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.

MAKE A block

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: