Kmac Quilts

FRITZ FRIDAY: HIPSTER CAT VALENTINES

2012-02-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

Download your own hipster cat valentines!

FRITZ FRIDAY: IT'S NOT PRODUCT PLACEMENT, I JUST LIKE IT

2012-02-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: HIS EYES WERE ALWAYS HIS BEST FEATURE

2012-01-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: SNAZZY NEW OUTFIT

2012-01-20T13:59:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: SIMPLY FRITZ

2012-01-13T15:42:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY LITE: REAL TURTLES PROBABLY WORK BETTER

2012-01-06T19:02:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: FRITZ IS NOT A GOOD MOTHER TO HIS PIG BABIES

2011-12-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: MERRY FRITZMAS, EVERYONE

2011-12-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: OUTTAKES

2011-12-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

When I had the idea for Fritz Friday, I had planned to make it a wordless experience. I think sometimes a series of pictures without explanation can be more interesting than when everything is all laid out.

This means that sometimes I get photos that I really like, but don't quite work for whatever storyline I have rattling around in my head.

So here are some photos I like, but didn't quite make the cut the first time around, or weren't quite the photo quality I was looking for.

The first Fritz Friday was at Fritz's birthday party, and I am really happy that my friends are as into this kind of stuff as I am. It hasn't always been the case that I have a bunch of friends who would be willing to come over to be in a cat birthday photo shoot.

Fritz's favorite part of the whole day was when my friend Leslie and I were hanging the streamers. He was pretty intent on getting them down, mostly by biting through them. Unfortunately, every shot of him messing with the streamers turned out blurry.

Leslie took a cue from Cesar Milan, and had a pretty impressive hiss that had him retreating to the bathroom for the rest of the set up, after he'd knocked down the streamers one to many times.

At another point in the evening, Fritz got a sticker stuck to his whiskers. I couldn't stop silently laughing as he attempted to get it off. He kept trying to lick it off. It never seemed to occur to him to use his paws. Also in this photo is an excellent sketch of Fritz by my friend Nathan.

Poor guy just couldn't figure out how to get that sticker off his face. I included one of the photos in the original post, but I laugh and laugh at all of them.

I also got a lot of fun pictures out of the Fritz Friday that was a take-off of Being John Malkovich.

The movie poster for the film was my inspiration.

This shoot was interesting because it was when I first started getting an inkling of how difficult it could be to get Fritz to react to things the way I wanted him to. I shouldn't have been surprised, because, well, he's a cat. They aren't exactly known for their obedience and trick ability.

I got some fun photos of my friends goofing around with the masks. These photos didn't really fit the story that I was going for, but I like them all the same.

Patrick and Nathan are always game to indulge my weird ideas.

And so are my roommate Jeff, and his girlfriend Sam.

We actually got Fritz outside for a few of the photos, but he really, really hates going outside, which is made quite clear by the expression on his face. I think he looks like a miserable owl. This whole photo shoot was in the courtyard of my building, and while none of my neighbors said anything, we definitely painted a strange picture.

I generally try not to include the pictures where Fritz looks really miserable, but for some reason I think those are the funniest photos of all. Maybe it's because he stands outside my door and meows at 6 in the morning.

I couldn't stop laughing during this photo shoot, which is a common occurrence for me when doing this.

It was easy enough to cover up his miserable face. It helps when you have a mask that is a photo of his own face.

FRITZ FRIDAY: FAILED CHRISTMAS CARD PHOTO SHOOT, PART 2

2011-12-09T13:21:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: GET OUT AND PLAY

2011-12-02T22:48:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: HAPPY THANKSGIVING FRITZ

2011-11-25T17:12:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: FAILED CHRISTMAS CARD PHOTO SHOOT

2011-11-18T17:02:00.001-08:00

Isn't this supposed to be a quilting blog?

2011-11-17T12:15:00.001-08:00

This blog has been suffering a lack of quilting related material lately, so let me rectify that!

I've actually had this quilt finished for awhile. In fact, I took it to my guild meeting last month. That just shows how behind I am! It took me awhile to get pictures taken, but with the help of my friend Leslie, I got there.

I went through a lot of ups and downs with this quilt, but at the end of the day, it's warm and lives on my couch, so I'm happy about that. I don't see myself doing a lot of print fabric quilts in the future, but I'm glad I did it.

I decided to do a really simple quilting pattern, because while I like free motion quilting, I don't always like the way it feels in a quilt. I find that quilts that I've quilted very heavily can sometimes feel a little scratchy, which isn't ideal for a couch quilt.

The lines aren't perfect, but I'm not the kind to be bothered by it. I'd rather have a few crooked lines than take the time to set up a perfect grid. The back is an old sheet I found in a free pile. It's so soft and worn in. I love it. Someone else already did all the work to make the sheet awesome and cuddly.

It was great to have my friend Leslie get pictures, and she got a good shot of me peeking over the quilt. You can't see it, but I'm totally smizing.

FRITZ FRIDAY: WE WERE ALL CHILDREN ONCE

2011-11-11T17:21:00.001-08:00

FRITZ FRIDAY: EVERYONE LOVES THE BALL PIT

2011-11-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

Halloween!

2011-10-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

I know that it's real Halloween today, but a lot of Halloween action went down over Saturday night.

My friend Leslie's birthday is on Halloween, so she usually throws a really nice Halloween party.

This year, she and her boyfriend were both adorable David Bowies.

I decided to go as one of the pageant girls from Toddlers and Tiaras. I think it was almost more fun trying to figure out how to make the costume.

My friend Jennifer came as Mr. Rogers and took the whole get up a lot better than the real Mr. Rogers might have.

My friend Jeremiah had one of the more conversation worthy costumes of the night. I spent some time wishing the ostrich part of the costume wasn't made up a color so close to one on the flesh color spectrum.

My friend Amelia was a stellar 40's sailor, but unfortunately I didn't get a photo. I did get a photo of my friends Nathan and Patrick though, and they had great classic Halloween costumes.

It was a great Halloween. There were some really nice costumes, and if I'm extra lucky I'll get a trick or treater or two tonight.

The Halloween parties were fun. The next day we hit up a few vintage shops on Hawthorne, and I snapped some pictures of things that I thought might make nice applique someday.

Both items were a little out of my price range, but the photos will work just as well for my purposes.

And in Fritz news, I had some money left over in my bank account this month, so I took him in to get a rabies vaccine, which you need in Multnomah county to get your cat licensed.

I took my camera, because he, in the past, had a tendency of trying to jump places in the exam room and missing entirely, but he was on his game so all I got were a bunch of boring videos of him walking around.

He did like to explore the space though.

The vet assured me that he's not the first cat to get back there. I didn't tell her that I'd been taking pictures though, because while I am a weirdo that takes a lot of cat pictures, I didn't really want the vet to know it!

FRITZ FRIDAY: THIS COULD HAVE GONE BETTER, EWOK EDITION

2011-10-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Inspiration: Block 1

2011-10-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't really done a lot of applique before, but I'm not letting that stop me from throwing myself into a Baltimore Album style quilt.

The initial inspiration for this particular quilt is a dress that used to live in my dress up box as a kid.

I started looking at this dress through new eyes when I started quilting. I love the color palette. I also thought that it the floral elements would translate very well into applique.

Now, I can't be certain, but I think that this dress came from Mexico. It's been a long time since I talked to my mom about where this dress came from (I think the last time was when I was six and opening my dress up trunk at christmas time), so I can't be sure. The idea that it came from Mexico though, lead me to think that it might be nice to include some day of the dead imagery into a more traditional Baltimore Album quilt.

Here are some sketches for the corner and central block that haven't been translated to the computer yet.

I have finished one of the floral blocks though. Sort of. I'm going to use the raw edge applique technique, as I am a beginner to applique, and this method seems the easiest.

Here is the refined sketch:

And here is the "finished" block. I can't wait to start the next one!

My friend Suz asked me if I would be doing this as a sort of quilt along. I'm not sure if I have the type of blog that would support a formal quilt along, but I am happy to share this pattern if anyone is interested.

I created a pdf that has templates for all the pieces, as well as an alternate shape for the leaves. This is my first time creating something like this, so if you do happen to use it and have any comments or questions, please don't hesitate to contact me! I should add that the block itself is 20.5 x 20.5 unfinished, so it should end up at 20 x 20 finished.

Download the PDF here.

p.s. I took Fritz to get a rabies shot yesterday (to prevent, not treat!) and the poor guy put on a really brave face.

I love that you can see his teeth when he sits like this.

Frustration

2011-10-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

I never knew exactly what day my mom's birthday was. I knew it was around this time of year, but I could never remember if it was on the 22nd, or the 23rd. I would usually call my mom on the 22nd and just sort of feel her out. I'd ask her what she was doing that day, and if she mentioned birthday plans I knew I had the right day.

Now that she's gone, I don't always notice that her birthday has come and gone (it was the 22nd by the way). Some years, I wouldn't even remember that it was her birthday until I started thinking about what do do for my own birthday, which is in a few weeks.

This year though, I was thinking about her a lot. I go through phases with it.

It's been a little over eight years, and lately I've been thinking about the things that are going on in my life that I'd like to tell her about, but also realizing that if she were here none of them would be happening. Her passing was one of those moments that fundamentally changed the course of my life, and so many of the things that I have now are only because she's gone. She would have been 61 this year.

I did find this great picture of us though, when I was cleaning out my house. I thought I lost it, and it is my favorite photo of us. It was taken about six months before she died.

We were at the Trevi Fountain. I love that you can see a little glint of the coin my mom was throwing.

The whole reason I mention it it is that I was feeling a little sad on the 22nd, and luckily enough, there was an all day sewing event for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. It was the perfect distraction for the day. The frustration I refer to in my post title is that my computer ate the photos I took that day which I intended to use to illustrate this particular post.

And there were some pictures I really wanted to post! Oh well. Such is life. I previewed some data recovery software to see if I could recover the photos directly from the SD card, but no luck. You'll just have to take my word for it that the event was exactly what I needed that day.

I did get a few photos of an experiment I did to see if I could create some sort of border for my upcoming Baltimore Album quilt that was based on papel picado. These are really rough cut outs, but I think the technique will work. I used paper backed heat and bond to create enough stiffness to fold and cut the fabric.

I think with some work, this could be viable.

It also helped keep my spirits up that my friends Amelia and Jeremiah came over that night. They were running the Zombie 10k the next day, and stayed over so they didn't have to drive up from Salem for it.

It was great watching them put together their costumes. They decided to go as zombie hipsters, and the preparation of the costumes involved a lot of terrifying use of scissors.

It also involved a lot of fake blood.

I missed the race itself, but I gather that they were pretty awesome looking zombies.

FRITZ FRIDAY: CATLAS SHRUGGED

2011-10-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's Fall! (Well, in the Northern Hemisphere anyway...)

2011-10-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

Oregon isn't generally known for it's spectacular fall seasons. It's better known for having the same dreary sort of weather for roughly nine months out of the year, with varying degrees of coldness.

So fortune must have been smiling on me when it was gorgeous on Saturday. My friends and I had bought some coupons on Living Social to go to a pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island. I'd never been to Sauvie Island before, and didn't expect it to be so pretty. I feel like I could happily retire out there.

We got a pretty good deal. It involved an ear of roasted corn.

A trip through a corn maze.

We may have been scared that we were lost forever.

Luckily, we found the tall tower in the middle of the maze before we had to call 911 to come get us out.

The deal also got us each a caramel apple.

They were hard to eat, but were very good.

While we were eating the apples, we saw a very brave chicken. That chicken did not care that it was driving the dog crazy. It went on for at least 10 minutes. Zero survival instincts.

And lastly, everyone could get a pumpkin under 25 lbs.

Jeff got a classic orange one.

I got a small red one.

And Amelia got a white pumpkin. I didn't know that you could get pumpkins in so many varieties. All the other patches I've been to have only had the classic orange kind.

We got all that for 10 bucks each, and it was a great afternoon. The farm also had what amounted to a classy food court, and I could help but get a wood fired pizza, even though it wasn't part of the deal.

Totally worth it!

FRITZ FRIDAY: RUNAWAY BRIDE

2011-10-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

Secret Crush: Part 2

2011-10-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have already admitted my secret crush for Dear Jane on this blog, and I have another crush confession.

This time, it's for Baltimore Album quilts.

This photo is from the Maryland Historical Society

There is just something about the intense, pretty detail that I really, really respond to.

It doesn't surprise me. I've always loved things like this. It's become even more clear to me that I really love stuff like this when I consider things I have saved from various stages in my life.

When I was a kid, my grandmother had a house at the beach. She sold it when I was 10 or 11, and I was heartbroken because I loved going to the beach. Given that she lived in Iowa, I can understand why she sold her Oregon beach house, but the younger me didn't quite understand it.

She let the family pick things they wanted from the house, and the thing I wanted most was two set of identical card decks. I wanted them because I loved the illustrations.

You'll notice that all of the spade cards have an evil feel to them. I used to use these cards like dolls, and had elaborate stories that went along with them. The king of clubs or diamonds was usually the "dad" in these scenarios.

The queen of spades was obviously evil. The queen of diamonds was the mom, and the queen of hearts was the princess.

The jacks where a little problematic, because none of them where really the sort of beefcake prince that Disney lead me to expect. The jack of clubs would do in a pinch, but I wasn't really into the mustache.

The cards themselves where from a German company called Altenburg-Stralsunder, which somehow turns into the unfortunate (in english) abbreviation of ASS. As a kid, the 10 of clubs with ASS written on it was the height of comedy.

These cards don't really have much to do with Baltimore Album quilts, but I put them in sort of the same category of detailed prettiness.

I've been looking at a lot of Baltimore Album quilts lately, because I want to make one of my own. I've never done any serious applique before, but I'm ready for the challenge.

I've started sketching blocks that I want to use, and some are more original than others.

It started with a basic quick sketch.

Which I then refined.

And then refined them some more.

From here, I started to put the pieces of one of the blocks together in Illustrator, and got this:

I don't hate it, but I like the sketch much better. I don't like the shapes of the leaves, and I think the strict geometry of the flowers makes them lose a little bit of the charm of the sketches. What I think I'm going to do next is go back to pencil and paper, and make a more detailed sketch with better leaves, and then recreate that, rather than trying to put everything together with copy/paste in Illustrator. It will be more work overall, but I think it will look nicer if the blocks have a more "hand-drawn" quality, rather than a more stylized computer look to them.

Basting Baby

2011-10-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

I am such a baby about basting. It's my least favorite part of the quilting process. I'm always feeling sorry for myself when I'm basting.

Can you guess what I did tonight?

I finished the top for my quilt with the reproduction fabrics, and would really like to quilt it, so I had to bite the bullet and baste the thing.

Overall, I'm still not crazy about the block in the very middle. It doesn't read very well in the photograph, but it works well enough close up. I always intended this to be a quilt for my couch, so I guess that's what matters.

And, the whole thing only took me an hour to baste. I timed it, so I could remind myself that it doesn't actually take that long to baste things the next time I start to feel sorry for myself.

Why did I only remember to take a photo after I'd folded it up?

I can't wait to get this thing quilted and move onto the next project. I'll post more about it in a few days, but I'm super excited to start. I only mention it because while I was writing this post tonight, I was scanning a few sketches that I plan to use for the next project, when somebody had to sit on the scanner. I'll give you three guesses as to who it was...

FRITZ FRIDAY: FEELS WRONG, TASTES GREAT

2011-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

More thoughts on prints

2011-10-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

I'm almost done with this quilt. I sat down and did the last three blocks at the same time, and I am still amazed at how much prints can surprise me.

For example, I thought this pairing was going to work very well. I love both the prints individually.

The finished result isn't bad, but it is a little muddy. There isn't quite enough contrast to make the design of the block clear, or at least as clear as it could be.

And I thought these fabrics were going to be a weak, not quite matching pair.

But the block itself turned out quite cool, in my opinion. The dark black and off white really of the outer fabric really make the pink seem to glow a bit. They are stronger together.

And finally, I was initially sort of indifferent to the yellow fabric.

But I think it looks great against the black.

I'm excited to finish up these blocks and layout the whole thing and get a sense of what the finished quilt will look like.

And honestly, any time I take pictures of anything, I end up with a few shots of Fritz. I mean, he's there and I have a camera, so why not?

He's thinking about jumping on these quilt blocks, I just know it.

I like him looking stoic,

But I like it even more when I catch him looking sort of silly.

FRITZ FRIDAY: BEING JOHN MALKO-FRITZ

2011-09-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

The trouble with prints...

2011-09-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty into solids. I like working with them. I like thinking about how to make them interesting.

I'm generally not that into using printed fabrics. I like them, and I like seeing quilts made with prints, but I'm usually not inspired to create with them.

It's for a variety of reasons, and one of which is that I think it's more complicated to use printed fabrics. You don't just have to worry about matching a few colors to each other, it can turn into matching several colors in various intensities, as well as worrying about the interaction of the scale of the prints.

For me, it's like moving from 2-D to 3-D. It's a whole new level of stuff to worry about. I'm generally happy just to stick to the relative simplicity of solids!

The quilt I'm working on now was originally intended to be a solid color quilt.

I may still make the pattern out of solids, as I really like that look, but for now I am enjoying stretching myself by using prints.

It hasn't been smooth sailing though.

I find myself pretty dissatisfied with the block on the bottom. I really like both the prints that went into it, but they don't work together the way I want them to. The shapes are to similar in size, and the colors aren't different enough to really define the shapes in the block. The pattern is very clear in other combos, and it become almost unrecognizable in the bottom block.

I like the block on top though, quite a bit, even though I'm not a huge fan of the printed fabric on an individual level.

I think if I worked with prints more, it would get easier, or more natural to pick things that went well together. I'm not saying that I'll never work with prints again, but it will probably be awhile. I'm anxious to get back to solid fabric.

The block itself, came from a sketch I made, and then discarded for my sampler quilt, Hey Cherri.

This was the sketch.

It's the right-most sketch second from the bottom. Here it is in computer form.

A lot of the blocks for the sampler were explorations of repeating patterns, like taking 4-patch to a 16-patch, and others were explorations of what it was to combine various shapes. I'd had a snowball block, and a 4 patch snowball, and I wanted to see what else I could do with the snowball idea. Connecting two of them seemed like a good move.

(I also like the look of just half of the block, I think it looks like a skeleton key)

The connected snowball idea was to small for a 4 inch block, or rather it was to frustrating at the time. I tried it once, messed up my measurements and moved on. I didn't forget that block though, because I thought it had potential. Fooling around with it for awhile led to the quilt I'm working on now.

Disclaimer: While I did not reference any particular block that I had seen to create this block, it's a small world out there, and it is likely that someone, somewhere has made this too. I am in no way claiming that I invented this block, but gosh, wouldn't that be fun.

FRITZ FRIDAY: MYSPACE NOSTALGIA

2011-09-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

Winter is Coming

2011-09-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

I powered through Game of Thrones, and read the first three books, and it gives me great pleasure to say "Winter is Coming" in a dramatic fashion whenever I can.

It does not give me pleasure, however, that summer is over. We barely got a summer at all here in Oregon, but regardless of how much summer we do have, I always feel an overwhelming sense of guilt when the season finally turns. I feel guilty that I didn't go outside enough, I didn't eat enough summer produce, and that I never did all get enough sun to make my hair highlight.

This year I decided to make tomato sauce to freeze to try and take advantage of the summer tomatoes, and assuage my feelings of guilt for not taking better advantage of some of the farmer's markets around town.

I'm generally not that picky about what I'm eating (in terms of where it comes from anyway). Farmer's market's always sound better when I don't have to go somewhere to get to them, and I've honestly never liked that many vegetables. I see a lot of blogs that post lovingly photographed boxes of CSA vegetables and I can think about is how much I'd rather eat McDonald's fries that a bunch of organic farm fresh rainbow chard.

(Honestly though, it's much better be the kind of person who eats nothing but organic zucchinis, then the kind of person who puts french fries on their burrito, but what can you do.)

I just really, really hate tomatoes from the supermarket. I think they taste watery and mealy. I recently read this article on CNN about how tomatoes are grown, and it made me never want to eat supermarket tomatoes again. There is a rebuttal from the tomato industry to that article, found here, if you're interested. Despite all this link posting, I'm really not trying to get into local vs. agribusiness. That's a topic for my soon to be created blog called Kristen's Opinions About Things That People Don't Care About on a Quilting Blog. I'm just trying get some super tasty tomatoes in my mouth during the winter.

So I went to the farmer's market at PSU (not realizing that it was also move-in weekend for the school) and bought 22 pounds of Roma tomatoes. I foolishly parked pretty far away and had terrible visions of the bottom of the box giving out while I walked the whole way back to my car, but I made it home with my haul and set about roasting the tomatoes.

I cut them all in half, and covered them with a little olive oil and salt.

Then I roasted them in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour.

That makes it easy to slip the skins off and spoon the guts out (oh god, why did I do this while watching Criminal Minds, I sound like a serial killer) and pop the rest into the mixer.

And voila! Tomato sauce. I didn't season it much on purpose, so I can adapt it to whatever recipe I want later.

So, twenty two pounds of tomatoes, pictured here:

Turns into 18 ziplock bags full of summer.

It would have been nineteen bags, but I had some spaghetti with tomato sauce last night, and I can tell you right now that eighteen bags won't be enough.

I guess I know what I'm doing next weekend!

FRITZ FRIDAY: HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRITZ

2011-09-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Quilt Withdrawal

2011-09-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally gotten my act together in regards to quilting. I've been plugging away on the feedsack quilt I've been working on. I'm not sure I'm going to keep the block on the upper right, the proportions weren't quite right on that one. Overall, it's been an interesting process.

I feel like I'm going into Guild withdrawal though! I missed tonight's meeting, and the meeting before, and the all day sewing event. I suppose it was bound to happen sometime, but you'd better believe that I'm going to next month's meeting!

Weekend, finally

2011-09-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

I had a request from Tabitha over at bendingpins to see some close ups of the quilting on my great-grandmother's Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. I finally had some time to do things other than work, so I was happy to have a chance to take a few more pictures.

I can't tell you how impressed I am with the hand work that went into this quilt, and how glad I am that I have a machine to do it for me!

It was nice to have a weekend this weekend. I realized that this is the first weekend since the beginning of August where I haven't had to either work, or clean out the house, or both. It was very nice just to have two days devoted to leisure. I slept in, played with friends, and quilted. What more can you ask for?

On Saturday, I went to the Portland Farmer's Market at PSU, which I'd never been to before. I saw people walking around with beautiful flower bouquets from this booth.

I think flowers are usually so impractical and sort of a waste of money, but these groupings were so lovely that it almost makes me change my mind.

I was also impressed with this display of tomatoes and eggplant, I could see some sort of quilt block using these colors and layout.

I went with friends, so it was great to have some company and motivation to even get to the market. I probably wouldn't have gone if they hadn't convinced me.

I couldn't decide all day if Jeremiah was wearing the "Modesty is Hot" shirt ironically or not.

Today was spent making another quilt block with feed sack fabrics. I really like the brown print, and the proportions on this block are correct, finally.

I have 8 more to go, and hopefully the truly busy time at work is over, so I will still have time to sew!

Speaking of work, you may (or may not) recall a series of posts I made about Fritz "settling" at various places around the house. What I didn't realize at the time (and feel quite badly about now) is that he had fleas, and was acting out of character because of it.

Since I've finally gotten rid of the fleas, Fritz has once again started following me around the house. It's cute, and annoying. It's nice to feel wanted, but it's less so at 6 a.m. when he's crying outside of my bedroom door to come in.

It is nice to be working from home though, and have him sitting in my lap.

Sort of. Somehow, I live with it.

I'd rather be Hurking...

2011-09-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

Good news, the house is done! (For now anyway, all the boxes I packed up are a problem for my future self). I couldn't have done it without the help of my dad, grandma and friends Jennifer and Leslie.

Here is Jennifer looking at a pile of garbage. This was pile the 4th. Piles 1, 2 and 3 had already made their way to the dump. Sorry mother earth!

No sooner than the house was done, work hit, and hit hard.

Folks, I have been swamped. I mean, really swamped. I've been working crazy hours, which is good in that I get paid by the hour, but is bad in the sense that I'm spending most of my awake hours working.

I think of the Shel Silverstein poem about working quite a lot. Do you remember it? Goes like this:

I'd rather play tennis than go to the dentist.
I'd rather play soccer than go to the doctor.
I'd rather play Hurk than go to work.
Hurk? Hurk? What's Hurk?
I don't know, but it MUST be better than work.

I can't wait until I have time to hurk!

Luckily, Fritz has been keeping me company by settling down beside my desk.

He gets really confused when I start printing stuff out. The motion of the machine startles him a bit.

I have carved out some social time though, which I think is important when I'm working a lot.

I went to the fair, and could not stop laughing at these ridiculous rasta bananas.

I've also been trying to spend some time each day outside of the house (also important when working from home) and I saw a free pile of stuff on a street near and got a great dutch oven.

Perfect fit!

I also nabbed a nice looking sheet to use for the back of a future quilt.

And finally, on Saturday, I had three whole hours to quilt. It's really been awhile, and it was so soothing to fire up the machine and sew. The whole ritual was so nice, with the pure physical nature of cutting, sewing and ironing. I'm hoping to fit more of that in and soon.

I made this block, from a design I've been hanging onto for awhile.

The finished block is 22 x 22

The proportions are off a bit, I messed up sizing of the pieces, but the general idea is there.

You know how some quilters work with prints and then decided to do a solid quilt as sort of an experiment? I feel like I'm going the other way! I'm experimenting with prints. I have all feedsack style fabrics for this quilt, because I think the small patterns will lend themselves to this type of block.

I was really inspired by the two antique quilts that I inherited. They are both done with feedsacks, and I think those patterns have aged so well.

Now that I've sewn roughly two hexagons together, I appreciate this quilt a lot more!

These quilts are from my mother's side of the family, and when I asked my grandmother (who passed away in April) about them, she just said "Oh, I guess my mom or aunt made those", and that was it! She was not a sentimental lady in any capacity.

I really appreciate having them though. I'm glad that they are still around for me to love! I wonder if my great-grandmother could have ever anticipated that I'd see them 80 years later and be inspired by her work. It makes me wonder about the future of my quilts. These quilts make me very happy to be a quilter, and be connected to such history!

Let them eat cake

2011-08-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

Something odd happened to me last Monday.

I got a call later afternoon from the camp I worked at for years and years. It was from my friend (and facebook wife) Foxx, and she called to tell me that a package had arrived for me at camp.

Given the fact that I wasn't working there this summer, it was pretty exciting. Getting packages at camp is very exciting. You're living in that place for 10 weeks, and packages become this social event. Everyone is excited. When you get one, you have to sing for it in front of the whole camp.

A package?! For me?! How exciting!

Since most people knew I wasn't working at camp, I assumed that it was maybe from a former camper, who didn't know I wasn't working there. I told Foxx that she could open it, and I'd pick up whatever it was on Thursday night when I came to visit.

The package contained the following book.

Inside the book, there was an order form that said who sent it. I knew who it was. It was a person I'd worked with at camp years ago, and was no longer friends with. In fact, I hadn't spoken to this person in years.

Our friendship ended at my choice. It wasn't anything dramatic. I just stopped calling.

Later that night I got a call from this person. Their first words were, "So I'm a jerk...".

Now, a couple of things. Firstly, I am fat. It's not an insult to me to be called that. I already know.
Secondly, I haven't spoken to this person in years. This attempt to either get back at me for ending our friendship, or open some line of communication is so petty that it's really not something I'm taking to seriously.

In fact, it's great! Now I can eat this whole cake and know how to dress my body afterwards!

I find the book itself much more troubling. It's written like the worst issue of Cosmo that was ever published.

I'm all for people dressing to flatter their body types if that is what they are interested in, but this book is clearly not for me.

Here's an excerpt from the quiz that tells you if you are dressing fat.

1. Your winter coat is:
a) A metallic silver puffer that hits mid-calf
b) A short black puffer that's belted at the waist
c) A navy single-breasted wool or cashmere three-quarter-length coat

5. Your every day shoes are
a) Platform wedges
b) Kitten heels
c) Knee-high black suede boots with a heel

8. Your white pants are
a) High-waisted
b) Stretch cotton capris
c) Flat front trousers

I am clearly not a fashionable woman. I don't even have a puffer in any color, much less silver or black! And whose everyday shoes are knee-high black suede boots with a heel? I mean, someone I'm sure. Not me though. And I don't have any white pants at all. I eat to much barbecue sauce for that!

I haven't felt so out of touch with a quiz since I was 11 years old taking a "What Kind of Girlfriend are You" quiz in Seventeen magazine. They even have a section of how not to look fat in workout clothes or pajamas. The whole theme of the book seems to be that you should try to look as least fat as possible in every given situation, which depresses me.

Body image is a really tricky issue. I think that if you want to look sharp at all times, that's great. Please do! I love looking at sharply dressed fashionable ladies. I just don't like that this book seems to imply that it should be a goal to look "not fat" at all times.

To combat this feeling, I brought party hats to camp when I went to visit (and to pick up the book). Even though I'm wearing a "hi-fat" color, I still managed to have a good time.

Hey I think Sam (far right) is wearing a puffer! So that's what they are!

Also, as I mentioned previously, I haven't quilted for awhile. This has been sort of a rough month, with cleaning out my childhood home on the weekends, but that's only half of it. There's also this.

Once, at a guild meeting, one of the members told me that she liked my blog, but that I needed to clean my house because it was so dirty that it made her teeth hurt. My sewing table was approaching root canal levels of tooth pain. Even when I would like to sew, the thought of tackling the mess put me right off of it.

Yesterday I spent about one and a half episodes of Medium on Netflix instant watch cleaning up and got this result. Strangely enough, cleaning out my childhood home has given me some really good strategies for cleaning up a space.

It's still messy, but more of "I just ate a bunch of candy" teeth hurting level. I mean, I can see my sewing machine now! I'll take my victories where I can get them. If my next post doesn't contain quilting in some form I'll eat my hat (metaphorically).

I also want to mention that summer time is a great time for cat poses, because to beat the heat they stretch out in super cute ways. I should also mention that pictures of Fritz take up at 50%+ of my photo library at any given time.

I don't know guys, all that fur makes him look sort of fat. I wonder if they have a cat version of the book...

Clean House

2011-08-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't done much quilting lately. I've been wrapped up in cleaning out the house that I grew up in, so we can rent it out, which has been a pretty rough experience.

It's also clear to me that even though I have to do this crummy thing, I've had the good fortune to be able to take my time to do it. I keep reminding myself of all the ways that I'm a lucky person while I'm doing it, because it keeps me from feeling sorry for myself when I feel like crying because I'm sending our orange juice pitcher to Goodwill, when we used it to make orange juice every week for years when I was a kid and now it will maybe be bought by someone who has no idea that it's this beautiful familiar object that was a part of my daily family life for years and years.

And I don't even like orange juice!

My dad has been helping me out, which I really appreciate, and he keeps telling me that these are "just things", which is true, sort of. It feels so self indulgent to be upset about something like throwing away our old Rolodex when in truth it's a luxury to have this time to mourn for these plastic objects.

And in all honesty, it's not really the Rolodex. Letting go of the house means that portion of my life is really over. It was easy to ignore when I didn't have to pack it up, but now it's really clear that the family that lived there is really gone.

If there is anything I've learned, it's that part of living is dealing with the ending of things. It can be sad and heartbreaking, but it's part of the deal. I've been taking pictures of things that I have no reason to keep, but don't want to forget entirely as a way to deal with sending these parts of my life onto new places, like Goodwill or the dump.

For example, at the back of our lazy susan, we found an old box of my favorite brand of mac and cheese. My poor grandmother came to visit when my brother and I were kids and made us homemade mac and cheese, but we kept asking for the box kind.

They stopped making this brand, so it was a kick to see the old box. I always liked it better than Kraft. Before you ask, I'm not going to make it. It expired in 2001, so I think I'll just keep the photo and throw the box away!

I threw away a lot of Barbies with missing limbs and home haircuts. A lot of them were packed in to this carrying case, which I think I loved more than the Barbies inside it as a kid.

Maybe I will be Golden Dream Barbie for Christmas. It's a pretty sweet outfit, and I'll only need to grow about a foot in the leg for it to work.

This Fisher Price medical set was in the same set of boxes as the Golden Dream Barbie case. I had totally forgotten about it until I saw it. It was a fun set of tools. My friend Rebecca and I spent a lot of time jamming the needle to give shots with into each other's arms under the guise of playing doctor.

I still have to tackle my bedroom, but the house is mostly packed up and cleaned out. One of the last things I did this weekend was clean out the window seat in my mom's bedroom, and jammed in the back behind happy birthday banners and party hats (and with two books on improving sex in marriage, thanks mom, this is the third time I've found sexual improvement books with notes from you and dad written in the margins) I found a journal my mom kept when my brother and I were very young children. She was 29 at the first entry, which is about the age I am now.

The very first entry was about a time when she was feeling sad, and it echoed a lot of what I was feeling at the time. It was just so nice to find that, to have that connection to my mom, and to know that she felt these things too, and wrote about them like I'm writing about them now. I'm not the kind of person who believes in fate, but this was such an unexpected comfort to have.

It's to be expected that there will be good times and bad times. This is not a good time. there is something to be said for the bad times though, when in the emotional dumps I am much more likely to turn to thoughts about the breadth and importance of life and how to live it, thoughts about how my day to day activities are weaving into a larger fabric and where I want that design to go. These are hard things to think about, that's probably why I do it for such short time periods. The point is, if I keep a journal maybe I can tie these periods of...

So I'm going to try and follow my mom's words and only dwell on this for a short time, and then get back to fabric and design. Well, it's not exactly what she said, but it will make me feel better all the same.

And when they say 10,000, they mean it.

2011-07-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, I studied abroad in Hong Kong. I stayed there for five months, and it was a really wonderful time in my life. When my brother said that he could get me a layover in the city on my way to Beijing, I jumped at the chance.

One of the things I wanted to do was go to the 10,000 Buddha's monastery, because even though I had gone when I studied abroad there, I didn't take any pictures, and I remembered it being a very interesting place.

I remembered right! In the West, I think we are pretty used to seeing Buddha look something like this.

But, when you've got 10,000 of them, it pays to diversify.

The monastery was full of statues like this. Near life-size and painted in gold.

There was Buddha holding stuff.

Buddha after you barged into his dressing room.

Buddha crossing a river without getting his pants wet.

Buddha who can reach stuff on the top shelf.

Buddha who, um, well...

They weren't all life size statues though. They crammed a lot into a main hall.

There is actually something like 12,000 Buddhas in the whole compound, and I'd believe it. It was totally worth the 400 steps there, and the dozens of mosquito bites I got.

Inspector Body

2011-07-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, we had a book called Inspector Body. It was about how your body fights infections and sickness with the help of a small guy that lived in your brain and told everything what to do. I must be remembering the name wrong, because I'm having no success googling it for more information.

I bring it up, because it had a very particular color palette. I'm not normally a fan of purples and pinks, but in certain combos, it can really work for me.

When the third Project Modern theme was announced with the theme of "Organic", my immediate thought was, "well, gonna sit this one out!". The word organic has a lot of associations, but for me personally, it takes me right back to design school. Our classes were really small, and always with the same people, and after a while, critiques started to take on similar tones. There was one student in class who used the word "organic" to describe people's work all the time, whether the term applied or not. As time went on, it was a word we started using when we didn't know what to say about somebody's piece. Sort of mediocre piece that could go either way? Organic. Bad piece that nobody wants to call out? Organic. Piece that somebody is obviously very proud of but kind of sucks? Organic!

In short, when I hear the word organic, my first though is usually, bullshit.

This is, of course, a view colored by my own experiences with the word. In truth it means a lot of wonderful things.

When I thought about the challenge a little further, I decided to read definitions of the word to see if there was any inspiration there, and the first definition I read mentioned that organic can refer to organs.

As soon as I read that, I knew that I wanted to do something drawing from human organs as inspiration. I thought back to the colors of the Inspector Body book, and knew that there was potential. I decided to abstract the idea of organs into a two dimensional patchwork design.

I like seeing what a really twisty, 3-D system looks like when you match it up with the demands of patchwork quilting. I think the color palette helps sell it as a body interior. I've got lungs, liver, stomach, and large and small intestines represented.

While patchwork can be very geometric, free motion quilting is more like a continuous line drawing. You can have anything, anywhere. I decided to use some traditional quilting patterns like feathers and stippling to mimic the shapes of the organs.

I've never quilted feathers before. I did a lot of drawing practice ahead of time, and then did a practice stem of feathers.

I glanced at it, and proceeded to start the feathers on the quilt itself. I got halfway through the first large intestine section I was adding the feather to, glanced back over at the sample and had a moment of panic.

What had I been thinking? The sample feather looked horrible to me at that moment. The feather I was quilting looked horrible. I had to take a break. I decided to continue on with the feathers, even if they looked awful because I really liked the idea of feathers representing the large intestine. As I kept sewing, I felt better about it.

I think it's true that the quilting isn't show worthy, but it's not awful either. I have to remind myself that things aren't always going to look perfect right away, or the first time I do them, but it's still important to keep doing it. I may or may not get better at making feathers, but I won't improve at all if I don't at least try.

At the end of it, I like the quilting quite a lot. It's not perfect, but it represents a process. I'm glad I didn't let my lack of technical skills stop me from trying to execute the vision I had when I thought of this quilt.

Yeah, about that...

2011-07-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

When I was in China, I took a lot of pictures that I hope to use for quilt inspiration.

Pictures like this.

Those green square posts could make kind of a cool block, but...

And this is kind of a cool repeating pattern, but...

And this could be an interesting quilting pattern, but...

And I like this style of woodwork, it could translate into a block, but...

I like the colors here, but...

I mean, it's obvious at this point. They all have swastikas in them. Some are more apparent than others, but they are all there.

Now, I know that the symbol of the swastika has been around for a long time. For thousands of years, it was a symbol of good luck, and change, especially in Asia. It's not unusual to see a lot of swastikas in motifs around China.

It would be really poor taste for me to put these patterns in a quilt though. When your first introduction to the swastika is through Hitler, it's sort of over. I don't think I could ever be comfortable showing a quilt with anything resembling a swastika, no matter what my inspiration was. I don't know if there would be a point in the European/American future that it would be acceptable. I'm guessing it's not in my lifetime.

When you are working with geometric shapes, the swastika, or the shadow of it comes up more than I thought it would. I never knew that I would have a hobby where I would have to be vigilant that my own work didn't have swastikas in it.

For example, when I was brainstorming ideas for my sampler quilt, I showed a sketch for a block to my old roommate.

It looked like this:

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Corky, when you look at this, what do you see?
Corky: Um, I dunno, a pinwheel?
Me: (excited, thinking that I can get away with it) Oh really!? Just a pinwheel?
Corky: No. It's obviously a swastika.

I did a lot of research for that sampler quilt, and ran across that type of block again. It's called the "Crazy Ann". It looks like this.

And people still make quilts with this block! I mean, if you don't do it in black, it's not so obvious, and the block's origins are pre-WWII, but still, to me, it's an obvious swastika no matter what color it is.

Fortunately, I did get a lot of photos in China that I found inspiring that were swastika free.

And, at a flea market, I saw this guy.

Too bad I didn't have room in my suitcase!

Guess Who's Back!

2011-07-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

Wait, wrong photo.

I'm back from China. I have a million pictures to upload but I'm taking it easy today and lazing away the jet lag by eating crackers and ready blogs.

Don't worry, I had a great time!

Odds and Ends

2011-06-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

As I was driving home from the PMQG meeting on Thursday, I ran into this.

I knew I was in for a bit of a wait until the bridge went down, so I started scrolling through my camera to see what pictures I had to pass the time.

I found this video of Fritz, which makes me laugh. For awhile, I was feeding him wet food, which he started to expect every time I went into the kitchen. As soon as I started moving in that direction, he would run for the kitchen, and stop to meow at me along the way.

As you can see in the video, he's not the most graceful cat in the world. He does stuff like this all the time. I don't think cats are supposed to be like this...I mean, shouldn't they be graceful? Agile?

The whole reason I had my camera at all was because my friend Amelia and I went to the airport to pick up an international staff member who was arriving from Taiwan to work at the summer camp I worked at last year, and we wanted some pictures of us waiting at the security checkpoint.

Since figuring out the airport when you've arrived in a foreign country can be very stressful, Amelia and I decided to make sure we were really visible, so when she got through the gate she would know that we were there to pick her up.

Mission accomplished!

Fleas

2011-06-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

Fritz has been doing a lot of this lately.

Turns out the fleas I thought I had gotten rid of where just hiding. Poor guy. I got the real heavy duty flea treatment from the vet, so hopefully he won't be so darn itchy all the time.

The vet also suggested I give Fritz a bath to get some of the fleas off of him.

Before:

After:

Feel better soon Fritz!

Moving Day

2011-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't been sewing much lately. My brother and I have been cleaning out our childhood home in hopes of renting it out, and it's been a process! There is a lifetime's worth of stuff in that house.

When I was working on my old bedroom I found something that I've thought about a lot since I started quilting.

I must have gotten this for Christmas one year as a kid. It's a set of wooden blocks that you can arrange anyway you want. I used to play with the blocks for hours coming up with different patterns. I'd take it on plane flights to pass the time.

I mean, these are so obviously translatable into quilt blocks! I was interested in quilting before I even knew what it was, and now I kind of want to make a top with these blocks. I think they look so well together. I'm glad I found this, I'm sure I'll get some good inspiration out of it.

And, in an unrelated note, here is Fritz, trying to lay on the gas stove even though he is a bit to big for it.

Swap!

2011-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

We had our PMQG meeting this past Thursday, and got back our solid blocks.

Elsa got my block, and made me an awesome mini-quilt. Hilariously (to me anyway), she's a vegan. She was a good sport about the bacon and eggs though.

This was such a nice swap. Elsa did a lot of things that I don't normally do with my quilts, like a pieced back, hand sewn binding, and stitching in the ditch, so it was fascinating to see what my work looks like with those elements applied.

It's the details that are so great too. Elsa handed it to me with wrapped in this ribbon, with nicely cut edges. For some reason, it just makes it so much better.

Also, this weekend we had our all day sewing event for the guild at Fabric Depot, and it was great, as always. Lots of talking, laughing, and sewing. I didn't bring my sewing machine this time, but I did make a cutting guide for my quilt for the Project Modern organic challenge, and bought the fabric for it, which is always fun. I wish these events were more often, but I realize that not everyone in the guild's biggest responsibility at home is taking care of one weirdo cat and watching episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

If they made a Law and Order: Cat Intent, they'd have at least one viewer.

Fritz seems to have "settled" once again. He's taken to sleeping/living on top of the gas stove.

It's fine now that it's warmed up a bit (for Oregon anyway), but come Fall and Winter he'll need to move on. This is an interesting place for Fritz to hang out, because it's not quite big enough for him to really lay out on, so often times he'll be cleaning himself and fall right off the side, which is hilarious to me, but probably less so to him. We'll see how long this spot lasts.

PMQG Banner Block

2011-05-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

The PMQG is going to have a small show at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt show this year, and we, as a guild, are going to make blocks for a banner.

We're supposed to turn them in at the meeting tonight, and me, being the last minute lady that I am, finished mine just now.

It's not my usual style, but it was fun to make.

The red bit was an attempt at roses. I saw a really pretty bush with red flowers awhile back, and thought that the combo of olive green and red was very interesting, and sort of unusual. Someday I might want to make a quilt in this style with those colors, so this block was a perfect opportunity to see what it might look like.

Giveaway Winner!

2011-05-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Alright, it's winning time!

And the winner is, Christina!

I'll bring it to the next PMQG meeting.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered. You all alleviated my fears of hosting a giveaway that nobody wanted.

Biscuit Quilt

2011-05-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

There is something cathartic about making a scrap quilt. I don't feel any particular need to save leftover fabric, because there are always more solid fabrics to be had, but I still feel guilty about throwing away leftover bits of fabric.

Last year, I started sewing together scraps from quilts as I made them. I had no particular layout or end goal in mind. It was nice to work on between projects because there was no pressure or expectations. All the pieces were scraps, and various sizes so nothing had to line up or be precise. As time went on, I decided to put together scraps from all the quilts for a particular year and make a quilt out of it, and to keep a visual record of my year in quilting.

It went from bits and pieces...

To rows...

To finished things...

To a whole quilt!

I've been calling it a biscuit quilt, because it reminds me a little bit of when you make biscuits, and you roll the dough and cut out the biscuits and repeat until you can't cut any more out. We always used to bundle all the scraps together for one lumpy looking biscuit.

Sometimes that would be the biscuit that my brother and I would fight over, because we knew what all those perfectly round biscuits tasted like, but the lumpy biscuit was always a bit of a surprise. It's been a long time since I've rolled out biscuit dough though! Maybe I'll just make quilts instead.

Cat's Out of the Bag

2011-05-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

I looked up the meaning of the phrase "cat's out of the bag", and was a little surprised to find out that it (maybe) originally referred to the practice of substituting a cat for a pig in a bag. I guess they used to sell pigs in bags? If the bag was opened, and the cat came out the jig was up, and you knew you were getting false goods.

However, for anyone who has tried to put a cat in a bag knows, it's almost impossible to get them in back in there, in a more literal sense.

Big thanks to my friends Nathan and Patrick for picture taking and bag holding!

100th Post Spectacular and Giveaway

2011-05-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

Has it really been 100 posts already?

Well, I've had this blog for 2 1/2 years now, so maybe it's overdue.

I did start my first quilt 2 1/2 years ago, and it has opened me up to a wonderful hobby, and surprisingly, a lot of new friends. I'm not quite sure what I did before the Portland Modern Quilt Guild started, but I'm very grateful that it did. I've meet a lot of new people, gotten a thousand ideas, and found a hobby that comes with a built in community and a rich history.

Look at me, getting all weepy over some bits of fabric sewn together!

I've never done a giveaway before, but it seems like a good thing to do to mark the occasion. I've got to admit, I'm a little worried that no one will enter, but I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for the best!

I'm giving away two things, and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. If you are a no-reply blogger, just let me know how to contact you! (If you are in the Portland Modern Quilt Guild though, I can just catch up with you at the next meeting)

The giveaway is open to everyone, from anywhere. It will be open until May 15th, 2011, 12:00pm PST.

So, without further ado, here is what is up for grabs!

This bag is lined, and I used interfacing to help with stability. The straps are silver PVC. And, I made it myself! I've never made a bag before, so I was very please with how it turned out.

And in that bag you'll find 7 fat quarters of Kaffe Fasset shot cottons.

A special thanks to everyone who has read or commented on the blog, and an extra special thanks the person who found my blog through the following search, because, man, what were they even looking for? I hope they find it someday.

Pictures of Cats

2011-05-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Jill made this comment on my last post.

I'm choosing to interpret it like this.

Although, after seeing the results, maybe I shouldn't have made a pop art portrait of Fritz.

Yikes! Nightmare time!

Fritz's horrifying visage aside, I did finish quilting my scrap quilt, and now all that's left is to bind and wash it. I'm aiming to get it done for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, which starts on the 13th, so I've got plenty of time.

I never want to like the back of my quilt better than the front, but I really like how the quilting makes the back look.

Sometimes it can be hard for me to determine if I'm improving my free motion quilting or not. I'm always looking at my work with a critical eye, and it's so much easier to find the flaws that honestly no one else cares about than to appreciate the good work that I have done.

Although, some mistakes are pretty hard to miss!

It pleases me that there was some pretty clear evidence of improvement in this quilt though. There were three center blocks, and every time I quilted the same motif on the blocks it got better. The pictures below are in order of when I finished them.

None of them are perfect, but by the time I got to the red one it started looking much better. This kind of quilt is perfect for that type of exploratory free motion quilting because the piecing is so wobbly anyway that it doesn't matter if the quilting isn't perfect. In fact, it matches better when it isn't perfect.

This has been a pretty satisfying project for me, but I'm glad it's almost done so I can move onto the next thing.

Call Me Narcissus

2011-05-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

Have you ever fallen in love with a photo of yourself?

I did, yesterday. We had a class project that involved creating a pop-art version of yourself, and this is how mine turned out.

And it's like, man! Look at those cheekbones! I think it makes me look like Cher.

Now, I don't really have a long lean face with killer cheekbones or a super pouty mouth.

I'm kicking myself for not grabbing the original photo, but I was making a face like this:

Which, is not quite as attractive, but oh the magic of photoshop! It almost makes me want to get cheek implants. Almost.

I've been trucking along on quilting my scrap quilt. I've got one more section, and then maybe some stitching in the ditch if I feel like it. I'm not great at it, but I do like the look of it.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as "modern" quilting or not. I'm not to worried about labels, but as I am a member of a modern quilt guild, so it is something I think about. Sometimes I think I've come up with something really modern, and other times not so much. This type of quilting seems a little fussy for modern quilting, but I like the look of it.

I guess I won't really know if this qualifies as modern or not for about 20 years or so, when we can look back on this period of quilting and see what the trends really were.

Free Motion Weekend

2011-05-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some free motion quilting for the past few days, and it's been nice. I think I'm having fun with this particular layout because what I'm free motioning changes for every row.

I'm hoping that in the far off future, when this quilt is at an antique store (in this scenario, I probably died and was eaten by any and all cats I happened to have) that whoever buys it and blogs about it in their thought clouds (which I'm guessing is what future blogs will be called) will call this quilting "charmingly folksy", rather than "bumblingly crafted".

Don't get me wrong, I really like the way this is turning out, but oh man do my technical skills need some work. Up close there are some real messy bits, but luckily, the only person who knows or cares is me!

Jelly Roll

2011-04-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

Have I ever mentioned that I hate basting quilts? Oh, you say I've mentioned it several times? And discussed it at length?

Ehhhh, I still hate it. I mean, it's my least favorite part of quilting, but it is still better than say, washing dishes. It's not even the act of basting that is the worst, it's the anticipation. I put it off, and put it off and don't get anything done because I feel like I can't sew anything else until I get that top basted.

Today I bit the bullet and basted a top. I need to keep reminding myself that it isn't so bad, because it only took about 2 hours.

I finally basted it because I finally have something to do with a jelly roll I have. I ironed and sorted out all the colors, and I'm excited to start putting something together.

I don't think I'm going to use the colors in this order, but I do love a good color rainbow.

Charm Pack Half Square Triangles

2011-04-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

A few meetings of the PMQG back, we all received a free pack of solid charm squares.

I had no immediate inspiration for these, so I decided to include them in my scrap quilt for 2011. I chose to make half square triangles out of them.

I used the method described in this video.

Basically, all you do is put two charm squares together, sew a quarter inch seam all around the edge, and then cut on both diagonals. You get 4 half square triangles out of it, which is nice. They end up being around 3 1/4 size, and if I were using them in a non-scrap quilt I'd cut them all down to 3 inches.

I paired the colors randomly, by drawing them out of a paper bag.

All the finished triangles

I like choosing the colors randomly, because I see a lot of color combinations that I wouldn't necessarily think of. I also get to see color combinations that I really don't like.

The four on top were my least favorite combos, and the four on the bottom were color combinations that I found interesting, and might want to explore further. It's all subjective of course. I don't think that the color combinations on top are bad, just ones I am personally not that fond of.

I really didn't like the pink and green one which is on the top right. I made this face when I saw it.

Note to self: quit taking pictures of my face that look terrible

It took me a minute to realize that it is the same color combo as my bathroom.

In fact, when I saw that color combo in the bathroom for the first time, this is the face I made.

I think I just am not a huge fan of green and pink, but every time I tell someone I don't like the colors of the tile in my bathroom they say I'm crazy, so what do I know?

I sewed all the half square triangles together randomly, and am going to use them to border the center piece I made.

I like how it turned out.

And, because I will never, ever stop posting pictures of my cat, here is some more stuff about Fritz!

The other day I went downstairs, and didn't see Fritz anywhere. It was a little odd, and as the day went on I still couldn't find him.

Eventually, I figured out that he was in a box off stuff behind a chair.

I looked through the box to make sure there wasn't anything he could ruin inside, and ran across a book about quilting that I had bought over the summer.

It had this great piece of advice in it.

It reads: If a pattern calls for a solid color, consider substituting a mottled tone-on-tone print or a small allover print that "reads" as a solid. This kind of print can help hide inaccuracies in piecing and in quilting the layers together. The subtle changes in color add movement and textural interest to the quilt that isn't possible with solid colors.

I mean, I obviously disagree, because I exclusively use solid color fabric. I find it kind of hilarious. This is obviously not the best quilt guide for me.

Self Portrait of Someone Working from Home

2011-04-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Did I ever mention that I really enjoy working from home?

Project Modern Monochromatic Challenge

2011-04-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

The project modern monochromatic challenge is over, and my friend and fellow PMQG member Jill is one of the winners for her awesome yellow quilt.

Congratulations Jill! Well done and well deserved!

In fact, I think the PMQG put together a lot of great quilts for the challenge.

Here is my quilt. It's about 72 x 88.

I really enjoyed the process of making this quilt, even if I don't love everything about the final outcome.

I really wanted a certain range of blues, and to get that I pulled probably every bold of solid blue fabric at Joann's, regardless of what the fabric was made of.

To make the arrow shapes, I used an overhead projector to trace the shapes onto pieces of fabric.

This is where I'm glad my building has a meeting room, because there is no way I would have been able to do this in my narrow apartment!

I quilted it very simply. I appliqued all the arrows on as part of the quilting process, which worked out pretty well. I used wonder under for the shiny fabrics, but I sort of wish I had used it for all of them because some of the cotton fabrics, especially the large pieces got some tucking going on with the quilting. If I were going to do a project like this again, I would definitely use fusible or interfacing for all the applique pieces.

For my first applique quilt, I think it turned out okay.

Taking pictures of the quilt was pretty fun, and this time I made sure to take a photo of everyone who helped me hold it up.

Thanks guys!

Breakfast Time

2011-04-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

I've missed out on a lot of swaps at the guild lately, and it's mostly due to my own laziness. The last swap was a mug rug swap, which I totally forgot about until I met up with some people ahead of time and saw all of their mug rugs to swap.

Luckily, my friend Jill had made two mug rugs, and is the kind of person that when she came into the meeting and I yelled across the room "Jill, give me one of your mug rugs to swap because I am lazy and forgot to make one!" she said "Sure!".

That's real friendship people.

I mention it because for once, I am not making my swap item at the very last minute. In fact, the meeting is almost a week away and I am done, done, done!

If you haven't known me long, this should tip you off as to what I think about 95% of the time.

When I was thinking about this swap, I initially thought that it was going to be a straight swap, a solid block for a solid block. I wanted to make a block that someone could get and either incorporate into a larger project, or use without adding anything at all.

Then I read on the guild blog that what was really happening is that we are giving our block to someone else and they will do something (unknown at this time) and then give it back to us at the next meeting.

Well, that's even better! I really like this block, and am happy to have it back.

Problem is, now I want more blocks like this. I have a whole page of sketches of different foods so far, but we'll see if it goes beyond that. I think a quilt in this style could be neat though.

Just in case I do make a quilt with this theme, I made the block twice. One for the swap, and one for me.

I like that the one on the right is slightly deformed.

In other news, Fritz continues to cycle through places in my house. Now, when I say cycling through, I mean that he exclusively lives in that part of the house, and would only leave it to eat and use the litter box. If you remove him from that area, he will run as fast as he can back to it, but he won't stay there permanently. He has to move on at some point and start again.

He's a little nuts. He started with the kitchen, then the living room windowsill, then the bathroom, and, for a short time, the sewing room windowsill.

This was sort of fun, because I could always see him when I was entering the house. Less fun was the fact that he kept knocking the curtain down.

That was short lived. He then moved to the top of the box my new computer came in.

This was also fun, because it doubled as a scratching post.

The box was an interesting place, only because I was in the room when he decided he didn't want to live there any more. He wandered around the room, darting back and forth mewing pathetically. He'd sit on a lot of things and refuse to settle. Finally, I put a board on one of the chairs, and he settled in.

For Fritz, settling in is a relative term.

Even though he is totally nuts, I can't help but love his stupid, stupid face.

Honestly, normal cats look strange to me.

Between Quilts

2011-04-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

My quilt for the second project modern challenge is finished, washed, and photographed. I have my scrap quilt to baste (ugh), an idea rattling around for the third project modern challenge, but I don't have a quilt that I'm really working on.

I don't want to baste my scrap quilt quite yet, I just did all that with my monochromatic quilt and I could use a bit of a break from that kind of quilting stuff.

I have a lot of leftover fabric from my monochromatic quilt, so the past few days I've been sort of playing around with it. I know I want to make another scrap quilt using the leftover fabric of quilts I make this year, and I want to make a medallion type quilt this time.

I took my monochromatic scraps (for this block is was more like unused yardage) and made the center piece for the medallion. I used a pattern I've been sitting on for awhile, and wanted to test to see if it would be fun to make for a larger quilt. It was inspired by medieval tile patterns.

