I've been a bit of an evangelist for tonka beans for some time. I love the scent and the taste, and I don't agree with the FDA's decision to ban them from food. The Atlantic has an excellent article (The Tonka Bean: An Ingredient So Good It Has to Be Illegal) about the allure of tonka beans, and the [asinine] reasons they're banned from food in the US.

Unsurprisingly, several people reached out to me to say HEY NEW PENTAGON AMY, DID YOU SEE? I love you. You know me well. 

There are two kinds of people fascinated with the idea of finding shapes that can fill a two-dimensional plane: geometry professors, and quilters. What's weird, and sad, is that they aren't really talking to each other. I've corresponded with a few of them, and as far as I can tell, there are quite a few mathematicians who are working on these problems, but the number of quilters playing with the end results likely can be numbered on my fingers and toes.

My time in Portland marks the first time in my life living anywhere other than a humid subtropical climate. Relocating into a temperate zone has forced me to rethink my relationship with the sun, in ways both expected and not.

Octopus' Garden: complete!
by domesticat.

• Piecing: the swirls are hand-pieced, NOT appliquéd! Squares were machine-sewn.
• Quilting: on domestic machine
• Full data for this quilt: http://domesticat.net/quilts/octopus-garden
• Full photoset for this quilt on Flickr
• Created by Amy Qualls, of domesticat.net and Portland, Oregon
• Finished size is 256" around, so entered in the "Small Quilt" category

It's been a long time since I've talked on this site about Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, but if you follow me on social media (twitter, facebook, pinterest) it's become clear in the past couple of weeks that I've gotten to work.

In filmmaking terms, "pick-up" means fixing minor shots after the majority of a film has been shot. We're to that point on Pentatonic, my long-belated Penrose tiling quilt: