Summer 2007 quilt FFs

Friday five, paper-pieced edition

June 15, 2007

1. Have you ever tried to paper piece a quilt block before? Many times.

2. If not, why? If yes, what did you make? I think the first one I ever made was a bird for a block exchange. (I think I have a picture somewhere but I can't find it!) And in an extended fit of insanity, I paper-pieced 200 autumn leaf blocks. (see below) But I also paper-piece "normal" things like log cabins and flying geese sometimes. It's a little more time-consuming but it's really good if you're having trouble getting something to come out perfectly accurate.

3. Is there a paper piecing pattern you are dying to test out (post a picture or a link)? Not that I can think of.

4. Have you ever designed your own paper piecing patterns? I've drafted my own a few times - I wouldn't really say designed. I only would do it for very simple things like maybe flying geese or something like that.

5. Would you be willing to learn or teach someone about paper piecing? I could show somebody, sure.



Bound Friday five

June 22, 2007

1. Do you make your own binding or purchase it? You can purchase binding? -- No, I guess I knew that but I've never done it. I like to pick my own fabric.

2. Do you sew on your own binding or let the longarm machiner do it? Nobody else touches my quilts.  :)    (Not til they're finished, anyway!)

3. What method do you use to put binding on? I just cut straight strips, and I haven't done one lately so I can't remember how wide I cut them - 2-1/4"?? I cut the ends at a 45-degree angle, and usually it takes a couple of tries to get them all together correctly - I'm very bad at that for some reason. Then fold in half, iron and sew onto the front of the quilt. I like to sew the back side down by hand, I've seen some machine-sewn ones that look good but I don't do it that way myself.

4. Have you ever done strips/plaids on a bias binding? I don't do bias. Stripes running across on a straight binding look great, I've done that a number of times. Plaids would probably look better cut on the bias, although I've used them from time to time.

5. Have you ever made binding on a scallop edge? I've never made a quilt with a scallop edge. It's not really my style, although that's not to say I'd never do it. I might, someday!

Friday five - quilt shop edition

June 29, 2007

1. How many quilt shops are within 2 hours of your home? A lot. Well over a dozen, since the entire Houston metropolitan area is within that distance.

2. Have you been to them all?   No. I've been to all the ones that were on the old Houston-area shop hop, but I know there are some more that never got included. Now they have another shop hop, and I've only been to one on that list.

3. Have you visited other shops while on traveling in different states? Some, but not as much as I would like to.

4. What is your favorite quilt shop? Gosh, I don't know. They're all different. Plus it also varies by how well their buyer's taste is lining up with mine in any particular season. But the Quilt Store in Austin has always been a favorite. And Painted Pony and Sew Contempo, both on the south side of Houston.

5. Do you plan your trips around visiting quilt shops? No, but I should. I worry about dragging my husband too far out of the way and him being bored and so forth, but he drags me 1000 miles away once a year to see his parents, so it's really not too much to ask! It's my fault, I need to be more assertive about it.

Friday five, blocked out

July 6, 2007

1. Have you ever participated in a quilt block swap - online or with a guild? Yes, several.

2. Would you be interested in doing one? Not right now, no - maybe sometime in the future!

3. What reservations would you have to not participating in a swap? My problem with swaps is that I still have the blocks from the last couple of ones I did sitting around unfinished. I have sworn not to do any more until I put those together!

4. Ever hosted a swap before? Nope.

5. Where do you find online swaps? I've never actually done a block swap online - all mine have been through the quilt guild.

Brightly-colored Friday five

July 13, 2007

1. Do you notice yourself choosing light, medium, or darker tones the most? Medium to dark, I guess. I love jewel tones.

2. Which specific color group do you tend to gravitate towards? Blues and greens.

3. What colors/themes/genres fabrics do you consider "outside your comfort zone"? Nothing, really. I don't normally buy solids but that's because I don't like the feel of them - and they ravel too much - not because I don't like the colors.

4. Do you notice, over time, your color choices change? Oh heck yeah. I used to be much more conservative and - somebody wrote about this lately, was that here? - only buy the colors that I usually buy for clothes - which means no earth tones to speak of. Gradually I've expanded my taste, though.