I think this kind of block, but it needs some real precision work to look really good, so I'm not sure if I'll use it again.

I'm also thrilled to use my new design boards that Paula gave me. She was getting rid of them, and I snapped them right up when she offered. They serve a much different role than my old "design wall", which was just a happy birthday banner.

All bits and pieces from my last scrap quilt.

I've gotten so used to that banner that I bet I'll use both the design wall that Paula gave me, as well as the banner for just holding stuff.

On Thursday I went to the opening of the PMGQ show at PNCA, and it was great! There were a lot of people there who weren't involved with the guild at all, so it was nice that we were able to show the community what we are all about.

I didn't even have to make anyone pose, this guy did it all on his own.

There was also a lot of free, delicious food. What a perfect kind of event!

Back to Work

2011-04-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in Iowa for my Grandmother's funeral. It was bittersweet. The funeral was sad, but it was wonderful to spend time with my aunts, cousins, and cousin's children.

My cousin Joanna lives in Iowa, and on Sunday afternoon we went out to her farm. They have a four-wheeler. I used to have one too, when I lived out on the vineyard, so I'm pretty familiar with driving one.

I will say that it is one thing to drive around with your friends, and another thing entirely to drive around with nine of your various cousin's children who are screaming for you to floor it. The oldest kid in the picture spent most of the afternoon driving all the other kids around, with some of the grown-ups rotating through to drive or ride.

In this photo, I am calculating how quickly I can leave the country if something goes wrong.

We didn't last as long as the kids, I think mainly because we were much more intensely aware that with one wrong turn we could wipe out half of the future generation of our family.

Joanna also got a pony called Tina off of craigslist for $100 dollars, and she was a popular attraction for most people. My brother Andrew wasn't super impressed.

Joanna says having a pony is sort of like having a really big rabbit.

Andrew and I both stayed at my cousin Jenny's house. In Andrew's room there was this old quilt on the bed, and I forgot to ask Jenny who made it. It has beautifully hand quilted baptist fans, but the layout is very curious to me. The placement of the color blocks makes no sense to me, with the way the blues are all sort of jammed together in a few spaces, and everything seems both placed deliberately, but seemingly without any sort of overall plan.

I've been toying with the idea of quilting in columns, and noticed the other bedspread in Andrew's room was embroidered with the same idea. It's something I definitely would like to try.

All in all, it was a good trip, but I'm glad to be home.

Notes on Grief

2011-03-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

There are certain things I will never write about on my blog. For example, I'd never write about my students, never say negative things about my clients, and never complain or talk bad about my family or friends. I'm not saying I'll never talk about politics, but it's pretty unlikely. This is primary a blog about quilting, and I want this space to be about that.

A blog is also a public space, and my real name is attached to this one. I wouldn't want careless words that I would say to friends to get around and hurt people, or have potential employers read my blog one day and say "no thanks" because of what I've written.

I also think a lot about the tone of the blog. I want it to be upbeat and interesting to read, but, in many ways, it also serves as a diary, or journal of sorts. I occasionally like to read back through the whole thing and see the little things about my life I've forgotten. I cringe at some of the stuff I've written, but it's a nice record of what I was thinking and feeling at the time, even if I don't love what I wrote now.

It is sometimes the darker things that I struggle with knowing how to talk or write about. It's different than the sort of black and white world of "what is appropriate to blog about" and "what is inappropriate to blog about". Now, I've never, ever read a heartfelt blog post from someone and felt that it was inappropriate. Writings that come from a place of sadness and pain are very real, and sometimes also very raw. It is sometimes difficult for me to judge what I should or shouldn't write about in terms of personal grief.

I mention this, because this morning my grandmother on my mother's side passed away. I've been thinking a lot about what to say about it. I want to record this experience in some way, and I've run through a lot of scenarios of what to say, and have struggled with finding a balance of emotionalism, and eliminating needless back story. In strange way, it's helped to run through what I want to tell people about this experience, and to think about how I would parse it for an audience.

My grandmother was always well dressed, and was sharp as a tack.

My grandmother was 97 years old. This is, in so many ways, not at all unexpected. She had congestive heart failure, and my aunts and cousins tell me that she wasn't in any pain when she passed. She was unresponsive after the heart attack, and they took her back to the nursing home so she could pass in her own bed, which she did.

She and I weren't particularly close. She lived in Iowa for most of my life, and I saw her maybe once a year. She outlived two of her five children, and is survived by eight grandchildren, and countless great-grandchildren. She wasn't the kind of grandmother that made you milk and cookies and asked you about your love life. She wasn't known for being a particularly kind woman.

This doesn't mean she didn't care. Through prudent financial planning, and some incredibly lucky stock picks, she (and my grandfather who passed away when I was very young) set up all her grandchildren with the financial means to pay for a college education. She used to go on a world cruise every year, and every Christmas would send us exotic gifts like worry dolls from Chile, paint sets from Hong Kong, and wind-up knock off watches from Singapore. She saw the whole world, including the North and South Poles. She was a breast cancer survivor. She liked liver and onions, and terrible reality TV, right to the end.

My cousins in Iowa let us know on Sunday that she had the heart attack, and my aunt called me this morning to let me know that Grandma had finally passed. I'm surprised at how sad I am, considering her age, and our general lack of contact. Please don't misunderstand, I loved my grandmother, but I thought those things would make it easier somehow.

I should know by know that death is never easy, no matter how prepared you are for it. I feel like a lot of this grief I'm feeling now is mixed in with the underlying sadness I feel for my own mother's death, even though it was almost seven years ago now. It's complicated. I'm, as my friend Jennifer would say, having a lot of feelings.

I was going to try and keep this post a little more upbeat, but I guess it didn't quite turn out that way.

When I was a kid and my grandmother would come to visit, we would always buy Cracklin' OatBran and prunes for her to have for breakfast. We'd never get those things other times, so they are very linked to my grandmother in my mind. She also loved ice cream, but never ate it because she was lactose intolerant. So last night I went to Fred Meyer and got those things for her.

As you can see, Fritz was very interested in these things when I was taking the picture. I had this idea that maybe he was responding to my grief, that he was one of those pets that understood when their owner was upset and responded accordingly.

It turns out that what he was responding to was the roast chicken I had bought for dinner.

I felt a little silly once I figured that out. Fritz is the kind of cat that can miss what he's jumping for even when it's two feet away, and will purr when I cut all his nails. I love him, be he's not the brightest cat. He wasn't thinking so much about me, but rather some chicken.

I fed Fritz chicken for the rest of the night, and curled up to watch RuPaul's Drag Race.

I hope wherever grandma is, she's watching it too. I think she might have liked it.

Dinner Party Weekend

2011-03-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

If you didn't already know, I grew up on a vineyard. (Just to clarify, a vineyard is different than a winery. Wineries make wine, vineyards grow grapes. Many wineries have vineyards attached, but the terms aren't interchangeable. Our vineyard was grapes only.)

Not a bad view eh?

My parents were friends with all sorts of wine folk, and they would have dinner parties almost every month. Sometimes that meant me and my brother had a babysitter, but sometimes the whole group would come to our house.

My mom and dad would get me a movie and stick me in their bedroom. I used to sneak out into the hallway and watch as my parents and their friends drank bottles of wine, and ate tons of food. There was always abundant laughter.

I always assumed that when I "Grew Up", that I would have dinner parties like that. In fact, when I moved into where I am living now, I bought a big table assuming that now that I was "Grown Up", that I would start having dinner parties just like my parents did.

That didn't really happen. I use that big table mainly for sewing, and I'm thankful that I have that space, even though it's not what I originally intended to do with it.

I mention all of this because it was my friend Chris's birthday this weekend, and we all went to his house for a New Orlean's style potluck. The food was amazing, there were baked beans, fried fish, cornbread, gumbo, mac and cheese and many more good things.

I realized that although I may not be having the dinner parties of my parent's day, I was having the same sort of social experience, just in a different form, which made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

I don't remember my parents using paper plates, but I do remember them washing a lot of dishes!

Leslie made an awesome multi-color cake.

This is the second picture of Leslie and cake I've had this year.

All and all, it was a fun birthday party.

No birthday is complete without beer and Light Bright.

It was Chris's 21st birthday, so here he is celebrating the very first taste of alcohol he's ever had in his life. At least, that's what I'm going to assume.

I'd be more excited about the fruit garnish than the drink, but that's just me.

This weekend I also got my Project Modern quilt basted, and have been having mixed feelings about it ever since. I've gotten to a point in the project where I can't really look at it objectively anymore. I was lucky that my friend Jennifer came over to help me baste it, and she offered that critical eye on the placement of the arrows that I really needed.

I'm not sure what the rules are on help with the quilt, but I'm assuming a little help with the basting is okay. It's nice to have that extra pair of hands when laying out and taping down the quilt.

Jennifer and I put in the safety pins, and then I came back and closed them with the Kwik Klip, which honestly made everything so much easier on my hands. It was a good purchase.

I basted the quilt in the meeting room at my building, and got this "in process" shot of Jennifer. I was teasing her that I would just claim it was me in the photo so no one would know that she helped me baste it, but she wasn't to pleased with that. Then we tried to come up with reasons that she would be in that pose that wasn't basting, and she suggested that I say that she was overcome with the beauty of the quilt that she sat quietly weeping beside it.

And honestly, I wasn't there, so I can't prove that isn't what happened.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

2011-03-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Look at you!

Yesterday, I set up my new computer and am now officially working from home. I'm so excited. I think this will be one of those things that really changes my day to day life. It's been a little bumpy setting up the computer, and some of the changes I've had to make are very nerdy, like deleting screen fonts so I can run my own, but it makes me feel somewhat professional. Which I need, because I'm wearing my pajamas right now.

I've always wanted to be the kind of blogger that posted regularly with funny and engaging content, and now that I'm at home more, I'm hoping to work on the "regularly" part. Someday I'll get to the "funny and engaging" part. We'll see how it goes. Work is ramping up with the most intense project of the year, so I'll be tied up for a little while.

I've been gaining momentum on my Project Modern quilt, and last weekend's all day sewing event sponsored by the guild really helped. I've said it before, but I really love that I can go the guild and know that somebody there will know something about what I'm doing, and can offer advice or commiseration.

I also like that this photo was taken during a 20 minute conversation about where to eat the best sandwiches in Portland.

I've been working with someone who is doing a class project about the guild, and she very kindly gave me a gift certificate to Fabric Depot for my help.

I used it to buy notions that I always want, but never end up buying. Usually when I'm at Fabric Depot or Joann's, I'm buying fabric or thread, or something else that I need, and by the time I get to the notions I never quite want to spend the money on them. I'm pretty happy to get these things with Bonus Monies, rather than real monies.

Shangela from RuPaul's Drag race approves my choices.

I ended up with a ruler rack, a bobbin saver (goodbye plastic bag!) and a Kwik Klip. I'm hoping the Kwik Klip will make it easier to pin baste. Basting methods can be a topic of debate, but I think it really comes down to personal preference. I'm pretty over spray basting. I don't have the space for it, and I always mess it up. I'm hoping that this new tool will make pin basting a little easier on my fingers!

Flat Tire

2011-03-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

On Friday, I was driving to Cherri's studio for a sewing night, and drove over a pothole. Seconds later, I heard a whooshing sound, and the car started to drive a little funny. I had a sinking feeling that I had gotten a flat tire.

I was right.

This isn't the first flat tire I've ever gotten. The first time I didn't even realize what was happening until multiple cars on the freeway were honking and waving at me. That time a nice older couple pulled over and helped me change the tire.

