Catchy Name Needed

I was reading today about how the Color of the Year is Greenery. (I wrote a nail blog post for this earlier with a lot more information - look for that tomorrow night, but I can't link to it directly til then.) "Greenery" is sort of a spring green, not-quite-lime color - it's not a color that I would wear, really, because I don't think it would be flattering on me - but it's a color I like. And then that made me think of this quilt.

Some of y'all who have known me for years have seen this quilt before, probably many times, but honestly I hadn't taken a good look at it in ages, it seems like. It's physically in my dining room right now but it's kind of shoved back in the corner and I tend to forget it's there!

I put this quilt together using blocks from a swap. I love the colors in this, but if I had made all the blocks for it back then - it was more than 10 years ago - I would never have used these colors. And it's the greens I'm talking about, not the purples. Apparently I was afraid of lime greens back them. If you look you can see that a couple of the blocks are quite bright, and I remember getting these back and wondering what I was going to do with them. I finally came up with a layout that went from palest at the top left and worked down and to the right to the brighter and then a few in the bottom corner that were a bit darker. Purple and green used to be a fairly unusual color combination but I don't think that's as true as it used to be. On a color-wheel, they're two-thirds of a triad, meaning they're one-third of the wheel apart from each other. I think maybe it makes more sense to say that what they have in common is blue, because purple is blue + red and green is blue + yellow, right? Anyway, I wasn't looking at a color wheel or any of this when I came up with this combination, I just decided they looked pretty together. This quilt was finished before I ever looked at a color wheel and figured out why that was.

For those interested in the pattern, this was a commercial pattern called "Faceted Jewels" and if you google that name you'll come up with a bunch of multicolored versions of this pattern (plus a really nice red & white version that I've never seen before) - the multi version was the way it was done in the original pattern. I called mine "Faceted Amethysts" since I used purples for the "gem" sections. It's basically a variation on some standard blocks, though. It's two very standard quilt blocks that alternate. It doesn't have any curves in it although it gives an illusion of curves. One of the blocks is usually called "54-40 or Fight" but the way the colors are arranged in that block is not the standard way, so it looks different. And the other block is just a combination of a square in a square and flying geese (the triangles are the geese, see). I can't remember offhand if that block has a particular name.

(Oh, wow, look at the very tiny version of this pattern in this post.)

Notional Friday Five

Apr 6, 2007

1. What is your favorite quilting notion? Are rotary cutters a notion? If so, I would say my pink rotary cutters, I am inordinately fond of them.

2. What was the last notion you purchased? a pincushion, of all things - also one of those round things that bobbins go in

3. What notion have you purchased and don't or rarely use? I think there's a lot of these - a chalk marker comes to mind right off the bat. I like to buy notions, but I don't always use them as much as I think.

4. Do you have a wearable notion? I have a couple of those things that attach your scissors to your clothing, does that count? Oh, and my aunt made me a chatelaine for Christmas.

5. What do you consider a notion? hmm... just about anything for sewing that's not the fabric or the sewing machine, I guess!

Friday five, mechanical edition

April 13, 2007

1. What is your sewing machine? (please go online and find a picture to show) A Janome Jem Gold (probably a little older than the model in the picture!)

2. How long have you had your machine? a couple of years, I guess

3. Are you planning to purchase a new machine soon? no, because I just inherited my mother's bigger Janome - I don't know what model it is but it sews really well

4. What is your dream machine? one with a stitch regulator

5. Have you taken classes for your sewing machine? no

Classy Friday five

Apr 20, 2007

1. Have you ever taken a quilt/sewing class? I took a bunch of them a few years back, but I stopped when I realized that I came out of every one with a project I wasn't finishing.  :)

2. What do you enjoy the most out of classes? (oops, I missed one)  I always come out of them withsomething I didn't know before. Plus, the company is always fun.

