Life is Short (2021)

What started as a temperature quilt—like so many I’d seen before—turned into a record of heartache, grief, love, loss, and joy.

A life-changing year

At the end of 2020, I had decided I would make a temperature quilt similar to ones I’d seen online, but as with most things, I wanted to put my own twist on it. So, I not only represent temperature, but I also represent weather conditions with the fabrics I’ve chosen for each block. 

Little did I know that 2021 would be such a life-changing year. I experienced the death of my big brother, an uncle, and my dad all before the middle of March.

In July, my nephew died by suicide.

Then, a girlfriend I’d known since 2nd grade died suddenly.

I discovered I had an uncle—my mom’s little brother—and we shared the same birthday. I was planning to meet him early 2022, and we were just getting to know each other when he died right after Thanksgiving.

And then my better half’s mom had a massive and debilitating stroke on Christmas Eve night.

What started as a weather quilt became a journal—in fabric.

“Reading” a block

The fabrics in each block indicate aspects of the weather and temperature for that day.

Embroidered embellishments that appear represent specific events that happened on that day.

Squares represent weather, circles represent temperature.

  • CLEAR

    Here comes the sun! These were days that were defined as “sunny” according to the weather app I was using.

  • CLOUDY

    Partly cloudy, mostly cloudy, if it was a gray day, it got a gray block.

  • FOGGY

    These were days where there was significant fog at some point during the day.

  • RAIN

    If it was more than a drizzle, a block got a bluish gray background.

  • THUNDERSTORM

    If there was an especially bad storm, the background is as black as the sky likely was that day.

  • SNOW

    If there was snow this day—not light, not heavy—the block was white.

  • LIGHT SNOW

    If there was light snow, I chose a print fabric that was mostly white to represent the contrast between the snow and the rest of the world.

  • HEAVY SNOW

    On those days when we got a LOT of snow, I chose snowflake fabric—what else could I have gone with?

  • Purple

    -10 to -6

  • Red Violet

    -5 to -1

  • Violet

    0 to 4

  • Blue Violet

    5 to 9

  • Blue

    10 to 14

  • Cerulean

    15 to 19

  • Turquoise

    20 to 24

  • Aqua Blue

    25 to 29

  • Aqua Green

    30 to 34

  • Blue Green

    35 to 39

  • Green

    40 to 44

  • Spring Green

    45 to 49

  • Yellow Green

    50 to 54

  • Chartreuse

    55 to 59

  • Yellow

    60 to 64

  • Golden Yellow

    65 to 69

  • Orange Yellow

    70 to 74

  • Yellow Orange

    75 to 79

  • Orange

    80 to 84

  • Orange Red

    85 to 89

  • Red

    90 to 94

  • Blue Red

    95 to 99

  • Magenta

    100 to 104

  • Fuschia

    105 to 109

Make your own block

Using the form, pick a weather condition, high and low temperature for the day and then click the button to see what a block would look like for your selections.

Note: temperatures below -10F and above 110F cannot be represented at this time. In practice, I had decided that anything colder would use white fabric, and anything hotter would use black. However, thank goodness, it never came to that in 2021.

Weather: