Let me introduce you to my bicycle. She’s a 1972 Schwinn Breeze, manufactured in our very own Chicago, Illinois. The Schwinn catalog will tell you her color is Burgundy, although I like to describer her as Raspberry, pronounced razzz-berry (sounds so breezy, right?). She was a gift from a long-ago boyfriend, and while he didn’t stick around, she found a place on display in my apartment. I was initially attracted to her glitter handlebars, and the two-tone seat sealed the deal.

I have a love/hate relationship with this two-wheeled beauty – she’s a bit slow, very heavy, and loves to run out of air. Maybe a few of those things could be fixed, and she’d certainly look heavenly with a wicker basket and streamers at the end of those magnificent handles, but while she’s on winter hiatus, let’s just leave her be. She’s resting up for summer, where she will make her way to various Brooklyn beaches, fending off catcalls from hipsters whizzing by on their fixed gears.

Winter hiatus. Or you could call it winter hibernation. It’s the few weeks each year I take vacation from work to stay in the city to explore, rejuvenate, get inspired, and make things. The quilt in the background is my most labor-intensive yet, totaling exactly 2,808 pieces, 13 men’s dress shirts, and almost a hundred hours (so far!). It will be a few months until I finish putting all the layers together, and make important decisions such as, “What should the back look like? What color should the quilting thread be? And the binding…?” After finishing the patchwork last night at 3am, I’m looking forward to taking on some smaller endeavors in the meantime.