3. What is one technique you would like to learn in a class? I said a couple of weeks ago that I would like to take a class from the woman who did this quilt, but as far as I have been able to tell, she doesn't teach. (Anyway, I thought at the time I said that that those were pieced blocks, but it turns out they're not. They're raw-edge machine appliqued.) There are a lot of things I am interested in, when it comes right down to it. Way more things than I will ever have time to actually do!

4. Do you teach classes? No. I've thought about it, but once again, I don't have time.

5. Do you know where you can find classes? Around here, they're alll over. My guild has classes more-or-less monthly, usually at a reduced rate from what you would find at the many local quilt shops that offer them. And since I live in the Houston area, there is always quilt festival (which tends to be very expensive, which is the main reason I have never taken classes there).

Retreat!

May 4, 2007

1. Have you ever done a quilting retreat? yup, just went to one last weekend

2. Would you ever go on one? so, um, yes

3. What would you like to do on a retreat (besides not worry about laundry and kid's homework)? get a lot done. And a little shopping is always good.

4. Where would you like to go on a quilting retreat? somewhere scenic - but on the other hand places where there's TOO much to see are not good. Too many temptations to do other things than quilt.

5. How many people do you think would make a nice size group for a retreat? One of the ones I go to is about 50 people, and the other one has been a good bit larger than that in the past. Between those two options, I think the smaller size is better. At the larger one, everybody can't be in the same room and so you don't really talk to everybody anyway.

High-calorie Friday five

May 18, 2007

1. What do you tend to munch on while quilting? I'm a bit of a messy eater, so I don't generally eat while quilting. I don't want grease on my fabric, thanks.

2. What do you enjoy drinking while quilting? Iced tea. (I can usually manage not to spill this.)

3. Do you notice that if you are quilting, you tend to skip meals - including dinner? I am bad about skipping meals anyway. I don't know that I do it while quilting any more than any other activity I tend to get highly involved in!

4. White, Milk, Dark Chocolate? Milk.

5. What is your favorite comfort food? Depends on my mood. M&Ms, maybe. And if I really want comfort I have been known to hit the cookie dough.  :)

Memorial Friday Five

May 25, 2007

1. Have you seen a memorial quilt? Sure - since I am lucky enough to live close by, I go to IQF every year, and they usually have several, at the very least. (Often dozens, if they have a special exhibit.) Here's an example - this one is a memorial to murder victims in Juarez, by Sabrina Zarco.

2. Have you ever made a memorial quilt? No.

3. Do you think memorial quilts are important? Absolutely.

4. If you made/make one what would it be for? I have (somewhat vague) plans to make one for my grandparents.

5. What are your quilting related plans/goals for this 3-day Memorial Day weekend? Not to order too much fabric, because I've been bad that way lately. To organize some of my quilting stuff. Actual quilting will probably be impossible, I'm afraid.

Semi-organized Friday five

June 1, 2007

1. How do you organize your fabric stash? In plastic boxes, sorted by color. If I have a specific project I'm planning and I'm collecting up fabrics for that, those usually get their own box.

2. How do you organize your UFO's/projects? Well, first of all, I seem to define UFOs differently than some people around here - I assume if you haven't started something you can't really call it unfinished. So I don't count things that I haven't started yet as UFOs. Anyway, as I said above, I have usually have boxes for future projects. And since I have always done the majority of my quilting at my mother's house, I usually keep my in-progress projects in some portable form - this may just be a shopping bag. (They're lighter than the plastic boxes.)

3. What is your most creative organizing feat? Um... being organized at all is a feat for me, I am not a naturally organized person!

4. Do you regularly go through your items to reorganize? From time to time, yes. Lately I went through and pulled out all the fabric I really hated and didn't want to have to look at any more - I figured if I feel that strongly about it, why keep it?

5. Do you spring clean your items in aiding you to organize? Spring cleaning is not something I've ever gotten into.  :)

Phat Friday five

June 8, 2007

1. Do you collect Fat Quarters? Not really "collect" per se - I buy them a good bit, though. What I mean is, I don't buy FQs just for the sake of buying FQs. I just buy them if I see something I like. I don't keep them segregated from the rest of my fabric or anything.

