True Confessions

A friend told me she had a bad habit, and I replied, “Surely you have no bad habits.”

She answered sweetly with a gentle smile (because she is a sweet and gentle person), “I have exactly as many as you do.”

“Uh, oh.  You are in big trouble!”

Yes, I have a few bad habits.  Okay, I have many bad habits, but, really, I don’t want to make a comprehensive list.  How about if I confess to a couple?  

When I got my new car (as far as I’m concerned, cars remain “new” for eight to ten years), the back-up camera led to dizzy disorientation.  Once I adjusted, though, I discovered I like it.  Eyes on the screen, I shoot out of the garage zooming a delightful 16 feet.  It's fun!  (I always stop and look carefully before turning onto the adjoin pipe stem shared by four families.  I have a bad habit, but I don’t want to kill anyone.)   I’m waiting for a backwards-race, and then I’m so in.

I woke up at 4:00 A.M. the other morning.  4:00 A! M!  (This is not a bad habit, just bad luck.)  I spent the next three hours equally obsessively reading Beloved (although the nightmares it gave me were the reason I slept poorly) and obsessing planning a quilt (including digging out the colored pencils and graph paper).  Obsession over anything, or in my case, everything, is never a good habit, plus all that early-morning intensity used up my concentration quota for the day.  I didn't accomplish one of the things on the ever-expanding to-do list.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Instead I went to Costco (couldn’t find the ice cream because I was so tired), cruised through the mall (and later returned two items, wondering why I thought I should buy anything in a haze of exhaustion), and tried to pretend I was napping although I knew perfectly well I wasn't. 

I know it’s a bad habit to avoid doing the things that should get done, but, isn’t it amazing how much you can accomplish while avoiding those things?

At least that day I didn't propose to any young women.  This is the bad one, the really, really bad one.  I did not propose to a young woman that day, not once (and, no, it’s not what you think).  I have this bad habit of proposing marriage for my son.  It’s not that any of these women has met or will ever meet my son.  And it's not that my son isn’t perfectly capable of proposing to someone himself; I know that he is.  It's just that I meet these interesting and adorable young women.  One is an interior designer:   just think how gorgeous their home would look.  One is a ballerina:  lithe and long and lovely.  One is an intern applying for her residency in internal medicine:  I mean, a doctor for god’s sakes!  When I see them standing there all beautiful and smart and funny, out it comes, “Hey, would you like to marry my son?”  If he ever finds out, I am so dead. It’s not like mean to do it; the words just tumble out.  I have got to stop.  I have given myself a stern talking to, so we’ll just have to hope I’ve learned my lesson.  (BTW, just for the record, they laugh; they do not accept.) 

They say that confession is good for the soul but perhaps not so much for behavior.  In fact, if you smiled or laughed at any of this, you’ve encouraged me.  I’m blaming future sins on you.  OTH, I got the quilt planned and the yardage calculated.  I’m good to go.

Quilting Fever and the Zombie Apocalypse

It’s a sickness really.  What started out as acquiring a skill turned into a hobby turned into an obsession.  Let's face it, I can't help myself.  I’m never, ever without at least one quilt in some stage of development.  So even though I’m in the end stages of this queen-sized monster, I still picked up the cutest panel for a baby quilt when we were visiting my sister in Florida. 

I always look for fabric when I'm out of town because we have a dearth of quilting stores in town. There has long been one quilting store, but they prefer to serve people who take their classes, otherwise you may as well be chopped liver.  On top of that, they use only fluorescent lighting so it is almost impossible to select fabrics.  After the last time I was snubbed there, I vowed never return.  That left only the chain store where the fabric quality ranges from so-so to fall-apart. Recently a new quilting store opened up.  Hooray!  

Three days ago, my friend and I decided to check it out.  I was looking for fabric to coordinate with the baby panel, and she was in the planning stages of a quilt for her son.  After my choices had been cut and written up, the clerk mentioned something about zombie fabric.

My ears perked to attention.  When one’s daughter is a neuroscientist, the concept of something that eats brains is pretty darn exciting.  [Although if you read a previous blog post, you may recall that my Perfect Grandson Alan has informed us that, “Zombies don’t eat your brains; they just punch you in the nose.  (All Good Zombies Go to Devon, July 20, 2013.)]  I was revved:  zombie fabric! 

