Winter break is over. Today my family returned to school and work leaving me alone in my studio, to iron, snip, stitch, contemplate, and make small talk with the dog and the radio (one only listens, one only talks). I remember this day last year, the remarkable quiet of my house, the unfinished, uncertain quilt I was to resume work on, the prospect of sitting for the day, these were all daunting, depressing realities. Maybe its my swinging moods, a day with less cloud cover, my new studio window, or hopefully, possibly me growing more comfortable in my artist skin, but today those same things ring like small bright bells in a welcoming entry way. Comforting to think that these circles I’m sewing, that often leave me imagining myself in an endless loop around an unchanging track, may actually be shifting slowly outward into something new.