2. How many Fat Quarters do you have? Oh, lots, I'm sure. I bought a big set of indigo batik FQs and I won an eBay auction for 50 taupe FQs, so I am awash in them right now. I'm sure I've bought many hundreds over the years, but I have no real count to give.

3. Have you ever made a quilt just out of fat quarters? No.

4. What color do you have the most fat quarters in? Well, at the moment it'd have to be those taupes!

5. How often do you purchase fat quarters? I think they have gotten awfully expensive, at $2.50 at most stores around here, so I don't buy as many as I used to unless I see a deal.

karen_d and I made this quilt back in... I'm not sure without looking - 2005, 2006? for some friends who were getting married (and are now divorced, so I wonder who got the quilt?). We had done a previous quilt together and did a weekend of work on that one in Texas (at my mom's house, actually, because that's where all my sewing stuff was, for the most part), but for this one I went to Michigan and we worked at her house instead. I had done the red centers (which are 4"? - god, I'd forgotten I ever did anything that small - sampler blocks) in advance and she had done most of the work on the big stars and and made the white blocks with various printed sayings and well-wishes on them. So we worked all weekend on putting it together and we had the "quilt sandwich" by the time I left - that means, for the uninitiated, the quilt top, the batting in the center, and the quilt back - all pinned together and ready to quilt. Karen did most of the quilting and then she mailed it to me and I did a bit more quilting (and I think made a label) and put the binding around the edges - and then we mailed it away. I've always loved this color scheme. We found that black-and-brown batik somewhere and that was what tied the whole thing together.

(I was talking the other day about how quilts acquire names in the process of making them. We always called this one "the fish quilt" after the nickname of one of the recipients - and we did put a tropical-fish print on the back, as I recall.)


holidailies.org

My aunt was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that somebody in her family was pro-choice. Heh. (I refrained from pointing out that since she didn't speak to any of us for nearly 20 years, she doesn't really know me very well.)

She seems truly to think that Obama is insincere. I see plenty of faults in Obama, but I do believe he's sincere in what he's trying to do. (I started to say, "What do y'all think?" but since my friendslist is pretty overwhelmingly liberal I suspect you guys are mostly going to agree with me.) The fact is, I see the world in such a different way from my relatives, maybe the meme below is right.

( Not that I didn't know this already )

(Or tired, if you're not a southerner.) However you pronounce it, I'm it. And my left index finger is sore 'cause I kept poking it instead of the fabric. But there are two quilts all ready to go, with labels and hanging sleeves and the whole kit and caboodle. And I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow I deliver quilts and wait around on the heater guy and hopefully get back to work in the afternoon, because I'm supposed to have Thursday afternoon off, too, and if I end up taking the whole day tomorrow it's going to get really hard to leave again on Thursday. (And Thursday night is the preview night for the quilt show, which is liable to be the only time I go.)

I think you guys need to see the Giant Jesus quilts, now that I have remembered their existence:



I heard about them before I saw them, and I didn't expect to like them - not being of much of a religious persuasion - but actually I do like them. (Only one of them is actually Jesus, as you may have noticed.) The reason I heard about them is because somebody was trying to tell me about a pirate quilt, and the directions went, "You turn at the giant Jesus quilts...."  I never did find the pirate quilt, actually. But these were rather hard to miss, once you got to the right vicinity.

(The official name of these is the "St. Mary Triptych" and they were made for a Catholic church in Amarillo.)

I wrote an entry earlier but it is MIA. And I can't even remember what it's about. So you are probably getting a quick collection of randomness, so I can keep up my daily posting. I don't feel very well, actually - my neck hurts. I'm not sure what caused that. I don't think I can blame it on the mammogram I had this afternoon, although I'd like to. I hate those damn things. And I am filled with fear that they'll see some shadow like they did last year, and I'll have to go through all that crap again. Actually, even if they see something, if they say to me what they said last year - "You can go ahead and have a biopsy or you can wait six months and see" - I would be much more inclined to wait than I was last year. Cause I don't really think I want to go through that weirdness again, all for nothing. But we'll see. Hopefully they won't see anything, and it won't be an issue.