Unfortunately I’d used my turn with the stupid baby fabric, and I had to be nice to my friend as she began her design.  I tried to focus, but, hey, zombie fabric!  Once we’d finished with her pattern, my turn again!  There they were, bolts of the most adorable zombies you ever saw.  Since my friend is nicer than I am (hi, Deborah), she coached and coordinated to my heart’s content. 

Home I came.  The queen quilt lurked over my shoulder so I made a pact with it.  I’ll quilt on pink and green in the evenings, but my days are reserved for zombies! 

Now, what pattern?  In the store I was thinking squares and sashing, but when I got home, I remembered several years ago seeing on TV an off-kilter quilt block. What could be better for zombies?  Onto the internet I went.  I found a couple of examples of the finished blocks, but the actual pattern does not seem to exist.  That means each block will be a lurching experiment which is fine because that is absolutely right for zombies.. 

Brainsssss 
(While the outside of the block is square, 
I felt the zombie block needed to be askew.)

Once I decided on the pattern, I realized I was short on one of the fabrics, so yesterday I ran back to the store and bought more of it.  Yesterday evening while I was dutifully quilting the flower garden (Flowers?  Who cares about flowers?), I obsessed over the zombie pattern and decided to have the blocks sashed by a sort of green cabbage fabric and surrounded by walking zombies.  I panicked realizing I might be short on another two fabrics and could use a bit more security on a third.  That's a lot of pressure because you never know when hundreds of people will converge on the quilt shop and buy up all the fabric you want.  Noooo!

The thought of driving yet again to the quilt store again was a bit daunting, but still, a quilter’s gotta do what a quilter’s gotta do. 

The zombie apocalypse has begun.

Music to Keep You Warm

I quilt.  My Mom’s attitude about quilting was, you take fabric, cut it into little pieces and then sew those pieces together.  What’s the point?  I was well into adulthood when I began quilting; she was flummoxed.  I was obsessed. 

I almost always have a quilt going, and if one isn’t going, it’s being planned in my head.  My quilts aren’t intricate geometrical creations made by sewing billions of tiny triangles together.  I don’t have the patience.  Also, when I look too much patterning, it hurts my eyes.  I make relatively plain quilts.  I make a lot of throws and baby quilts.  (Hey, someone’s always having a baby, and if they’re not, well, they will soon).  That way my gratification comes faster.

I should mention, too, that I have a pretty basic sewing machine.  It doesn’t do fancy stitches; it’s lightweight; it doesn’t diaper the baby.  That’s okay because I am a fool for hand quilting.  I jumble up the pieced, pinned quilt in my lap -- if I don’t, Wumpus makes a nest out of it -- and stitch to alleviate my guilt from watching junk TV.  I’ll begin quilting and won’t stop until the skin on my thumb splits or my finger is bleeding from feeling the needle at the bottom of the fabric.  There’s a little blood on every quilt.

I don’t so much plan and execute quilts as I build them.  Like many quilters, I rarely work from a commercial pattern.  Instead, I take graph paper and sketch out a diagram.   I make one basic block.  I look at the block and find out that, much as I planned and measured, one edge is hanging over 1/8”, and has to be squared off.  For anything more than a nine-patch, I simply cannot do the math.  I mean, it all makes sense in my head, and I measure it out, but I still end up just a bit off kilter. 

Once I came across an entire geometry lesson plan based on quilting.  I can quilt, and I can do geometry, pretty much, anyway, but I can’t seem to do them together.  I study my finished block and realize that it will take me longer to figure out the correct measurements than to just make a pile of them as is and trim them.  Next, I sew the blocks together, and then, well, the center of the quilt is done. 

My current work in progress is a music themed quilt for my daughter-in-law who is a sweetie.  The central blocks are simple enough:  three bars sewn to longer rectangle.  I drew it up and measured out 1/4” seam on each side.  I cut some pieces and sewed them together.  Yup, the long rectangle hangs over 1/8”.  Sheesh.

The variety of available music fabric was limited, but, between the store and the internet, I finally found what I liked.  The black blocks you see below are actually black with gray clef signs.) 

The author notices issues with inner-block orientation.
This means picking out the seams, but it is difficult
because Wumpus has taken up tenancy.
(The author hopes that by referring to herself in the third person,
she can distance herself from such a stupid, STUPID mistake.)

 My plan was asymmetrical with a piano keyboard running down the right side, but when I finished with the squares and laid it out, there was too much black and white.  Blah  There are some people -- perhaps most quilters -- who can visualize the entire thing before they begin.  Me, not so much, and when I do “see” the patterns, I can’t, as already established, do the math.  That leaves me here, with part of a quilt and a vague idea of how to brighten it up. 

I have some raucous white fabric with black and red notes.  I was originally going to use it where I put the black blocks, but it is really frenetic, and when I made up the sample, well, it was just too noisy.  I think of it as rock and roll fabric while the rest of the quilt is lyrical composition and nature sounds.  (Hey, this is inside my head.  I can categorize any way I want to.)  There’s that splash of bright red, and that will make a nice 3/4” border between the center and the keyboard, but when I lay it out, GAAA!  The red is a good idea, though, so I thumb through my stash.  Ah, I’ve got some red swirls; I like swirls for music because music swirls.  In we go. Then the quilt needs to be longer, but I’m sick of those blocks.  Should the birds go on the bottom instead of the blue?  No, too dark.  Keep thinking.

When the top is entirely pieced, I’ll buy enough batting plus a bit more because I CANNOT do the math.  I’ll pin it and then agonize over a stitching pattern.  Until I get there, I have no idea what will look best.  I so admire people who plan a quilt, buy the exact amount of fabric and sew it up.  How do they do it?  It’s a mystery. 

Quilting’s like life, though.  (Bear with me for a minute.)  We start with a few pieces, put them together and then build on from there the best we can, trying to make pretty patterns out of what we’ve got.  It’s a construction project, and even if the edges aren’t quite even, with care, we make something that warms us.  With luck, it’s close to a piece of art.  It would be easier, though, if we could do the math.

The finished quilt top.  All the notes at the bottom

are music in the air waiting to come into your head.

The backing is pure rock 'n roll.

Defining Patience

I quilt.  Yes, as my mother used to say, I cut up pieces of material and sew them back together again.  They say that a quilter has the patience of a saint.  I'm not a saint.  I race through the piecing -- the cutting and sewing of pieces of fabric into the pattern of the quilt top.  At first I cut and pieced by hand piecing which took forever and was not very accurate, but when I learned how to use a rotary cutter, it was a new world.  Now I wheel off slices of fabric at warp speed and sew them together by machine.   I can get a quilt top put together in a couple of days.

Once it’s pieced, the top becomes the top slice of bread in a sandwich.  Batting is the filling, and the bottom slice is a wide, long piece of fabric backing.  The sandwich is quilted together by stitches in a pattern.  Some people do that part by sewing machine, and I have, on occasion, done that.  I don’t have a very good machine, though, and I don’t like to sit hunched over it.   

Instead I quilt by hand.  Yes, I sew every last stitch by hand, and, believe me, there are a lot of them.  I quilt when I’m doing something else like watching TV or, well, TV is about it.  The show takes up most of my attention, and the sewing goes on slightly below the conscious level.  You get into it like you do with any repetitive activity, and I’d name one if I could think of it.  If you think about how much time it will take to make even a baby quilt or how many single stitches you have to take to complete a quilt, you’ll never begin one.  If you just work on it without focusing, well, it’s like that proverbial march of a thousand miles:  it happens one step -- one stitch -- at a time.  Quilting does not take the patience of a saint, my friend says, it takes the patience of an idiot. 

First, you slide the needle in and out, easily, smoothly.  You use a very small, slim needle, and the challenge, to the better quilting, is to see how many stitches you can collect on the needle before you pull it through the fabric.  The quilt I’m currently working on is a collection of appliqued kitties separated (or joined, depending on your viewpoint) by sashing with little black birds on it, shades of Heckle and Jeckle.  The whole thing makes me laugh.

I usually quilt in straight lines or a wandering sort of bee’s path.  For the first time, however, I have a quilt that lends itself to using a stencil I bought long ago and have stored for years in the bottom of the closet.  The stencil is the kind of old fashioned pattern I’ve long wanted to use.  A wreath of leaves encircles the backing beneath each kitty, and vines travel up and down the sashing. 

I have to admit I like the pleasant mental fog of watching Judging Amy reruns while my needle goes in and out, up and down.   I try to solve Inspector Morse's  latest murder while the leaves take form, the circles complete themselves.  It’s not a quick process.  You have to be stubborn. 

But the patience of a saint?  The patience of an idiot?  Oh, dear, are those the only choices? 

From There to Here

I’ve been here two weeks now and am adjusting to Life in the Slow Lane or, more accurately, Life in the Short Lane. 

