Frustrations In Fabric

I took my pile o'charm squares (that I showed a couple of posts ago) and sorted the browns and neutrals into a "coffee and cream" theme. What else would you do for a friend you call C is for Coffee? But it was too blah. I needed something to pop it out. Something I had a lot of. (Turns out that not as many people participated in the brown and neutral months of the swap. Without another color C is for Coffee's lap quilt wasn't going to cover her lap!) I thought about what our coffee dates are about - how we celebrate our families and life triumphs together, how we dream, how we chase the blues away by being friends and talking. As I was thinking my hands were sorting out the aqua and blue squares. Hmmm. Ok. That looks kind of cool! Then I started making nine patches. I love nine patches the way I love log cabin squares and flying geese. They are the epitome of the traditional quilt look in my mind, but you can do so many interesting things with them.

Here is a fantastic quilt blog I found where I got the idea for what to do with my nine patches (i.e. how to slice them and reassemble them). She does a MUCH better job of the step by step documentation. I got so excited about cutting my squares up that I forgot to take pictures.
<---Here is the layout I used. It's sort of random but it's also symmetrical. So far so good! (Well except that several of the charm squares I most wanted to use were 5 3/4 " instead of 6". A couple were bizarrely cut on the bias instead of square on the weave. I guess whoever was cutting lined her ruler up with the print and not the actual fabric? That is the problem with a charm square swap. Not everyone is on the same page. One of the ancient ladies in my guild swap cut all of her charm squares with scissors and templates. Forty squares every month. It probably took her the whole month to do it! She doesn't trust rotary cutters. We all have our own quirks, don't we. I try to be compassionate about it. Those squares I wanted to use so badly? I think I'll make a coaster out of one of them to give with the quilt.)
This is what the top looks like all assembled and hanging on my makeshift (<---ha ha ha - the first time I typed that I left out the 'f'!) design wall. (Please ignore the half built glass wall - it's a work in progress too.) I bought a very soft (plush even) backing fabric (totally forgetting that it wouldn't be quite so snuggly when it was quilted - er, still working on that.) I got the whole thing layered and sandwiched. (<-- Which I do with a Dritz basting gun because safety pins are too laborious to put in and obnoxious to take out in the middle of machine quilting; I gouge myself when I try to use straight pins the way Ruth McDowell does; and hand basting is NEVER going to make sense to me.)

I made a few muslin squares to work out my coffee mugs and cup designs on. I limbered up my fingers on those and threw in some bonus practice stippling. I laid out my pictures, made my chalk marks. Perfect. Everything was set. I was ready to machine quilt! I love machine quilting. Rather, I did. This morning it has been a mess of broken threads, tangled bobbin stitches, and deformed shapes that don't even qualify for my beloved "folk art" label. I am so frustrated I want to scream. It is probably something to do with my bobbin tension, but I'm sick of trying to figure it out and too scared to muck about with it too much for fear of ruining all the adjustments. I am out of patience for the ratio of three minutes of stitching to 8 minutes of detangling and rethreading. I'm tired of switching thread colors based on which one works best in the machine instead of which one works best with the design. Grrrrr. I'm taking a coffee break to try to get in better space. Do you think they make a "Zen Patience" flavor creamer?

Thank You Veterans!

I am grateful for anyone who has ever served our country. But I'm also whiny because the Princessa and I were counting on our Netflixed disk arriving today - which it did not because there is no mail service. Instead I went fabric shopping. I have five - count them - FIVE quilt projects I'm in the middle of. Er, well to be honest, one is at the middle stage the other four are at the "Oooh this fabric is pretty and fun" stage. One is getting sandwiched and chalked tomorrow. <--That is assuming I can lift my arms tomorrow. Bet, Linus, and I are doing this crazy thing called the 100 Push Ups Challenge and I did 46 of those suckers today. Ouchie kabowchie. However sore, floppy, noodle arms or not - this quilt is the one that has to be completely done, washed, dried, and wrapped up with a pretty bow next week for one of my dearest pals C is for Coffee. Send me some good quilty vibes! Peace.

Charming Day

I have a quilt to make for my dear friend (C is for Coffee) whose birthday is right after Thanksgiving. I've wanted to do one for her for years and this is the year. She and her family are driving 500 miles (and bringing three of our children with her) for the holiday. I want to do something extra special for her. The parameters are that I have two weeks and must not buy any new fabric. Hmmmmm. Here's where the pile o'charm squares comes in!

Also on today's slate - a haircut. First time since June! Exciting stuff. Still, a post's a post, right? Peace.

Worst Quilting Experience EVAH

I was sure I'd have some quilty goodness to post this morning. Linus and Bet gave me a quilting class as a present MONTHS ago. They wanted to hook me into the quilting community - get my art sparks going and help me meet creative folks. The original class didn't fill up so it was postponed (twice) and finally held yesterday. I was so looking forward to it! Improvisational art quilting. What could be better?

Well, a root canal for starters.

The people who work in the shop are fantastic. The fabrics are lovely. I had every reason to expect a high caliber teacher! I had a reasonable expectation of meeting pleasant, creative, quilt-artists (or at least wannabes!) I got there early. I was directed to a tiny room with about four women in it - boxes, lunch, machines cluttering up the little bit of table space. I was clearly there for the class but no one said anything to me as I walked in. They weren't saying much to each other either. There was no room for me or my purse (which is all I'd brought in until I scoped out the room). I went to the ladies room and came back. I tried to walk around the table and find space. No one moved their stuff or said a word. WEIRD!

I went back to the store front and asked if I was in the right place. The nice sales woman walked me back in to the room, pointed out the back door I could use to bring in my machine and then uncovered room for me at one of the tables. When I got back in the class room she was back out front - sadly. I set up my area in silence. Two other women came in and started setting up. I said hello to them as they came in and I guess that sparked something because the woman who turned out to be the teacher handed around a sheet of labels that had our names written on them. More silence but this time with the teacher schlepping some of her stuff here and there and then a minute or two of her ironing some ratty-looking scraps. Inspiring. (Not.) She eventually noticed that class was supposed to have started ten minutes earlier. She said, "I am _____ but I won't go into a long introduction. Here is some of my work. This framed piece is my most recent - about two years old. Here is my first quilt. I made it after seeing this book." She held up a Quilt National book - the cover of which featured a quilt just like the one she had made. She proceeded to show us five more quilts that looked the same only with uglier colors. She showed us a few small pieces and advised us to frame our work - otherwise people would only be willing to pay $5 or $10 for a pot holder size piece. She had a slow, whining, slightly huffing way of speaking. She sounded bored and ended every phrase in a dribbling off kind of way. She sat down and sewed a few strips of her fabric together - without saying what she was doing or why. She gave us random advice about "ironing" - it doesn't matter which side the seam is pressed to, keep your ironing pad close by, etc. She told us to work in larger pieces, not to worry about bias, or shape, or color other than to start with ten fabrics that "go" together. She told us not to waste our effort on cheapo fabrics and not to bother washing, "ironing", or folding fabrics because they would all get messy when we worked anyway. She sewed a few more seams. Then she said, "Ok. I wanted you to see how I worked. Let's get started." Then she stood up and stared at us. No instruction. No goal. No start point. No hints about design, balance, visual texture, color selection - nothing.

My classmates and I looked at each other and then back at her. The other ladies began tentatively pulling out the fabrics they had brought. One woman said she wasn't sure about colors or prints. The teacher said to use batiks because they were printed on both sides and had lots of colors. The lady blinked and waited for more. Receiving nothing, she was brave and asked specifically about the fabrics she had planned to use but now wasn't sure about. The teacher made a few bizarrely disparaging remarks like, "Well that orange isn't what I would ever use - but it goes well with this shiny fabric you brought. I stay away from shiny fabrics because they look cheap, but I guess you could go for a playful, juvenile look if you wanted to. It's up to you. It's your quilt." The teacher took another one of the students out front to "help" her pick out a few fabrics. I decided I could live without her help.

I almost just packed up and left right then and there. I talked myself into staying. I started randomly pressing, cutting and sewing together blocks of the fabrics I had brought. Fun enough. I like to play. At the very least - I'm spending time quilting with other women. I thought, "Maybe it won't be a total loss if I meet one even half-way pleasant fellow quilter." The woman on my right was older, stern, silent - except for her incredibly loud and numerous farts (OMG!), and had the ugliest collection of fabrics I have ever in my life seen. O-K. I turned to my other side. Reading her name tag, I struck up the following conversation:
Me: So Sherry, are you from here originally?
Her: Yes.
Me (after a pause to see if she'd say anything else): Do you belong to one of the guilds?
Her: No. I'm not a joiner. I'm not a social person.

So pleasant. Over the course of the next two hours, the only other conversation occurred when two of the ladies got in a fight over which scissors belonged to whom. "These are badly nicked. I take care of mine so these must be yours." "No, I keep mine sharpened and those are dull." "Well, I've never put tape on mine so these can't be mine. See this sticky spot here?" And so on. The next closest thing to conversation was when the teacher informed us all that she hadn't been able to make any money as a quilt artist and now sold plexi-glass clocks and worked in metal. Nice.

