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I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin's podcast Happier. On a recent episode she shared a simple and free gift giving idea that I wanted to pass along. Gretchen's "Gift of Podcast" is a was to share your favorite podcasts with friends and family. On the Gift of Podcast website you can even download a certificate for giving the gift. She also shares details for how to listen on your iPhone, iPad, or Android, or using a smart speaker.

Here are a few of my favorites that I've been listening to lately:


Happier by Gretchen Rubin

Co-hosted with her sister Elizabeth craft, they discuss happiness and good habits.


Love to Sew Podcast

Cohosts Helen Wilkinson and Caroline Somos discuss garment sewing, the sewing community, and small business, including interviews with indie business owners and inspiring sewists.


Modern Sewciety Podcast

Stephanie chats with creatives in the quilting industry, sharing the latest tips and trends.


A Way With Words

A podcast about language and how we use it. Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett discuss changes in language, origins of odd phrases, and interesting tidbits.


Brains On! Science podcast for kids

An award-winning science podcast for kids and curious adults. Also check out their spin-off Smash Boom Best.


How I Built This with Guy Raz

Impressive and interesting stories on how people have built their well known companies.


I hope you enjoy these. And please share your favorite Podcasts in the comments below. Best of all, with just one shopping day until Christmas, giving the Gift of a Podcast will save you a trip to the mall. ;-)

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The In Our Own Words Quilt is a collaborative quilt that is the brainchild of Kim Soper of Leland Ave Studios. Back on International Women's Day on March 8, 2018 Kim put out a call for women to contribute a hand-stitched word of empowerment that describes them. Kim's word was RESILIENT.

I chose to participate and chose the word BOLD to describe myself. I was one of many women who contributed to the project. Kim shared the words that had been stitched and sent to her. I love seeing so many empowering words, stitched in the hand of the maker.

Photo used with permission from Kim Soper.

Kim finished the massive 112" x 112" quilt in time to submit to QuiltCon for consideration for the 2019 show and shared recently on Instagram that the quilt is headed for QuiltCon! I'm proud to have contributed to the project, I look forward to seeing it in person, and I'm so pleased to see so many friends on the list of contributors in Kim's post about the finished quilt.

What is your word of empowerment describing yourself?

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Yesterday I shared my Top Nine from Instagram. Another fun IG activity this time of year is Year of Colour. It's a web app for creating a graphic representation of the colors using throughout all IG posts in 2018. You can also get a report of the last month, last year, or custom period of your choice.

Once the initial report is generated, you can change the settings on the data to emphasize saturated colors, emphasize brighter colors, reload with a color of your choice in the center, order colors by time, rainbow mode, or play through which is a slide show mode. There are also two sliders in the settings which filter by significance and vibrancy of the colors. The report is described on the website as: "Each circle represents one of ten significant colours we've extracted from each image they posted in a year. The size of the circles indicates two things - how significant the colour was in the image, and how well liked it was by their followers."

Bottom line, this app is a color-lover's dream! I used many Year of Colour graphics from others as inspiration for color palettes in my newsletter. (Not a subscriber? Signup here.)

And now for the color! I set my sliders to about 80% on significance (the farther to the right on the first slider, the more circles show) and to most saturated color (left end of the slider) for vibrancy. Captions on each of the following five images show what mode created the image.

Emphasize Saturated Colors Mode
Emphasize Brighter Colors Mode
Center on Your Favorite Color Mode
Order Colors by Time Mode
Rainbow Mode

I particularly love the emphasize brighter colors and rainbow modes.

To compare 2018 above to 2017, the following image is the rainbow version of 2017. My favorite color was missing in my work last year!

Rainbow Mode 2017

You can view others' Year of Colour graphics at #yearofcolour and #yearofcolour2018.