Reflections on Quilting

My maternal grandmother was a sewist – she made quilts, she fixed things with her sewing machine and she was always using fabrics she had on hand, whether they were clothing or sheets.  She would sometimes buy fabrics but most of her sewing projects used items destined for the scrap bag.  I learned to sew clothes for my dolls, fix clothing, I even got patterns and made clothes for myself when I was in my 20s.  I started my first big bed size quilt when I was 19 and have made many quilts since.  I bought and received cotton fabrics for quilting when I was in college.  People often say “Oh, you sew – I brought you some fabric.”  So, for many, many years – I didn’t have to go buy more fabric.  

It wasn’t unit about five years ago that I started going into fabric stores again for the first time since college. My return to the commercial world of fabric and crafting was rocky: unbleached muslin rocketed from 99 cents to $9.99 per yard.  

Around the same time, in 2019, I learned about long-arm quilting from my manager at work, who mentioned that his neighbors ran a long-arm quilting business after finding out I made quilts. I had never heard of this before and was excited by the possibility of machines that facilitated top quilting to make it less of a neck-breaking chore.  A shop in San Mateo offered training and rents time on long arm machines – so I headed across the Bay to learn.  

That first shop visit in early 2022 was eye-opening. I discovered a massive wave of commodification and co-optation of the practice of quilting. Everything was “curated.” People bought designer fabrics packaged into “jelly rolls” and “layer cakes” (I’m still not sure what those are). “Fat quarters” came in coordinated collections blessed by some supposed color genius. When I showed a quilt I was working on—a gift for a friend—the shop workers (all elderly and white) sucked their teeth and said, “Tsk tsk – well, your friend will like it because you made it for her.” At the time, I didn’t realize this was a sales technique: make me feel insecure so I’d buy their curated kits and sign up for their “expert” classes.

That same commodified mindset shows up in quilt shows I’ve attended from 2022 through 2025. My first quilt show experience, back in 2011 on a cross-country motorcycle trip, was different—county fairs, small-town shows, quilts that varied in style, skill, and purpose. In contrast, competitive quilt shows today carry the same push toward conformity I first felt in that San Mateo shop. Perfectionism rules: precision piecing, perfectly straight quilting, designer-only fabrics (nothing from JoAnn’s, of course). Many quilts look like they rolled off a computer printer. Most seem to be sent to professional long-arm shops and quilted to within an inch of their lives. At a Fort Bragg show earlier this summer, quilts hung in front of windows, and I realized how much this over-quilting can damage the work—some looked like postage stamps, with daylight bleeding through the stitches.

Together, these experiences—both in the shop and at the shows—made clear how quilting has been broken into commodified specializations: designing the fabrics, picking out the “right” colors, pre-cutting the pieces, even outsourcing the assembly and quilting. It’s the capitalist drive to monetize what was once a legacy, family, community, and personal practice.

Today, I went to a talk at BAMPFA “Artists Conversation: Quilts as Legacy and Living Practice” (https://bampfa.org/event/quilts-legacy-and-living-practice) featuring Adia Millet, Basil Kincaid, and Diedrick Brackens.

Among the topics that the artists touched upon while presenting their work and responding to audience questions was the idea of liberation through creation.  Both Basil and Adia talked about incorporating materials from family, friends, and old clothing.  Adia featured a Dresden Plate block made by her grandmother at the center of a piece she embellished with found wild bird feathers.  Basil said that most of the quilts he makes, he keeps because they have family materials and are personal.  Basil said that he won’t commercialize black pain or family memories.  I also liked the idea that Diedrick raised about animism in his small fleet of looms – they all have a personality and creating something is a conversation.  He said “I might think that something is going to curve a certain way but the loom says – ‘try it like this instead’” and he might not do a certain type of subject matter on a certain loom.  

Listening to these artists inspired a reflection on what I value in the practice of quilting.  I find liberation in the imperfection, pushing the limits of all parts of the process:  my skill, the machine, the textiles, even how I’m feeling or the colors of the fabric.  It’s a story at a point in time – there are fabrics from my grandmother’s stash, or that I bought over 30 years ago in college, or which came to me through other surrendered caches.  

That visit to the San Mateo quilt shop in 2022 when the old white ladies (and one man) “tsk tsk’d” my quilt and showed me their curated, pre-cut jelly rolls and layer cakes – that was a sales technique.  The co-optation of quilting and commodification of quilting into separate areas of specialization -- designing the fabrics, picking out the colors that "go together," even cutting the pieces and providing assembly and top quilting services have really stood out to me, perhaps more because of my hiatus from fabric stores and quilting social media.  

These are typical outcomes of the capitalist drive to monetize what is a legacy, family, community and personal practice.  The result is to create insecurity and to foster a consumerist mentality:  many people end up acquiring so much material and tools that there's even a semi-humorous acronym:  "SABLE" stands for "Stash Beyond Life Expectancy." People spend more time acquiring, organizing and managing their sewing spaces than actually creating items.  This commodity fetishim creates alienation from the creative process and hyperindividualization that is, quite frankly, wasteful and not fun. The pefectionism results in quilts that are boring and don't really reflect anything personal which was part of the practice of quilting for many generations of quilters. 

After the BAMPFA artists left the stage, another attendee struck up conversation with me. She emphasized the consumerist nature of people who form the target demographic for the commodified quilt world: “A lot of those people aren’t making art – they are just doing paint-by-numbers.” The process of picking fabrics, choosing your colors, learning techniques and developing a vision are not part of what they are doing. “And,” she said, “That’s okay.”

That reminder of liberation in imperfection also brought to mind the final chapter of Patrick Bringley’s book, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me which focuses on the exhibition of the quilts of Gee’s Bend. One quilter, Loretta Pettway (b. 1942), told Bringley she didn’t even like sewing—she made quilts because no one else could supply enough to keep her family warm. That honesty, that necessity, reminded me that art isn’t always about inspiration. Sometimes it’s about survival.

What I see in both the Gee’s Bend story and in today’s quilting world is the same contradiction that runs through textiles globally: abundance on one side, necessity on the other. Quilting doesn’t stand apart from the larger textile economy—it’s entangled with it. The commodification I saw in quilt shops and shows mirrors the same forces driving fast fashion, overproduction, and waste.

We live in a time of massive wealth and success, as well as increasing socioeconomic disparity and dysfunction around the distribution of that wealth. I’ve read that there is so much clothing already manufactured that we could clothe the next six or seven generations without creating a single new garment. The amounts of textiles dumped in developing countries is galling. Why should anyone buy new fabric or clothing?

Part of my creative practice is to avoid buying new fabric—while I do have some “purchased as new” fabrics in my stash, I spend a lot of time going to thrift stores and scanning online ads for people selling or surrendering their stashes. I save some for quilting and other fabrics for kennel quilts.

One of the artists in today’s BAMPFA discussion, Basil Kincaid, works in Ghana to recover fabrics that he uses for his large projects, and also to upcycle into quilted clothing. This is one small step in the right direction. But it’s not enough. We need to elevate upcycling and repair to the couture and luxury level, so that imperfection and “character” are seen as aspirational—so that people learn to desire difference and authenticity, instead of mass-produced homogeneity, as the new normal.

Upcycling needs to move beyond craft tables and artist studios and into the couture houses if imperfection is ever to be normalized as luxury. By redefining character as beauty, fashion can loosen its grip on homogeneity — and only when businesses value the planet over profit will we see a reduction in the massive amounts of waste that are driving global socioeconomic disparities.

REVIEW: Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence, and How to Make Love Last by Tom Bellamy (2.5 stars)

I came to Smitten curious about the psychology of limerence — that intense, euphoric, often obsessive state that masquerades as love. While I don’t doubt limerence exists, this book offers more breadth than depth. It’s readable and occasionally insightful, but lacks original research and leans heavily on secondary sources. For a book that claims to explore the neuroscience of love, it feels more like pop psychology than rigorous analysis.

One of the book’s core issues is that it tries to do too much for too many audiences. Is it a basic primer on limerence? A neuroscience explainer? A self-help guide for people suffering from limerent obsession? It’s unclear. These goals could have been better served by splitting the material into separate books or at least distinct sections with more focus. As it stands, Smitten reads more like a collection of long blog posts than a cohesive, well-structured work.

Bellamy is clear that limerence is not a mental illness:

“Experiencing limerence is not a symptom of mental illness, a psychological wound or an emotional failing. For most limerents it is a normal part of the process of falling in love, albeit with a force that has a fierce and alarming power.” (Chapter 5)

He also addresses attachment theory, noting that while limerence is often associated with anxious attachment, it’s not exclusive to it:

“More than half of the population who do not have an anxious attachment style are limerents. But—and it is a big but!—eight out of ten people who have anxious attachments are limerents.” (Chapter 6)

Bellamy introduces a taxonomy of archetypes who supposedly attract limerent individuals — the damsel in distress, tortured soul, agent of chaos, bad boy/girl, the rock, the leader, the guru, the free spirit, the mysterious stranger. These are interesting sketches, but the framing implies intentional manipulation. In reality, these people may just be living out their own unresolved narratives. As I wrote in my notes: “Maybe they just have their own movie going.”

