remember waiting for a chance to apply, checking every Translation recruitment post that popped up on AO3 to see if they needed someone for Team Dutch yet, as the committee always recruits for specific languages. As soon as Dutch was listed in one of the posts, I didn’t hesitate about applying, and I was lucky enough to be welcomed to the team. Already two years have passed since then and I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Not gonna lie, I have witnessed some big internal discussions since joining the OTW, both about real-world events and about our own processes. I feel like those have been fought over enough, though, so I’ll share a challenge that’s more specific for Team Dutch.

In case you don’t know, Dutch is an official language in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname. Unfortunately, Suriname isn’t currently represented in our team, but we do have both Belgian and Dutch folks, and despite our countries being right next to each other, there are actually some differences between Belgian Dutch and Dutch… Dutch. (Just ask how we end our emails.) They definitely aren’t big enough to separate the languages, but we do try to walk that middle ground in our translations and make sure that everything sounds good for everyone. So sometimes I will be beta reading a document and change something that just sounds way too Dutch to me and sometimes one of my teammates will point out that they would never use my suggested turn of phrase in the Netherlands. As a linguist, I find this very interesting, but it is also quite challenging to avoid colloquialisms when you’re not even always aware of them!

What fannish things do you like to do?

First and foremost, I’m a fanfic writer. Always have been (even before I knew that there was a word for it) and always will be. As a writer, I also have an atrocious habit and it goes something like this: start a very long fic, pour out new chapters religiously for months and months, stumble upon a different fandom, come up with a fic idea for said new fandom that “surely won’t take long and that I just need to get out of my system so that I can return to the existing WIP in peace” aaaaand repeat. Dear reader, if you happen to be following one of my stories, I am so, so sorry, I swear I will finish it one day.

The love of my life is Supernatural and I will always come back to it, but I’m also very good at falling very hard for other fandoms on the side, ranging from The Boys to Danny Phantom to the latest Neil Gaiman-related show to Helluva Boss to anything that Richard Speight, Jr. worked on. One of my favorite things to do is hyperfixate on something new, then grab my friends by the shoulders and shake them until they agree to watch it too so that I can yell at them about it.

Of course I read fanfics too, mostly in short bursts when I’m looking for a very specific type of fic. For my wallet’s sake, I limit the number of Supernatural conventions I can go to to one per year. I perpetually have a Discord tab open to stay in touch with fellow fans, will occasionally scour YouTube for fanvids and spend the rest of my fandom time on the best social media site ever, Tumblr. (Kidding, not kidding.)

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Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

I started this project in October, 2014, so I would have a nice handwork project while traveling for a month in Europe. I love it!!!

A bunch of pre-cut threads and trims, a small package of mixed seed beads/buttons/sequins, a folded piece of felt with various sizes of needles, embroidery scissors, Sue Spargo's book, and 16 wool chicks already stitched to the background wool fit very nicely into a 12 x 9 inch zippered, mesh bag.... perfect to tuck into my backpack! I stitched on the airplanes, in people's homes, and with my beady/quilty friends! At the end of the month, 8 chicks were finished. You can see them here.


Since then, I've been busy making a Travel Diary quilt, and starting another very challenging "Shimmer" quilt, which will be the subject of the next post. However, once in a while, the Chicks are just the right break from machine sewing. Working on them makes me happy and peaceful.


The new ones are in this post... As you can see in the photo below, I still have 2 chicks to embellish, plus one that might need something more.


When all of them are finished, it will be time to decide what to do with them. My idea so far is to make them into a small wall quilt, hand quilting around the chicks, maybe adding a few flowers between some of the chicks.  I'll wait to decide, keeping all options open until the chicks are finished.


Most of the chicks are girls, but so far 3 of them seem to have a bit of testosterone...  can you tell which ones are the boys? You'll need to click on the above picture of all 16 to enlarge it enough to find the boys. If you feel like making a guess, let's give them numbers starting at the top left with 1 and going across row by row. As you can probably tell, the one below is definitely a girly girl!

By the way, the lace trim on the above chick is vintage lace from LaDonne Weinland, an Etsy vendor. It was white, which was too "strong" a color for this piece. So I painted dye on it!!! These are the pieces I painted. To give you an idea of scale, the lace is just under 1/4" wide. The chick, from the bottoms of her feet to the top of her crown, is exactly 3 inches tall.

Threads! 

People ask me where I got all the threads I use for these chicks. Here are some answers...

