Helen Kelley | loose threads

    Hands
    Off!

Bill has fixed my computer. In his past life, my husband Bill once had the official title of "control engineer." Translated into English, it means that he loves to figure out what makes electrical things work.

Instead of reading the directions that come with equipment, he enjoys finding things out on his own. We have a TV-CD-DVD-tape-FM/AM radio-VCR-speaker arrangement in the living room that would be the envy of other control engineers. All of this is fastened together with an assortment of cables and switches and topped with a set of rabbit ears that dip and curtsy with the turn of several knobs. I never touch this setup. It terrifies me.

It is in Bill's nature to play with electrical equipment. My computer was fine and didn't need help, but Bill fixed it. It's a nice, simple machine, and I only ask it to send and receive email, do a bit of word processing, play an occasional game of solitaire, and once in awhile, make a foray onto the Internet. By computer standards, these are pretty simple tasks, and it was performing well. It didn't need fixing.

Last night, however, Bill said, "What do you think of this? You can have a forest or a mountain." My usual screensaver, a picture of a lovely cloud formation, was gone.

"I like my sky," I replied. "Put it back."

This morning when I turned on my computer, the screen was navy blue. I clicked a few buttons. My solitaire game was backed with a forest green, so dark it looked as if it were twilight in an abyss. My Internet connection was a mustard yellow.

"Put it back," I said again.

"I will," he said, which usually means, "sometime." He seemed fairly unconcerned. He had, after all, only changed the color.

Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley- patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley- patchworks.com.

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I make very quick trips to collect my maroon-colored email.

Color does amazing things to people's hearts and minds. It can cheer us, refresh us, uplift us, make us feel safe and trusting. Never, though, have I had such a good example of the distress that color can cause. While I usually like dark colors, I cannot work among them. It's as if they smother my creativity.

I see quilts that people make in dark hues of midnight blues, murky golds, deep dark reds, and purples like twilight settling in, and while I find these quilts dramatic and exciting, I could never, ever, make one. If you are someone who likes that strong palette, you will wonder what my problem is. You might be bewildered by my quilts, full of bright reds, peaches, lilacs, and yes, sky blues. My quilts might strike you as gaudy, whimpy, or unimaginative.

It would be interesting to compare the stashes of other quilters, the ones who make bright, chrome-colored quilts, the ones who use soft-dusky colors, and the ones who prefer soft, spring flower colors. I'll bet you will find as great a variety of people as you will find colors and quilts.

©HK 2005