Early voting for the 2026 midterm election started yesterday in Texas and quite a few more states. Charles and I voted this morning. My fellow U. S. Citizens, have you voted yet? If so—yay! If not, look up where your polling place is and when it is open, decide when you are going to vote, and do it.
But you might worry that your vote won’t matter. Well, of course it matters!
In rural Texas, a candidate can be elected to office by a one-vote margin. Let’s say seven people vote in a two-candidate race for a position on the local schoolboard. When one candidate gets four votes, that candidate wins—by one vote. It happens. Never assume your vote doesn’t matter, even if you don’t live in rural Texas.
When a candidate wins by a great majority, we traditionally refer to that win as a “landslide.” In the late 2010s, “snowflake” was a name used to describe people who cared about our beautiful Earth, and about the health and rights of others. Poor snowflakes—so delicate, so liable to melt in the slightest puff of breath.
But when enough snowflakes move together, they create avalanches. An avalanche is like a landslide, only it is made of snow instead of mud. That is what this quilt, Snowflakes Create Avalanches, is about.
The crocheted snowflakes in this piece were made by my mother, Anna Wirth Thompson, by me, and by unknown crocheters.
Snowflakes Create Avalanches was finished in 2019. Techniques used were patchwork, quilting, crochet, and embellishment. Materials used were cotton fabric and thread, buttons, and beads.