5. Do you ever purchase fabric out side your comfort zone? See above. I learned to, yeah.

Completely batty friday five

Aug 3, 2007

1. What batting do you prefer to use? The original Warm & Natural, or other brands with a similar texture.

2. Do you purchase batting by the yard (off a bolt) or in a bag? I prefer bags.

3. Do you purchase batting for more than one project at a time? If I find a really good sale, yeah.

4. When do you purchase your backing (after a project is completed or while you are picking out all the fabric in the beginning of a project)? I am not a methodical person. I don't buy the whole project at one time. I do it whenever I think about it.

5. What do you do with all the leftover strips of batting? I hate to throw away anything useable, so if it's a big enough piece that I think it might be good for something, I keep it.

1986-1987 - the insurgency began and you missed it

Music advent for 1986 (although it's a later performance, as Eddie Vedder's presence might tip you off to):
R.E.M. w/ Eddie Vedder - Begin the Begin
(Dreamwidth note: I can't get embeds to work so far so here's the link.)

So, the parade of reminiscences about concerts and such stops abruptly at the end of 1985, because at the beginning of 1986, I left Austin. I gave you the hints in the last entry - I hated my job, I hated my roommate. I loved my friends but I was 25 and I felt like my life needed to go on and I didn't feel like that was going to happen in Austin, mostly because there was so much competition for every decent job in Austin. And I had a teaching certificate that I hadn't done anything with, and a library degree I hadn't really done anything with either. To be a school librarian, you have to have teaching experience, so I decided I should get some. So I moved home "temporarily" with my parents. The idea was that I would get a job and be gone again.

(Aside: the main reason I didn't go to concerts after this is because in Houston at that time, all the big concerts were on the wrong side of town. The main concert venue is The Woodlands, which is on the north side of Houston, and I lived - still live - on the south side. It's about 75 miles from Galveston, a little less from where we live now, but anyway, it's out of easy distance. You have to be more motivated than I was to go to concerts. These days many of the concerts are downtown, so those are more accessible, but concerts are so expensive and I'm far too unmotivated to even consider it, most of the time.)

Unfortunately I waited rather late to apply for the jobs for the semester, and the jobs were pretty limited at that point. (I was and am way too impulsive about these things. I think it would have been more logical to wait - to stay in Austin a few more months, maybe, and start looking for jobs in the summer. But I didn't do that, obviously.) I came really close to getting a job in my hometown, but I didn't get it. So I spent the spring substituting - mostly in elementary school. Mostly I enjoyed it. But then school was out and I got a summer job - in Galveston, at Gaido's, which is a fancy seafood restaurant.

Those of you who know me may have seen this coming by now. I met a boy. I thought he was my age, but it turned out he was a couple of years younger than me. He was a bartender, not college educated. But I was in love, I didn't care. In October we got engaged. I spent the winter working at Gaido's part-time, substitute teaching, still, and planning a wedding. (I made my own dress, and did a lot of other things myself - in many ways I was a forerunner of the "handmade" kind of weddings that are popular today.) I picked the 1987 song because it was on the mix-tape we played at the wedding reception:
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
(again, if I the hang of embeds I'll try to fix this later but here's the link)

Yeah, we had a mix-tape. (See below for a bit more about that.) We got married at my parents' house, which was not the house where I grew up, but out in the country, and we had the wedding in the back yard, on a tiny budget. I loved how it turned out.

My parents never said a word to me about the wisdom of marrying somebody who wasn't college-educated. I suspect they knew it wouldn't do any good - I was always stubborn. My dad hadn't paid for my sister's wedding the year before, though, and he wouldn't pay for mine, either. (He said he paid for college for both of us, and that was enough. Which I guess is fair.) (And my mom still found ways to pay for items here and there.)

And well, it hasn't been a bed of roses, but that'll be 28 years ago this spring, and we're still married. So I guess it all turned out pretty well, right?




We had a lot of fun with that mix-tape. We went around and collected oldies singles to put on it. It started with "Going to the Chapel." We also had that Aretha Franklin and George Michael song which turned out to be the number one song the week of our wedding:
Aretha Franklin & George Michael - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) [Official Video]
(here's the link)