This time I was on my own. I called my dad (1-800-DAD-HELP) to see if I could change the tire myself, even though I'd never done it before. He shot me down and told me to call for roadside assistance.

(Incidentally, my dad came up with a competing hotline to my 1-800-DAD-HELP, comprised of father-type figures that could help you out, called 1-800-ASK-A-DAD. This is why you should never let anyone know your business ideas.)

I waited in my car for Les Schwab, and graded papers for my class.

Les Schwab came and brought me some new giant tires so I could just drive over anything, and not worry about a flat ever again.

Just kidding! The guy just put on my spare, and didn't even say anything about my filthy car.

While we were working on payment, I looked across the street and saw that there was a tire store. I could have just pulled in there, and had the whole thing taken care of. OH WELL! That's how it goes sometimes. It would have been a better story if I had pulled in there. Then all of my flat tires could have been immediately taken care of by the kindness of the universe. In any case, the tire was fixed and I made it to sewing night.

So close!

Later on in the weekend, I went to a party for my friend Leslie, whom I met at camp when we were but fresh faced fifteen year-olds. She has a very cool twitter, called Preschool Gems. She's been tweeting all the interesting things that the kids at her daycare say, and the whole thing has been very successful. So successful in fact, that she got a book deal!

I'm so happy for her. On Saturday she had a party to celebrate, and a good time was had by all.

When you get a book deal, you have to cut cake for everyone.

Chris is working the camera. He is great at "smizing"

It's was nice to spend the evening with some of my favorite people, and eat pizza. Can't lose!

One of these people is aware of the camera.

When I was thinking about writing this post, it occurred to me that I should include some quilting stuff. I've been working on a quilt for the Project Modern monochromatic challenge, so I don't want to show it until that's over. Which will be soon! I'm not even sure if I'll finish it in time, but I've been enjoying the process.

I did get some fabric the other day though. Exciting fabric even, not just solids!

My Project Modern quilt is under that towel. Not to hide it, but rather to protect it from Fritz.

I've been sitting on a Cool Cottons gift card, and I finally used it. All of these Kaffe Fasset shot cottons were sitting in the fat quarter basket like they where waiting for me. It's a little out of my comfort zone, but I'm excited to work with them. I've already got a quilt in mind.

When I went to get the camera to take a picture of them, this happened.

What charming morning faces!

Lady Fingers

2011-02-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

So, when it snows in the Willamette Valley, people lose their minds. There are a lot of reasons why, like the fact that it rarely snows, there usually aren't the resources in place to deal with any sort of snow fall, and people don't know how to drive in any kind of snow. This particular snowfall, it seems like people were so desperate for a day off that we just went for the snow day, even though it was at most 2 or 3 inches of snow. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just glad it only lasted for a day.

My Building looks pretty in the snow.

I took advantage of the lazy of a snow day, and finally finished the quilt for my dad's girlfriend. It was meant to be a Christmas present, so it's only three months late. Better late than never! I've had it basted for a long time, so it was just a matter of quilting it. I decided to use a shape which I'm sure has many names, but to me, looks like Lady Finger cookies.

Yes, I did buy these cookies so I would have a picture for my blog. In my defense, they were on the day old shelf, and also, they were delicious.

It sewed up quicker than I expected. I'm not sure I love it on this particular quilt, but I would definitely do it again. I used orange thread for a little bit of contrast.

I lady fingered the heck out of this quilt.

Once I started actually quilting the thing, Fritz decamped from the bathroom. He hadn't left it for anything other than eating and using the litter box in days, so of course he needed to sit on the quilt I was working on. I had to convince him to get down. Warning, there is music in the video.

In the end, I'm quite pleased with the quilt. It's not the most exciting design I've ever done, but my dad's girlfriend really likes it, and that is the most important part.

My dad's girlfriend is on the left, and is standing on a table to hold the quilt high enough. The finished size is somewhere between a twin and a full sized quilt.

When I went to take the above picture, I was sheepishly tried to explain that there was a right side up, even though it was all in my mind. My dad surprised and delighted me by saying "Of course there is a right side up! The lady fingers go down". I was so pleased that he understood that there was a right way up, and why I had picked. Like father like daughter I guess!

My dad's girlfriend wanted some action shots.

I'm glad that my dad's girlfriend likes it, and I'm glad that it's done! Now I can move on to other projects that I felt to guilty to work on because I hadn't finished this quilt.

Harry Potter and the Game of Skee Ball at the Avalon

2011-02-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been interesting for me. I'm really enjoying teaching, but it has been a significant change in the way I spend my time. I've been pretty busy preparing for class, and then teaching class, and driving to and from class. Work work has been busy too. As a result, sewing has sort of fallen by the wayside, but I'm hoping to balance it better soon. I feel like I'm settling into a rhythm. I'd like to sew more than I am now.

This week was pretty awesome. I gave a presentation on color at the February PMQG meeting, and it was fun to prepare for. Saturday was also fun, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is finally at the second run theaters. Some friends and I went to see it at the Avalon theater, which also has a bunch of nickle games.

When you walk by, the light make a great click, click, click sound.

You can tell the Avalon has been around for awhile, because it has a ton of creepy clowns outside. No one would have these types of illustrations now that so many people think clowns are scary.

Surprisingly, these are the least creepy of the clowns.

My friends Leslie, Foxx and I had one game on our mind, which was skee ball. We spend almost all of our nickles on it.

Foxx had the first roll of the night.

Eventually we got the three skee ball games next to each other, and we did not take turns with anyone, we just played until we ran out of nickles.

We spent a lot of time wondering if we could get a skee ball game in one of our houses.

My friend Leslie, who is normally very cautious and safety conscious, really surprised me by being an aggressive bad ass with the skee ball. She hurled the skee balls with a rage that I had never before witnessed from her. She kind of kicked our asses.

In this photo, Leslie had tossed the ball so hard it bounced out of her lane and into the top of mine. I still don't quite know how it happened.

Skee ball was just a warm up for Harry Potter though. You can tell we are all huge Harry Potter nerds because a) we have huge smiles on our faces at the thought of seeing the movie again, and b) because I had someone in the row behind us take our picture so I could put it on my blog.

I wish the background could have been an image from the movie, but I'm not sure how the rest of the theater would have felt about it.

On Sunday, I finally got some sewing done. I headed over to Cherri's studio and spent some time free motion quilting (not on the long arm though!). I was happy to get a start on this quilt. I've been hemming and hawing about how to quilt it, so I was happy to get it started. I like how this turned out, but, as Cherri correctly predicted, it's going to take a lot of time.

These rows already used two bobbins. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I hate winding bobbins for some reason.

As far as Fritz goes, he seems to have settled into living in the bathroom, and I sort of don't mind. He's taken to sitting on the windowsill, which is easy to clean, and I get to see him a lot, which I didn't necessarily do when he was hanging out in the kitchen.

His habit of putting his paws on my shoulder has developed into full blown riding around on my shoulders.

I think of the two of us, Fritz has the more awesome expression on his face.

I always wanted a cat that would ride around on my shoulders, and now that it's happened, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I'm not discouraging it, but I'll really have to keep his nails trimmed. He can have quite a grip. When he gets up there I've been I've been trying to walk around like normal, and he can hang on for quite awhile. We'll see if he keeps it up.

There have been better pictures of me, but probably not better pictures of Fritz.

Weekend Weekend

2011-01-31T20:40:00.000-08:00

Last week was full of work, so I had to cram all my fun into the weekend. Luckily, there is more than enough to do in Portland.

On Friday my friend Jennifer and I hit up Namaste for dinner, which is an Indian buffet. Usually Indian restaurants only have the buffet at lunch, so I was super psyched to find a place that did the buffet for dinner. I always want a bunch of different stuff, which can be quite spendy, so a buffet is a perfect for me.

Jennifer steers the traditional Indian door wheels

The best part of Namaste is that it used to be some sort of family dinning place, so all the decor is all American Logging Nostalgia. I'll take just about any kind of decor if it means I can have unlimited naan. Looking at the pictures now, I'm ready to go back. The food on the plate looks so good, but it could just be that I haven't had dinner yet.

Check out the awesome booth fabric.

On Saturday my friend Cherri had an open house for her studio, and you could tell that we were a bunch of quilting bloggers because everybody had their cameras.

Cherri's studio itself is lovely, and it's right next to the St. John's bridge. She had a bunch of cookies and milk, which was a very nice touch. She even had little packets of color pencils for everyone. She's a lady how knows how to throw a party!

What a very Portland type view!

Cherri just bought a long arm machine, and had a charity quilt top for everybody to try their hand at quilting. I love the diamond quilt that is behind Jenn.

One of the things I like best about the Portland Modern Quilt Guild is that is such a fun social experience. I got to talk to a lot of people from the guild at this party, and it's fun to get to know everyone better.

Joan told me that she was considering trying to quilt 15 minutes a day in February. Do it Joan! Do it!

And of course, on Sunday it was me and Fritz. When I went to Winco I bought one of those toilet cleaner tabs, solely for the reason that it turns your toilet water purple. I think it matches the horrible green and pink tile nicely. After I got it I wondered why there weren't a range of colors available to match any bathroom decor, but maybe most people don't really want their toilet water to match their bathroom.

Fritz is very interested in the purple water. That, or annoying me constantly.

Fritz hasn't stopped living in the bathroom. He only leaves to eat or use the litter box, and every time I go in there he demands a lot of attention.

Don't ask questions about this picture you don't want answers to.

He makes a pretty pathetic face, but I love him anyway. Today was back to work, but at least I'll have the thoughts of another fun weekend to keep me going.

Food I am Currently Eating

2011-01-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

Studio Time

2011-01-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

My friend Cherri just got herself an amazing new sewing studio, and a new long arm machine. She graciously invited me to stop by and see the studio and try out the machine.

The artist is in!

My other friend Rachel patiently taught us how to use the machine, and more importantly taught us how to approach the design of the quilting, block by block. Jill and Kaci were also there, so the five us us worked on collaboratively quilting one of Rachel's charity quilts. The long arms was a lot easier to use than I thought it would be, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of Cherri's good nature and quilting one of my quilts on her machine!

Rachel told me not to take a picture of her, but I think this will work if I don't have her head in there.

I also took advantage of Cherri's open floor space to finally baste the quilt I've been working on for my dad's girlfriend. I'm so glad to finally get it basted. I've been putting it off because I hate basting, and as a consequence I haven't been doing any quilting at all lately. I can't start another project until I get this done!

Cherri's adorable dog Lulu did what all animals do when confronted with a quilt, which is to sleep on it.

After I left Cherri's studio I met up with my friends Leslie and Chris and we went to Chang's Mongolian Grill. Leslie and I have a pretty sentimental attachment to Chang's, because we used to go their every Saturday after camp was over when we were camp counselors together. We would look forward to it all week.

This particular time, our waiter was by far the most awesome waiter we'd ever had. We wrote him a note to let him know this, and then waited until he went in the back for something and hightailed it out of there before he could see that we wrote it.

We had a lot of debate as to if we should show it to him while we were there, but ultimately chickened out.

At Chang's, we have a tradition of getting fortune cookies, reading the fortunes, and then throwing the cookies on the ground in the handicap parking spot. Don't ask me how it got started, but we do it every time we go.

My fortune said "You may have to modify your plans".

Chang's is in the same parking lot as Winco, so we went there too. I used to shop a lot at the Winco in Salem when I worked at camp, and I always loved and feared the honey section.

I have no idea how this works.

We had a pretty fun time just wandering the aisles and finding weird things.

Chris managed to find some climbing time.