Absurdly, I kept thinking that surely once we got a few pieces together the teacher would discuss composition or design elements or embellishment techniques or SOMETHING. She didn't. With about a half an hour to go in the class, one woman asked what we'd be doing next week and the teacher said, "The same thing we are now." I just couldn't stand it any more. I lied and said I had to leave early to go get my children from school. I can't imagine going back next week. I have never been in a class before where I didn't learn anything. I kept waiting, hoping, desperately trying to get some tiny thing from the experience to make it worth the effort of having lugged my machine to and from the car - forget the $75 class fee. But it did not happen. Not even close.

The only speck of enjoyment I got out of the experience was talking to my kids about it afterwards. Havoc laughed so hard he almost fell off of his chair when I described the icky ladies at my table. The kids gave me sweet hugs and told me to look on the bright side. Next week I could stay home in my own studio and if the dogs started farting, at least I could make them go outside! Ah, the bright side.
Peace.

Pigskin Report, Thread Deficiency, And The Sports Physical From Hell

I didn't run or lift yesterday but I think I did some of everything else on my list! I'm sad to report that I'm still struggling to find a solid balance/peace about the looming court crap - but I've made enough progress that I can eat without throwing up. (Hey, it's a start!) In other news:

Football: (*Non-football freaks friends can skip this part.)
It was an ok day in football land because the Colts won even if the 'Skins and the Dolphins lost. I'll reserve my final verdict for after the Titans/Broncos game tonight. Chaos and I were jokingly trash talking this morning in prep for the game. One of us is going to be sad tonight (and I hope it's him!) :D The Patriots game was crazy. Havoc hasn't seen it yet because he can only stay up for the opening drive of the night games but we recorded it for him. What a happy boy he'll be. He was a tiny bit upset with me yesterday for forgetting to switch his fantasy football team around while he was with his grandparents. About five minutes after game time, we realized he still had Adrian Peterson starting. Oops. He tried to be comforted by his projected stats being a few points ahead of his opponent's, but he really, really didn't want to lose this matchup (and undefeated status). Never fear. The boy is still crazy undefeated. Tom Brady and Randy Moss (just the two of them) got him 70 points while his opponent's whole team got a total of 66 (their QB was Donovan McNabb). And Havoc still has a player - LenDale White - in tonight's game. He's three games and 150 points ahead of the next closest team in his league. He's the FF equivalent of an NFL rookie whose team wins the Super Bowl. I want him to enjoy it while he can because I don't know that he'll ever have a chance to dominate in FF like this again!!

Art/Quilting:
Here is a picture (in process) of my mermaid journal quilt page. She's my triathlon winning mergirl: my personal talisman for 2008. I've got a veritable goal trifecta - a finished novel, a full size art quilt and an olympic distance triathlon - all on my plate for 2008. She'll eventually have a medal dangling from her left hand and a bike tattoo on her right shoulder. This pic is her in her basic components (my drawing on the right and her fabric self on left). I based my cartoon of her on an antique woodblock picture. I practiced free motion quilting her on a mock up cartoon/muslin quilt sandwich last night, but I got sucked into football before I got to work on the real deal. (You can click the photo to see more detail. Her hair is awesome shiny, auburn/gold! And her tummy is white on white paisley. I had to layer her right arm to get the depth/texture I wanted. With only one layer - her bathing suit and hair showed through her skin. How weird would that be?) I get stuck sometimes with my lack of technical knowledge about quilting. I don't know if you're supposed to stitch the edges of applique before you make the quilt sandwich or after. Same with embellishments - should those stitches show on the back with the quilting or be hidden inside? I'm forever making it up as I go along and wondering what "real quilt artists" do. Eventually I'd like to be in a show so I suppose I should start finding these things out. It just seems I hit those decision points at ridiculous hours and I'm impatient to keep playing. I don't want to stop and wait hours (or days) to find out the "right" way. I want to keep going! On the other hand, I do value skilled work. I want my art to flow through my medium, not get hung up on crappy craftsmanship. And I don't want to waste my time trying to invent a way to achieve a look or texture that someone else has already figured out! Quilty dilemmas!



The other thing that gets me stuck is that I buy lots of fabric but not enough thread! I love thread. I don't know why I don't buy more of it. Oh wait - I do. It's because I spend all of my money on fabric. It's difficult to convince myself to pass up a fabric I love because the chances of it being there when I come back are slim. I have less urgency with thread. It will be there. In fact, that's the problem. It will be there, right on the quilt shop shelf instead of in my studio at 5 a.m. when I get the urge to quilt! I do the same thing with embellishments - I have hordes of beads and gorgeous fibers - but recently realized I didn't have the right (or for that matter, any) needles or threads with which to sew them! It will probably not surprise you to learn that I also have to force myself to buy fusible web and batting. I hate what that says about me - like I'm a superficial quilter who doesn't remember or value the un-glamorous quilty bits. Am I the Marie Antoinette of the quilt world? "Let them eat beads!"

Kidlets:
I took Mayhem back to the doctor to "finish" up his sports physical. We have been through an awful lot just to make it so this guy can play FRISBEE at school. (I realize that it is a sport and they do run around, but come on! It's not a high pressure, contact activity! It's FRISBEE!) Two weeks ago, Bet took him while I was out of town and he FAILED. He hasn't had an asthma attack (or so we thought!) for two years but at the doctor's he could not "pass" the peak flow meter test. He couldn't blow enough air out for them to be happy at all! I don't even have an inhaler for him anymore! I made him use Havoc's and we practiced (which was funny - "Come on, you can blow harder than that! What if that were your birthday cake? Huh? Don't you want your wish?") Guess what? When we got there today, they didn't make him re-do the breathing test! They gave him his own Rx for an inhaler, tested for hernias (he HATES that part), and stressed out about him not having his flu shot yet. (Sidenote: The boy is a shot magnet. Every time we go to the doctor's they discover some shot he needs. It's a little weird. It's also a hassle because the boy has no fatty parts in which to inject vaccine!) While we were waiting for the nurse to come stick him, he asked me if I thought he could have surgery and get a robotic finger when he grows up. (For anyone joining us mid-story - Mayhem was born without a pinky on his left hand and his left arm has it's own size and muscle/tendon geometry.) He began to talk about all the things he thought would be cool about having a robotic finger. I think he's been watching Inspector Gadget. He wants an all-purpose robotic finger: knife, scissors, file, toothpick, flame thrower, etc. The nurse came into the room just in time to hear me say, "I don't think they'll let you on the plane with your Swiss Army finger." She gave us quite the look. Mayhem was laughing too much to even notice the shot. AFTER insisting on him getting the shot and giving it to him, the nurse said, "Now, make sure to stay away from anyone with a cough or cold for the next two weeks, ok?" WHAT?! You'd think she could have mentioned that warning before the shot was given. The boy is getting on a plane tomorrow night along with a million and twelve other people traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. I was already worried about the mutant cold virus but NOW I have to worry that my kid is at risk from the common cold because we got him a shot to prevent him from getting the flu?! Ever feel like you can't win? I don't think I can talk him into wearing a mask, but maybe I could pre-soak all of his clothes in Lysol. Two-fold benefit there - wholesale germ slaughter and potentially cold-infested folks staying away from the kid who smells weird. What do you think? Anyone else have a better idea?

Peace.

Tri Fever

My studio is packed up. My books are packed up. My bike is packed (and shipped!) to NC already. Pretty much all I have left are my running shoes. Pretty much that's all you need to run. But did I run this morning? Noooooo. And why not? Because I didn't feel like it. And now that I do feel like it, it's raining. Yay for the rain. We needed it! Sad for me not to have run this morning when I had the chance.

In spite of not running, I haven't been completely useless today. I got myself fired up about the triathlon again. I plan on being one of the first to register for next year's event! I also found a great online workout tracker. I'm a logbook junkie. I can't train without a good log to write it down in. This time I'm training with friends from all over though - so an online workout log is ideal. It is interesting to me that very few of the athletes use the blog feature of the online log.

I also found two quilt guilds - one in Raleigh and one in Durham. Even more exciting than that, I discovered many art quilters in the area. Of course my favorite art quilter EVER is Hollis Chatelain and she is only about 15 or 20 miles from me (as best I can read the map!) Surely at some point, I'll find a way to take a class from her. (Rapture!)

What I Meant to Say... (Day 2)

Well - after asking VBGF for the score of the Stenglers game (because my brain apparently couldn't decide which to say first Bengals or Steelers) I realized that I'm still articulizing today. I've noticed that many writers I have heard speak in public actually suck at it. I've been writing like a mad thing for nearly a week which I think is wonderful but I'm beginning to worry about the long term side effects!
The weather here has been entirely too cold and wet to even think about running so I've been living in my cozy little office/quilt studio. I've been quilting (in my head) and writing (in real life.) For about a year those two were reversed. It is a refreshing change, but I realize that when I quilt, I talk to my project. (Oh please let other people do this too. Really it doesn't feel crazy when I do it!) I just chivvy this little corner there. I try different swatches of color on and ask my piece what it thinks. I have a long (and one-sided) conversation with my quilt in progress. When I write I am completely silent. My voice is crackly when my writing time's up. My brain is still locked into the form and picture of the words and my mouth doesn't move as quickly as my hands in delivering the words. This is the best explanation I can offer of my recent trend towards verbalating. In layman's terms - I think I've sprained my brain. Help!