One of the few moments that rang true for me was in Chapter 14, where Bellamy writes:

“Limerence fades. Regardless of how spectacular the thrills are at the beginning of a relationship, expecting that euphoric connection to last more than a few months is unrealistic. Quite apart from how exhausting it would become, it doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Limerence is the drive to form a pair bond tight enough to result in conception; it has no real role in making it last.”

This echoed something I told an ex who broke up with me after more than two years together because “we get along too well, you’re too nice to me.” We were compatible intellectually, physically, emotionally — but they said, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” When I asked what being in love meant to him, they described a pattern of unreciprocated obsession that lasted “until they blocked my number/stopped speaking to me.” That’s not romance — that’s limerence as compulsion.

Chapter 15 is even titled “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” but instead of exploring the emotional fallout of that statement, it focuses on infidelity and the vulnerability of limerent individuals to extramarital obsession. It’s a missed opportunity to unpack how limerence can sabotage healthy relationships — not because the partner is lacking, but because the limerent person is chasing a feeling that’s unsustainable.

In Chapter 16, Bellamy suggests channeling limerent energy into self-improvement. This reminded me of my ex’s cycles of intense infatuation — not just with people, but with hobbies. He would dive deep into culinary knives and sharpening techniques, then Afro-Cuban drumming, then pottery. These weren’t casual interests; they were full-blown obsessions. I can’t help but see a connection between limerence and adult ADHD — especially the dopamine-driven novelty-seeking, emotional impulsivity, and hyperfocus that characterize both.

Chapter 17 introduces a “recovery mindset,” reminding readers that “limerence is happening in your head” — that it’s the limerent person who makes the object seem special. Bellamy advises readers to “check your instincts,” avoid self-medication, and accept that you can’t “just be friends” with a limerent object. He encourages building a life of purpose, listing traits like honesty, self-awareness, openness to renewal, courage to face discomfort, an internal locus of control, decisiveness, and action orientation.

“Creating a life without limerence... may not be as flashy and exciting as the thrills of limerence, but it is a deeper, more profound contentment. Finding a purpose, a goal you care about, a vision of what your life could be like if you took control of your destiny, shifts you from a state of passive dependency to one of active motivation. Living with purpose means you stop depending on the LO for comfort, stop following their lead, stop letting their behavior dictate your mood.”

This is solid advice — and probably the book’s strongest section — but it comes late and without much psychological depth. Bellamy doesn’t explore how neurodivergence, trauma, or attachment styles might shape limerent behavior. Nor does he offer tools for people who are in relationships with limerents — those of us who are “too nice,” too stable, too real to compete with the fantasy.

In the end, Smitten is readable and occasionally insightful, but it left me wanting more. More research, more nuance, more empathy for the people caught in the wake of limerent obsession. It made me want to revisit Dorothy Tennov’s original work — and to seek out more rigorous writing on the psychology of love, obsession, and neurodivergence.

REVIEW: Smitten by Tom Bellamy

RATING: 2.5-3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2 stars)

I just finished The Ministry for the Future, and I have mixed feelings. It’s an ambitious book — sprawling, complex, and clearly the product of deep research and imagination. I applaud Robinson for tackling such a monumental subject: climate collapse and humanity’s response. But despite being lauded as one of the greatest living sci-fi authors, this book didn’t feel like science fiction to me. It’s more speculative policy fiction, with a dash of spy thriller and philosophical musing thrown in.

One of my biggest issues was the structure. The book felt like several overlapping novels crammed into one:

• A climate disaster narrative
• A geopolitical and economic reform manifesto
• A techno-utopian think piece
• A covert ops thriller with black organizations and assassination attempts

Each of these could have been its own compelling story, and I honestly think this would have worked better as a trilogy. The Children of Kali subplot, for example, was fascinating — a morally ambiguous look at eco-terrorism — but it felt underdeveloped in the context of everything else going on.

The short chapters that read like technology riddles or philosophical interludes were, frankly, useless to me. They broke the flow and didn’t add much. I found myself skimming them, wondering why they were included at all.

Then there’s the language. Robinson occasionally uses made-up or obscure terms like “stocktake” instead of “inventory.” Who says “stocktake”? Nobody. That kind of jargon pulled me out of the narrative and made the book feel unnecessarily academic or bureaucratic.

That said, some of the proposed solutions were genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking:

• Seeding clouds for rain or solar cover
• Deploying biological agents to disrupt animal agriculture
• Sabotaging fossil fuel-intensive industries like air travel
• Heavily taxing cement production
• Dismantling dying small towns and converting the land into wildlife preserves
• Reclaiming highways and turning pavement into gravel for use elsewhere

These ideas were bold and imaginative, and I appreciated the effort to think outside the box. But many transitions — like the shift from jet travel to hot air balloons — were glossed over. What were the trade-offs? How did that become viable? Similarly, the book hints at a global population decline but never quantifies it, which weakens the impact of the societal changes Robinson describes.

The Ministry itself is a compelling concept — a UN-adjacent body with moral authority but limited power. But its evolution, and the shadowy black ops subplot, felt like they belonged in a different genre. The espionage elements were gripping but disconnected from the rest of the book’s tone.

Ultimately, The Ministry for the Future is a book I respect more than I enjoyed. It’s full of ideas — some brilliant, some half-baked — and it’s clearly written with urgency and passion. But as a novel, it’s uneven, fragmented, and often frustrating. I’d recommend it to readers deeply interested in climate policy, geoengineering, and speculative futures — but not necessarily to fans of traditional sci-fi or character-driven storytelling.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

RATING: 2 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender (3 stars)

 I enjoyed this book as an audio book - and it did a fair job of covering the risks of falling for the "AI is inevitable" nonsense.  The authors do a great job of pointing out the real issues of using LLMs as a "one size fits all" in law, medicine, health management, journalism, art, academia, scientific research and other areas.  LLMs need to have better transparency and more "human in the middle" (a term I was waiting for them to use).  They authors do a good job explaining the topics but miss an opportunity to describe things like "Value Sensitive Design" and "Human Centered-AI." 

They mention that about 16 oz of water is used for every LLM prompt - but fail to dig deeper into the real impact on people in areas where data centers are demanding use priority over limited aquifer resources.  There is a quote about how some tech billionaire mentions that AI will be used to analyze x-rays and images.  While the authors mention that studies show medical imaging jobs are predicted to be one of the faster growing fields, they fail to tie together the two thoughts:  the tech bros WANT that business.  They want to take over that field and push people out.  The reality is that we need the "human in the middle" to ensure quality.  Recent studies of doctors lose the skills of reading imaging when they become dependent on AI, just like humans miss out on critical thinking tasks required in generating meeting notes or writing their own assignments.

The recommendations provided by the authors are not novel - and they are covered in other works on the topic I have read.  They also mention Cory Doctorow a lot, and it seems he supports an idea I have been trying to float whenever I talk about AI:  more task or topic specific small language models are needed. 

AI is hurting a lot of people's jobs and churning out garbage that nobody wants to read or look at.  Demand better from your employers, schools and companies that provide you software that you use for your day-to-day.  The authors tell people to opt out when they can - from using AI (even facial recognition at airports) - and mercilessly mock and call out bad AI generated content.

Not included in this book is my recommendation:  demand that businesses do better and provide transparency about the amount of natural resources consumed for every session, whether it is your search on Google, or using Co-Pilot to polish some copy in your memo.  This should be transparent and visible to end users, system managers (ie, in enterprise or academic settings) and aggregate impact should be visible to the entire world.  Companies all got on the green bandwagon over the last several decades and promised to improve their greenouse gas emissions and energy consumption but AI is leading them all in the opposite direction. 

People over profits, always!

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (4 stars)

Jennifer Ackerman’s "What an Owl Knows" is a compelling exploration of owl biology, behavior, and conservation. I’m so glad I switched from print to audiobook—Ackerman narrates it herself and does her level best to imitate the owl calls she describes throughout the book. It adds a layer of charm and immersion that print couldn’t offer.

The book focuses heavily on conservation efforts like banding, census tracking, and public education. Ackerman emphasizes the ecological value of owls and how dispelling harmful superstitions can protect them. In Serbia, for example, urban owl colonies are now protected by the community after extensive education campaigns. She also discusses the legal and practical challenges of caring for owls. In the U.S., people can get licenses to care for owls for educational or raptor use, but the government wildlife agency still “owns” and can “recall” the owl at any time. In England, it’s legal to sell bred owls, and after the Harry Potter films, demand surged. Many people adopted owls and later abandoned them, leading to the creation of owl-specific rescues for these human-habituated birds.

