Janice E. Kirk

Artist & Author

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 6. Plant Cover: Going, Going, Gone?

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  Douglas Fir Embroidery Decorates My Sabbatical Story Quilt That sound, an other-worldly whushhh filtering from the tops of the pines—it stopped me in my tracks. A flood of memories took me back in time to other winds, other trees, mountain trails. I was once again on the trail around a distant Blue Lake hearing […]

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 5. Plant Communities: Let Me Introduce You

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Embroidered Desert Sun My Sabbatical quilt story continues. We spent the spring months in the Southwest deserts, both high and low. Lots of sunshine, lots of burning sun prompted me to embroider three different versions of the sun on my quilt top. For this one I used overlapping wave stitches that radiate from the center […]

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 4. Death Valley Plant Communities

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Continuing from previous blogs, here’s another story to go with my Story Quilt that I stitched together and embroidered during Sabbatical year in 1976-77. One major goal of the Sabbatical was to see the low desert during the cool season. In early spring of that year, we headed south. Death Valley was our first stop, […]

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 3. Travel Bug

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The travel bug? We certainly had it. Stepping away from our jobs, schools, and daily routines for a whole year, we reveled in the freedom of the open road during our Sabbatical campout in 1976-77. It was only natural that one of my first quilt blocks should become haven for an embroidered travel bug. Mostly […]

The Quilt & the Creation. Pt. 2. The Plan

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  The best year of our lives we roamed a huge area—the six Southwest states—but we traveled it in pieces, a rather haphazard approach if we are talking about patches of the natural quilt I mentioned in my last Blog. I compared the western landscape to my homemade story quilt with embroidered quilt pieces, reminders […]

Nature Notes. Marmot Springs. Part 2. The Gift of Pure Water

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    In my previous Blog, I tell how my family and I found the perfect place to camp in the Warner Mountains of California. It was an old-time site ready and waiting for us. We settled in and felt right at home for ten days. We hiked up each side of the canyon, looked […]

Nature Notes. Marmot Springs. Part 1. Camping in Eden

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  One springtime we wandered into the Warner Mountains of NE California. Looking for a campsite we parked the truck near a marshy pond just off the main road. We walked the dirt track that followed a small branch of East Creek. Beaver-chewed aspen marked the waterway; early wildflowers nodded; aspen whispered as we passed. […]

Nature Notes. The Mouse that Howled. Part 2. Waiting for a Spooky Howl.

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View from Lava Beds CA Juniper Sagebrush Country From the files of Donald R. Kirk: Part 2. In my previous Blog I introduced the grasshopper mouse who climbed on my shoe while I was seated at a campfire in a Warner Mountains juniper–sagebrush life community. The grasshopper mouse is very different from an ordinary mouse. […]

Nature Notes. The Mouse That Howled. Part 1. A Mouse at the Campfire.

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View from Lava Beds CA Juniper Sagebrush Country From the files of Donald R. Kirk: Part 1. A Mouse at the Campfire No moon tonight. Camped near a creek in an open juniper forest, our fire is a low glow of deep red embers. An infinity of stars sparkles the night sky. The four of […]

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