In Fritz related news, he's taken to spending all his time on top of the toilet. It's not so bad, but he's started to put his paw on my shoulder every time I sit down in an effort to get me to pet him (with mixed results). He's a strange cat sometimes.

At least he's not on the toilet seat anymore.

Indecision 2011

2011-01-09T00:18:00.000-08:00

I spent most of today in Salem getting some training for the class I'm teaching. It wasn't so bad, and I sat next to a woman who was going to be teaching Wine Marketing at the Chemeketa Viticulture center. My dad teaches almost all of the Viticulture (grape growing) classes, and it turns out that she and her partner David Adelsheim had bought grapes from my parents for many years.

Small world huh? The grape world seems even smaller.

Last night though, I got together with some of the ladies from PMQG for some much needed food and sewing. As always, I had a fantastic time. We hadn't gotten together for awhile due to the holidays, so it was nice to see everyone.

Jill was kind enough to let me take a photo of her and her awesome quilt.

I spent my time at Modern Domestic putting together the green stripe in the quilt top below. All the rows are made up of scraps leftover from other quilts, except the big one which is made up from leftover yardage.

All of the diet root beer cans in my living room are tastefully cropped out

Here is where the indecision comes in. For some reason, I thought that all of these pieces together would give me a much longer quilt. It's not a bad size. It's roughly 5 feet by 6 feet, but a really good couch quilt should be bigger. At least for me anyway.

So, I could wait until I have a few more scrap rows and add them on (which would be after a few more quilts), but I'm sort of liking it the way it is. Considering the amount of time it took me to put all of this together, I'm not sure I would use this as a couch quilt anyway. I eat a few meals on my couch and it seems inevitable that I would get spaghetti sauce on it. It may be destined for the safety of my closet.

I can't decide if I want to wait and add more, or just quilt it now. I think I'll sleep on it.

As for Fritz, he's been driving me nuts lately. He's been knocking stuff over.

I'm going to go ahead and blame most of the messiness in this picture on him.

And it's no surprise that he's hanging out where he shouldn't be.

Would you believe that Fritz left all those dirty dishes in the sink?

So tonight when he started jumping up on my sewing space, I decided he could use a little time in cat prison. Hopefully it will scare him straight.

Goofus and Gallant

2011-01-03T22:39:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in life, you are Gallant, always putting other people's needs before your own, acting with kindness and empathy, and serving as an example for all those around you.

Sometimes though, you are Goofus, and act lazy, are selfish, and take what you want and damn the consequences.

Today I am Goofus. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I spent my night doing this:

These are half-square triangles made from the leftovers of the flying geese for the star quilt I made (and have not finished even thought it was meant to be a Christmas present) for my dad's girlfriend. If I were in a more Gallant like mood I would have basted that top so I could finish it. Maybe tomorrow I'll be Gallant instead of Goofus.

In Fritz news, he has taken to sleeping on my ironing board. I put the red sheet on it to protect the board from excess hair, and he looked so happy there, I started using my big ironing board when I was working on the half-square triangles instead of tossing him on the ground and using the table top ironing board.

It's normal for one person to have two ironing boards, right?

Fritz was very interested in my ironing, and watched attentively the whole time. After I was done, I went to watch some TV, only to look over and see that Fritz had found a new ironing board.

This is a cat that will never be satisfied with what he has

Also, I had my first class today! I think it went pretty well. The students all seemed to be active listeners, and nobody looked like they were checking their Facebook page while I was talking, so I'll count that as a success. I'm just now realizing that even though I have most of the materials from the previous instructor, I will still have to develop a lot of my own materials. I was sitting at the computer last night working on my syllabus, and it felt a lot like being back in school and doing homework.

But at least I get paid this time, instead of paying to take the class!

Last Minute: Overtime

2010-12-29T22:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I didn't finish the quilt in time for Christmas. I realized on Wednesday night that I wouldn't be able to finish it, so I got the top assembled and left it at that.

I took this photo in my roommate's room. He sure has a lot of stuff here for someone who moved out!

I didn't have the energy to design a quilt top, so I just stuck with stars, which Stephani told me she liked a long time ago. It's interesting that this quilt is sort of a combo of "nothing fancy" and "a lot of small parts" to me.

These colors aren't my favorite either, but I like the overall look. Stephani just requested that I try and finish it before her birthday (which is in April), so I think I can manage that.

I would work more on it now, but since I'm teaching a class at Chemeketa winter term I've been spending time preparing. I've never taught a class before so it's been fun to put together all the materials and decide which topics I want to cover.

Fritz is, as always, right where I don't want him. This time it's licking himself on my class notes.

It's too bad I don't have more time right now, because I got an awesome Christmas present!

Now I want the light set too.

It's somewhere around one hundred fat quarters, and 25 yards of fabric. Good job on the present dad! And of course, when Fritz saw me take a photo of the box, he had to all up in my business.

I will never stop posting pictures of my cat

Last Minute: Wednesday

2010-12-22T23:17:00.000-08:00

~~Monday: Buy Fabric and cut all pieces~~

~~Tuesday: Assemble flying geese units (I can't stop making flying geese!)~~

~~Wednesday: Get farther on the quilt top~~

Thursday: Finish quilt top, baste, quilt, invent time machine

Friday: Bind

Maybe it was a little ambitious to think that I could finish the quilt top and baste it in one day.

I gave it a pretty good effort though. I may be giving my dad's girlfriend an unbound quilt with the promise of a speedy finish, but I think that's okay.

Why did I choose such a labor intensive block?!

Fritz would not leave the ironing board alone tonight. I'd throw him off, and he'd jump right back on over and over again. He'd eventually get the picture, and then sit beside the ironing board until I was done so he could hop back on.

I finally got him to quit by dumping him in a grocery bag. He loves it for some reason, and stayed in there for at least an hour.

Last Minute: Tuesday

2010-12-21T23:22:00.000-08:00

~~Monday: Buy Fabric and cut all pieces~~

~~Tuesday: Assemble flying geese units (I can't stop making flying geese!)~~

Wednesday: Assemble top and baste

Thursday: Quilt

Friday: Bind

It was a slog, but I did manage to get all the geese assembled today. Tomorrow I'll have to go to Ikea (darn) and get a sheet for the backing so I can hopefully fully assemble and baste the top.

It wasn't so bad, there are only 140 of them

Today was also the day of the Christmas staff party for the summer camp I worked at. It's always a lot of fun, and it's great to get together with all the people I spent so much time with over the summer.

This pizza was so good, we didn't even wait for plates. I mean, we all have plates here, but initally we just ate the slices off of napkins. Other members of our group waited for plates like polite people should.

I made my friend Bullph take the above photo, and he was sort of grumpy that he wasn't in the group shot so I took solo shot of him so he wouldn't feel left out.

He was obviously thrilled.

I really like this next photo, because everyone looks like they are having a good time. Hanging out with camp people is usually about laughing a lot.

And finally, another installment of "Places I Wish Fritz Wasn't".

I wish he wasn't in the sink

I wish he wasn't on the ironing board. And honestly, he hasn't slept on the ironing board in ages, but he was all into it today just because I was using it. He's like a three year old.

Last Minute: Monday

2010-12-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

Recently, my dad e-mailed me some suggestions for Christmas gifts for himself and his girlfriend.

It's okay if you can't read it.

Let's take a closer look at one of those suggestions.

I know what that means. They want a quilt. I saw my dad on Sunday to confirm and feel out his girlfriend for her favorite colors. It's such a short time frame, so I've got too get move on!

I'm thinking I can get it done if I stick to a strict schedule, and I don't get called into work. The whole thing is going to be (relatively) simple, with all star blocks.

Here's the plan.

~~Monday: Buy Fabric and cut all pieces~~

Tuesday: Assemble flying geese units (I can't stop making flying geese!)

Wednesday: Assemble top and baste

Thursday: Quilt

Friday: Bind

I've got Monday's work done, and everything is cut and waiting to be put together.

I got into an interesting conversation with the woman cutting my fabric at Fabric Depot. She took a look at all the colors, and mentioned that the color in the lower left corner was the only one without any green in it. She asked me if that's really what I wanted to do.

I was a little taken aback, because I thought they all looked nice together. It was want a wanted to do! I took a quick look anyway to see if I could find another teal I liked, and didn't have any luck. I tried to joke that it didn't matter that it didn't have any green because the quilt wasn't for me.

She then told me that it should matter even more that everything matched well because it was a gift.

We were silent for awhile, and then she told me that in many places it was a tradition during the holidays to take in a stranger for the holiday meal. She said that she didn't think people should be excluded because they were down on their luck, and that it was a shame that we didn't follow that tradition here. She said people didn't trust other people enough to bring them into their homes, but didn't realize the amount of trust we put in others to provide a safe food supply, and services like firefighting and police.

We were silent for again for awhile.

Then she told me that she was part of a few different groups, one of which had the motto to leave places better than when they found it, and another that didn't have that motto. She said that the group that didn't have that motto often left their meeting place a mess, so she wrote an article in their newsletter saying that people should leave places better than they found them. After she wrote the article she said that everyone agreed that they had always felt that way, and they didn't have any more problems with messes.

She finished cutting the fabric, and I wished her a happy holiday season. It was one of the stranger fabric cutting experiences I've had.

In other news, Fritz is still places I don't want him to be.

It's alright, I didn't want that delicious bread anyway.

OH MAN OH MAN OH MAN

2010-12-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

A while back, I entered a potato contest at the fair. I entered a potato side dish. The recipe was one I made myself, and it was basically just the insides of a vegetable samosa.

I won second place, and a $75 dollar gift card to Safeway.

When they announced my name, I couldn't stop smiling. My face hurt from smiling so hard.

I felt that way today, when I got an e-mail that said my quilt had been picked as a winner for the first Project Modern Challenge.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I think that the picture is funny though, because I can't quite understand how all those hands are there. If you look at the right side, there are three hands, and one on the left. What's up with that?

My sewing machine is keeping an eye on things

My roommates friends helped me take the photo, so it's some combo of these guys holding it up. They didn't even mind that I interupted their board game.

As for the quilt itself, I did some things I said I would never do. I ripped quilting out after I started. I told myself I'd never bother with that, but it was just too dense for me. It was only in the blue sections, but I felt a lot better after I'd done it.

All this seam ripping took a marathon session of Cake Boss season 1 and 2 on Netflix

There were a lot of great quilts for this challenge, it seems like it would be impossible to pick a winner. I'm feeling pretty lucky that it was me!

CATS

2010-12-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder what the last place you'd like to find your cat is?

I don't. I already know.

Success!

2010-11-16T22:56:00.000-08:00

I kept thinking of things to add to my pity party post yesterday, like the fact that my bathroom sink is backed up and two bottles of Drano has done nothing, or that my cat probably has fleas and won't stop jumping on the kitchen counter, no matter how much stuff is up there.

Winking won't get you out of this one Fritz

No more pity party though. Because, guess what? My Project Modern quilt is done! I washed it tonight, and all that remains to be done it to photograph it, write my essay and send in my entry.

Luckily, the red didn't run

Incidentally, the laundry room in my building is pretty awesome. There are 19 units (though the numbers go to 20, there is no unit 13) and we all have cubbies in the laundry room. The cubbies are original refrigerators from when the place was build in 1928.

I'm pretty sure this is what the original builders had in mind.

Off of the laundry room is a pretty sad exercise room, with ancient equipment. I mean honestly, a Nordic Track? What is this, 1995?

It must be fun to exercise in this windowless room!

The best piece in the room though is this non-motorized treadmill, complete with tape deck.

The brand is Jane Fonda, naturally. Just need my sweet striped leotard!