Variegated pearl cotton. I'd estimate that over half the stitches (all the beaks and feet, most of the edge stitches, tails, and top-knots) are pearl cotton, size 8 or 12. I like using threads that are subtly variegated. DMC and Valdani are two brands of pearl cotton that come in a ball for $5 to $7 per ball. I have purchased some Valdani balls from Sue Spargo and some from this site.

But most of my perle cotton comes from African Folklore Embroidery ... Leora Raikin, the owner, packages hand-dyed, variegated, pearl cotton on cards of three colors, each color about 10 yards in length, for $5.  She has a HUGE selection, from which you can have 24 colors for only $40!!! I love the colors, the subtle changes of colors in the variegation, and the quality of the thread. Here's a page that shows her colors in size 8 pearl cotton... mind boggling!

My photo does not show the full amount you get... only how it is packaged, 3 colors to a card!

Embroidery floss.  For finer stitches and details, I often switch to regular embroidery floss. Again I gravitate toward the variegated colors. DMC has put out a lot of new variegated skeins in recent years. If you have an older supply of solid colors, you might want to check out DMC's 24 new colors. Here's an Etsy seller that offers them. Or, if you are in the Seattle area, Nancy's Sewing Basket (on Queen Anne hill) stocks all of them. They are much more subtle than previous DMC variegated floss choices, more like hand-dyed. Anchor has also added nice options to their line.




I also buy hand-dyed embroidery floss when I see a skein that appeals to me. Again, I like the subtlety of it.

Other threads. Sue Spargo offers a line of variegated silk threads in beautiful colors, which she calls Silken Pearl. I bought some of them from her during the class, and have enjoyed using them. The sheen of the silk is a lovely contrast to the more matte quality of the pearl cotton.

In her book, Sue recommends using a wool thread to applique the wool chicks to the background wool. Since it is quite expensive, I used 60 weight cotton applique/sewing thread by Metler, which I already had in a range of colors. It works fine. If I didn't already have the Metler thread, I probably would have bought a set of Genziana wool threads on bobbins on Etsy, here. This wool thread is a bit too fine for embellishment work, but it's great for wool applique.

Novelty yarns, metallic threads, chenille, dazzle threads, etc. all have their occasional use as well. As I tend to like more matte and less bling, I don't often use these threads. But it's fun to experiment with them. I did use chenille on one of the above chicks... can you find it?

All 16 chicks are finished now, and I've started quilting the piece!!! I'm quilting by hand, using a single strand of non-mercerized (not shiny) thread (Anchor brand), which is about the same weight as size 12 pearl cotton. This is how it looks so far...

While I contemplate how to proceed with the quilting, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the design process with you, especially since a few readers have said they might want to try something like this.

Learning the Stitches - Which Ones to Use and Where to Use Them

Sue Spargo's book, Creative Stitching, was very important in my design process. I didn't know most of the stitches when I started this piece. The instructions in the book are easy to follow, and I was able to learn all that I wanted from the book. More than learning the stitches, the photos in the book allowed me to see how she uses the stitches to embellish her wool applique shapes. Also, she writes about the threads and needles she uses. I followed her suggestions for needles, but did not use many of the threads she mentions.


Layout the Shapes

The wool is felted. I bought already felted (correct term is actually "fulled") wool. But you can make your own by washing wool fabric and drying it in the dryer. Here are some useful instructions for fulling wool fabric.

The first step is to cut out the chicks from felted wool fabrics. (Although I made chicks, the shape could be anything... butterflies, flowers, circles, donkeys...) I used 16 different colors, making each chick a different color. I used "chick colors" for some of the wings; others are from a bag of wool scraps I bought at the La Conner Quilt Festival.

I used 60 wt. cotton sewing thread to applique the chicks to the background fabric. Use a thread color that matches the chick color as closely as possible. Although it's a bit shiny, a single strand of embroidery floss would also work for this task.

Starting to Embellish the Chicks

When I finished appliqueing the chicks to the background wool, they just looked like blobs, barely recognizable as chicks. This is not inspirational for starting to embellish! I found that in order to even want to start, I needed to make them more real, more chick-like. So I gave them all eyes, all 16 of them. That helped a lot, but still they didn't feel real. So I gave them all feet, and then beaks. So as not to get bored, I changed thread color for both beaks and feet. Some of the eyes are made with a button; some with a flower-shaped bead; some with a disc-shaped bead. When all of them had eyes, feet, and beaks, finally they began to be chicks, and I was ready to start!!!

Even so... starting is daunting. I used the same method I use (and teach) for bead embroidery... If you've taken a class from me you've heard me say, "Pick up a bead you love, and sew it on somewhere." That's what I did... picked up a thread I loved, picked a stitch that interested me from Sue's book, picked a chick color that appealed to me at that moment, and started practicing the stitch.

When I finished, I just did the same thing again. Sometimes it was the same chick, sometimes I chose a different chick. I kept picking a thread I liked, usually one I hadn't previously used, a stitch I wanted to learn or really liked, and a chick that seemed "to like" the chosen thread color.

After a while, some of the chicks were fully embellished. Once I learned the stitches and had experimented with various threads, I tended to work on one chick until it was finished. But if  when I got stuck, and couldn't think what to do next with a particular chick, I just moved along to some other chick that appealed to me at that moment.


Another way to get started

If you feel a bit timid about starting, you could make a pincushion, such as I did, shown below. It doesn't take a lot of time or materials, and can give you both practice (particularly in making beaks and feet) and confidence.

Personality

I can't help but think of the chicks as youngsters, maybe early teens, with emerging personalities... each, as I work on it, starts to have a story which plays out in my head while I stitch. Once the story begins, it's easier to choose stitches, design motifs, and threads which further develop the story or personality of that chick. Thinking about the chick's personality and background story, keeps me from getting bored, and makes it really fun to work on the piece.


Thread Hints

I already wrote about threads, adding it to the bottom the previous post (or, scroll down one more post).

What's Next?

As usual, I don't know. I take it one step at a time, trying not to figure it all out before I start. I do what I know to do. If there isn't anything I know to do, then I wait... wait for an idea, for inspiration, for a solution... wait until I know what to do next, but only the next thing... I try to ignore the question of what comes after the next thing. That's what I'm doing now... waiting to know what the next step in the quilting process will be.

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

A week of finishing!!! Oh my, it feels good to finish things, doesn't it?!

Last October, I started the applique process, stitching chick bodies and wings cut from felled wool onto the wool background fabric. Seven months later, 16 chicks, embroidered with threads and beads, run free! Please click the picture to enlarge it, so you can enjoy the fanciful details.

If you are new to this process, you can see the various steps and pictures of the chicks on these posts. Of course, they are inspired by Sue Spargo's exhibit at the La Conner Quilt Museum, by her book, Creative Stitching, and by taking a one-day class from her to get me going. Along the way, other books, embroideries, and drawings also inspired me.


As you might guess, most of the chicks have at least a few beads. Here is one with the main motif embroidered with beads.


And, here is one with just a few beads, the center of the "flowers," and one with no beads at all.

Also note that I've quilted the piece with Danish Flower Thread in a shade which closely matches the background color.

At first, I thought it would be pleasing to embellish the areas between the chicks with flowers, vines, and leaves using three close shades of the background color. Here is an example.


It looks OK when you look at just four chicks with the flower/vine motif in the center. But when I had finished 6 of the areas (sorry no photo), some of them with larger spaces and larger vines/leaves, it looked too busy. It took away from the chicks. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to look at the chicks or the flowers. So I picked out the vines and leaves, leaving just the flowers, which weren't such a distraction.


After sewing on the binding, the chicks seemed to need a little warming around them. So I added a line of stem stitch in variegated pearl-cotton in a magenta color. It pleases me!


Oh, and one more thing... This is a quilt, designed to hang on the wall, with lots of details to enjoy as you view it up close. But what happens to wool felt when it is out in the open? MOTH DAMAGE and DUST are the enemies. My solution? Find, buy, or have somebody make a wall-mounted display case, with a hinged door. Hang the quilt inside the case, which remains closed except when somebody wants to take a closer look. The above, found on the internet, is close to what I have in mind, with a white background of course.


What's next in chick-land? Well, my dear niece just got married... Here is the start of her wedding gift... I'll post a finished photo soon.

Kitty Sorgen, quilter extraordinaire, and Jenny Bowker, the pattern developer, are to blame for this madness! Shimmering Triangles Jenny calls it, and shimmer it does. In fact, it can be over done to the point where it's difficult to look at. But not Kitty's... Kitty, a member of our local guild and the best colorist I know, brought her shimmer quilt to Wednesday night quilting a few months ago, and

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!