Ackerman touches on owl territoriality, migration, nesting, and mating habits. She mentions cannibalism among owl chicks—stronger siblings eating weaker ones, or a parent feeding a dead owlet to its siblings—but doesn’t go into survival odds. My bird expert friend, who has two owls, told me that the chances of a baby owl surviving its first year are incredibly low. For red-tailed hawks, it’s even worse: only one in five make it to their second year.

She also talks about training owls, including their use in the Harry Potter films, and compares their trainability to cats. My owl expert friend describes owls as “cat software, bird hardware,” which feels exactly right.

While listening to the book, I learned that in the jungles of Indonesia, people use owl hoots to communicate across distances. That night, I heard owl hooting outside my window, along with a strange whistle. Half-asleep, I thought it was human ne’er-do-wells using owl calls as code. I shouted out the window, “NICE TRY! There are no owls in this neighborhood!” As I did so, I woke up fully and realized—those were actual owls. I recorded the sounds and sent them to my owl expert friend, who confirmed it was a Great Horned Owl parent and baby, probably out hunting together.

Ackerman also weaves in folklore, like Athena’s association with owls and the Egyptian hieroglyph for the letter “M” being an owl. Throughout the book, she’s clear about what it means to rescue and care for owls, and how little we truly understand about how birds think. It’s a fascinating read that whets my appetite for more information about birds. 

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman 

RATING: 4 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (We'll Prescribe You a Cat, #2) by Syou Ishida (3 stars)

 I loved the first book, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, for its whimsical yet emotionally resonant storytelling. Unfortunately, the sequel didn’t quite live up to that promise. While the concept remains charming—a mysterious cat named Dr. Nikké prescribing feline companions to help humans navigate emotional challenges—the execution this time felt uneven and occasionally tone-deaf.

Much of the book’s attention is oddly focused on documenting cat poop and butt-sniffing, which detracts from the emotional depth of the stories. One quote from Dr. Nikké stood out for the wrong reasons:

“It’s no bad thing to be choosey about your cat, whether it be about its appearance or breed...”

This framing misses a valuable opportunity to promote fostering and rescue. Instead, it implies cats are interchangeable based on aesthetics or breed preference, which felt unsettling.

The first story arc had potential—a young woman with a distant, emotionally unavailable boyfriend is prescribed three purebred cats with distinct personalities. I expected a message about choosing companions (human or feline) based on emotional compatibility rather than looks, but the theme was never fully developed.

The second story, about an elderly man and his grandchild, was confusing but seemed to culminate in a shared mission to help neighbors find lost cats. The third story, featuring a jealous younger sister and a disconnected household, was more compelling. The prescribed munchkin cat helped bridge emotional gaps and reinvigorate family bonds.

The final story, centered on the older brother (a shelter worker), introduces a strange twist: Dr. Nikké appears in human form, borrowing the brother’s appearance. This creates confusion for the sister, but oddly, the brother doesn’t notice the resemblance. The mechanics of Dr. Nikké’s magical transformation are murky—he’s lethargic and locked in a pen, yet somehow projecting himself into the clinic. Is he dying? Exhausted? The ambiguity feels less magical and more inconsistent.

Overall, the book has moments of charm and insight, but it lacks the emotional clarity and thematic cohesion of the first volume. I’d love to see future installments embrace the realities of animal rescue and deepen the emotional arcs of the human characters.

REVIEW: We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (We'll Prescribe You a Cat, #2) by Syou Ishida 

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: "We'll Prescribe You A Cat" (3 Stars)

We'll Prescribe You A Cat is a collection of short stories—or so it seems at first. Each chapter introduces a new character, a new struggle, and a new cat. But as the book unfolds, the stories begin to interlace, revealing a deeper, interconnected narrative centered around the mysterious Clinic for the Soul.

The clinic itself is a marvel: it appears when you need it most, staffed by an imperious nurse and a delightfully silly vet who, instead of pills or therapy, prescribe cats. Not just any cats—the cat you didn’t know you needed. The kind that curls up in the hollow places of your life and fills them with warmth, mischief, and meaning.

The book never explains how the clinic works, where the cats come from, or why it sometimes disappears. And it doesn’t need to. The magic lies in the acceptance that healing can be whimsical, that transformation can arrive on four paws, and that sometimes the best prescription is a purring companion who chooses you.

If you’ve ever been chosen by a cat—or wished you would be—this book will feel like a warm, knowing nudge from the universe.

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida,  E. Madison Shimoda (Translator)

RATING: 3 stars