I had a couple of errands to run the other morning.  I walked out of the apartment at 10:00.  Before getting in the car, I walked to the office and dropped a letter in the mail slot.  Next I went the 15 feet to the car and drove to the credit union where I got some cash.  I drove to Costco and returned a golf shirt Steve thought he might have liked but didn’t.  While I was there, I walked up and down a couple of aisles.  I got back in the car and returned home.  It was 10:27. 

Yes, it took me about as long to do those things as it has taken for me to write about them.  Heck, I’m from Northern Virginia; I’m used to scheduling more time for leaving the neighborhood!

And another thing, sales people here are chatty.  And helpful.  What’s up with that? 

Half an hour to run errands.  That leaves a lot of time left over.  I’ve scheduled an activity four days a week (Monday, Zumba; Tuesday, yoga, Wednesday, quilting; Thursday (evenings, bleh!),  ballet.)  The rest of the time, I’m becoming too well acquainted with daytime TV.  My kitty quilt squares, however, are coming along like a house afire. 

I do have a friend.  Before I left Oakton, even before I met her, I knew she’d be my New Best Friend.  Her husband started work at the same time Steve did.  Yes, I do realize that she’s my friend because she’s desperate, too, but we have a nice time going about together:   lunch, the craft store.  We’ve seen a chocolate shop we want to try next week.  There are other friends out there, right?  I mean, I can’t be destined to a year of Martha and Dr. Oz.  *screaming into the void,* Right?  Because if I am, you, dear reader, are going to die of boredom right along with me.  I’m takin’ ya down with me from there to here.

Quilting the Cat

I am planning a quilt or, more accurately, trying to plane one. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of weeks now, but I’m not getting very far. I saw one design I liked, but it had a zillion little 1 ¼” squares and triangles, and, while I’m a good enough piecer to do it, I’m far too lazy. (I know that lazy seems the antithesis of a quilter because a quilt is fiddly and, as an old friend once commented, “takes the patience of an idiot,” but there are quilts, and then there are quilts.)


My real problem is that my eye for quilt patterns isn’t good. I want to see a pattern made from the very fabric that I choose. When you think about quilting patterns, you have to think in geometrics, and sometimes it's easier than others.

This particular fabric is quite unusual. I bought it in a little quilting store off the central square in Healdsburg in the Sonoma Valley. ( And, no, I wasn’t drinking at the time.) It is bright yellow and has black and white polka dotted chickens with bright red combs and legs running around on it. It makes me laugh and will be a great feature fabric. Not only that, but I had and also found coordinating fabrics in record time. I’ mean, we’re talking within a couple of weeks here whereas the other fabric I just finished finding the coordinating fabrics for, I bought a good year ago.

You'll have to mentally adjust for a slightly blurred, brushed effect to the fabric which is cat hair. I’ve got it spread out on the guest bed in my office where Elaine likes her afternoon snooze. You can see that she's a calico, so no matter what intensity or color the fabric, she has fur that will show up. 

The quilt isn’t going to really be a quilt, but a table topper for the kitchen table. I’d like it to have a sense of movement to it like the chickens are running madly around (which they seem to be to me). It will probably involve black sashing. I don’t have to use all the fabrics (the red flowered and green leaved pieces are from my stash and are under ¼ yard). The thing is, there’s no getting more of the chickens, and once it’s cut, it’s cut. Should I cut it in squares? Or in diamonds? (Yes, they’re the same shape, but they differ depending on which position is “up.”) Octagons would be good, but without a commercial pattern, I think that is beyond my skill level. I mean, the first step would be to use that graphed quilting plastic and draw and cut out a symmetrical octagon. Yeah, for me that’s difficult.

Here’s the great thing about planning a quilt. It’s something to think about when you either (a) have nothing else to think about or (b) have something else you want to avoid thinking about. Right now I’m working on a sequel to my paranormal thriller (Jaguar Sees: The Lacquer Box ( http://amzn.to/hUuFdS ). ( Please buy it if you haven’t already, and make all your friends buy it, too. I used to be too proud to flatly ask people to do things like this, but this is the low to which authorship has brought me.) Anyway, I’m working on the sequel which tends to be an addicting, obsessive activity, and planning a quilt is a great mental relaxation. Or vexation, I’m not sure which.
Anyway, I’m open to all ideas about quilt patterns. Also, come to think of it, all ideas for plot twists. Feel free to Comment.