So have you guys heard about Baby Grace where you are? It's a big story here, but I gather that it's made the news all over the place. It's very sad, but I can't help but wonder if she'd get this much media attention if she'd had dark hair instead of blonde. Is that being excessively cynical? It does seem to be a pattern, though, in general. (Nothing against the local police at all - it's definitely an unusual occurrence for us. We get the occasional body of a fisherman washing up, maybe, but not small children in boxes. But then I don't suppose that's really usual anywhere, is it? I gotta admit that.)

There is this muted banging noise that seems to come from the apartment next door all the time, and we can't figure out what it is. It's not really loud enough to be terribly annoying, so we haven't worried about it too much so far. Maybe there's somebody like Rob who likes to sit in a rocking chair, and they've got the chair too close to the wall. I don't know. But right now when it's quiet, it does annoy me. I hate to start hostilities with the neighbors, though. And other than this we haven't had any problems at all, so I'm thinking we're lucky, even with the banging.

As far as the ongoing posting of quilt pictures, I got one category done (Portraits) and I should be able to get another one up before I go to bed (that one will be Mixed Technique).quiltingpirate, among other people, got her pictures up faster than I did (and she took almost as many, I gather) but hers don't have labels on them yet - and for that matter since she is planning on putting up labels that puts her ahead of a lot of people. I have gotten rather obsessive about having everything labeled properly. I mean, if somebody else was going to post a picture of my quilts, I would want my name on it! A lot of people do put up pictures without knowing whose quilts they are - so I'm not picking on Toni because I gather she does know - and for that matter I am not judging any of the people who do it, really, because it's a lot of trouble to keep track of. I should know. But I personally feel better about posting them if I do them that way. And especially with the large volume of pictures I post, I feel like I should hold myself to a higher standard where I can. (I am now over the 3000 picture mark in Flickr. Not all of them are quilts, of course, but I would think a good half of them are, at least.)

I am tired. I should stop before I make somebody mad at me.

Well, I got home about 5:00, I think - I'm kind of confused about this whole time change business. I felt really exhausted when I got home but I'm starting to feel better now. I got to rest while Rob and I took turns talking to Comcast - again - this time his computer decided not to work. There must not be many people with two separate cable modems because the idea seems to confuse the hell out of people, even the Comcast people. (And we are not actually intending to keep it, as soon as we get a router and figure out how to set it up we can get rid of one modem.) Anyway, Comcast eventually sorted it out and all is well again.

I took close to 400 pictures at the quilt show, I think. I bought a new memory card on the way up there, because last year I ran out of space, and I'm sure I would have this time too - somewhere after 300 is where I ran out of room, as I recall. This one cost about what I paid for the last one, a couple of years ago, but it has 4 times as much space (2gb instead of 512k), so unless I go on some particularly picture-intensive trip I am set for life, I think. A few of the pictures are already up on Flickr, but not many yet. More to come, obviously. Oh, I also bought some lithium batteries at Best Buy when I bought the card, and they really worked as advertised - they never did run out, and normally I go through multiple sets of batteries. For the annual visit to the quilt show, at least, I think those batteries may have just become a staple.

I did meet thecalicocatsgroup last night, and I met my aunt for lunch yesterday, but mostly I went around by myself. That really seems to confound some people. A lady tried to sweep me into her group for dinner, apparently thinking I couldn't possibly want to eat dinner by myself, but I was tired and I resisted being swept. I think I was getting a bit cranky by that time so it was probably for the best!

Spunky Street
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

From the exhibit "The Collaborative Quilting of Pagosa Springs" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival. (That fancy name means it was made by 5th graders and their teacher.)

This is a great quilt. The houses are so... surreal.

(Oops, I really meant to put this on the other blog, but oh well. I think you guys will appreciate it too.)