If you’re just joining us for the New Puzzle Pattern Contest, scroll down to Day 1 for instructions.

Yes, you may still submit answers to earlier puzzles. All entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (Alaska time) on August 6th, but you may submit any entry anytime. So, technically, you can have a puzzlefest on August 5th, solve all the puzzles at once, and submit your answers for chances to win.

I wouldn’t call this a “power passage,” exactly, but while reading Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver (yes, I’m still reading it), last night I took note of this sentence on page 170:

So much detail goes unnoticed in the world.

It is, of course, true, and I think it is one of my missions in life to try to notice those generally unnoticed details and to somehow appreciate all the ones I miss.

Yesterday, on our way to lunch, we were noticing and pointing out to each other various and sundry details: the shape, color, and size of a mushroom; the way cloud shadows moved across a valley; the bright orange lichen that looked like spray paint on the rocks; a frog in a puddle.

Mike and I share seemingly inconsequential details like this all the time. When he’s not here, I collect them–actually keep lists of them–to share when he calls or returns. I think this appreciation for details is one of the things that ties us together.

I also think that needleworkers have a good sense of details and an appreciation for them. We’re all about that little extra something that makes a piece of needlework special. I love noting little details in patterns that can be isolated and used by themselves or rearranged with other details.

So here’s to details. And for details about today’s New Puzzle Pattern Contest clue and puzzle link, hop on over to Inside Number Twenty and check in with Monique.