The Laws of the Land

I keep hearing about the "quilting police." I'm not sure who they are, but apparently they are very scary. I envision hooded figures in dark robes (quilted, of course) swooping in and torturing me for violating 1/4" seam rules and creating misshapen blocks. I was watching a quilting show and the women who seem so kind and grandmotherly said they "don't believe in" trimming blocks, that quilters should get their seams right to begin with so that the blocks are the correct size. I thought I detected the flash of a tin badge, but maybe it was just my guilt (or should that be skewed quilt?) clouding my vision.

I've been messing with these blocks for a couple of weeks now. Even though I said I wasn't really into traditional quilting patterns--that I preferred freeform quilts like the first one I did, so that's what I would go back to--there is something comforting about cutting strips of a certain size, seaming them, recutting, and fashioning blocks. I don't have to make design decisions beyond which fabric to use, and I know, with just a little thought, what the next step will be.

The problem is that I keep having to compensate for something--bad cutting? bad seams? and the more I try to compensate, the more my sizes are off. I now have 6 blocks that are each sized differently. I think they are supposed to be 12" square; most of them run between 11 & 11-3/4" (and not necessarily square). So the question is, what do I do with them? My intention was to piece 12" squares of black and the floral fabric in between these, but in order to do that I need to know how large to cut those squares. Which means I need to have consistently-sized blocks. Which means (gasp!) trimming my blocks to some consistent size.

I've put too much time and fabric into sewing up these blocks, and I can't bring myself to just toss them aside and not use them because they're flawed. What would the quilting police have me do with them, I wonder? Give them a proper burial and then punish myself with not only a feeling of failure, but guilt about wasting time and money? Sentence them to solitary confinement for eternity? Rip them apart and redo them until I get them right?

I fully expected that, as a beginner, I would have a lot of skills to acquire and that my work--especially pieced blocks like these, regardless of how simple they are--would leave a lot to be desired. But I think that hearing from experienced and highly-respected quilters that they don't "believe in" trimming blocks, that quilters should be better than that, may stifle beginners who are often too worried about perfection-- and failure-- to jump in and give something a try.

I'm going to trim my blocks, and they'll probably look a little wonky for it, but that's the price of being a beginner. I don't know whether that's thumbing my nose at the quilting police, since I haven't figured out the laws of the land yet. But I'm going to sleep with a light on, just in case.

Foreign Units of Measurement

I remember in High School we had a short "metric system" unit in a science class. I don't remember a thing about it, except the teacher warning us that someday the US would go to the metric system and we would need to understand it.

I know what a liter is, but that's because they started bottling soft drinks in liters rather than quarts. And, I know how big 3 mm is, because that's the thickness of most of the sheet glass I buy (unless I buy double-thick glass, which is, of course 6mm).

At any rate, I have no idea how to convert gallons to liters, or centimeters to inches, or Fahrenheit to Celsius. It's all foreign to me. In the same way, figuring out how much fabric I need for a quilt is just as foreign.

I was always good at math, but I didn't really like it very much. Knowing that there was a correct answer waiting at the end of a problem, and that the goal was to figure out how to get to that correct answer, was boring. I enjoyed the fuzziness of the humanities much more--the uncertainty of the ending, the possibility that more than one answer could be correct, the weighing of each possibility--those routes seemed much more interesting.

Which I guess is why I approach math in quilting in a similar way. Rather than crunching numbers to see how much of each type of fabric I'll likely need, I start with the possibilities; what if I piece this green with this purple? Oooh, how about adding these lovely floral squares? The problem, of course, is that I start throwing fabrics together and creating blocks, and quickly realize that I don't have enough of one fabric to finish.

When I head back to Jo Ann Fabrics for just "a little more" fabric to finish the project, I discover that those 4 flat quarters I bought just because I liked them really were the last ones in the store (maybe I could avoid this problem by shopping at a real quilting store, but I'm still boycotting all of them in the Austin area because they can't get their acts together enough to offer beginning quilting classes. I'm pretty sure that the first one who offers a decent beginning quilting class will have gained a customer for life).

At any rate, I swear at that point that I will never start another project until I know I have enough fabric to complete it. I head home and promptly start another project using those 4 flat quarters I bought just because I loved them.

I guess I'm an eternal optimist. After all, 25 years after that High School class, we still haven't converted to the metric system.

Under the Shade Tree

I finished my grandson's quilt last night. I've decided I do like attaching the binding by hand, since I can do it in front of the television. The quilt has a few faults, but Brandon is thrilled with it! Now I'm taking it easy for a while. I haven't felt up to par since I had the sinus infection, and I think my body is telling me to take it easy and quit driving myself so hard.

Then again, there's that little voice in my head saying, "ok, break's over . . . get back to work!"

Side Trips

It was a rough week. I was in a Project Management training class, and while I learned some interesting things about communication, management, and negotiation, I've decided I really don't like project management and don't want to be a Project Manager.

I didn't have much time to work on anything, although I did manage--by staying up very late and getting up very early--to finish machine quilting my grandson's quilt. I'm working on the binding now and should be finished with it today.

I've also been reading more. I had forgotten what a lovely relief it is to be swept away by a good novel. Most of the books I read these days are craft- or art-related, so I really just peruse them over and over again. Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I'm an avid book collector, and I've never read many of the books I've picked up over the years, so I can always find an unread book on my shelves. Finding one I can fall into is sometimes a different matter. This time it took a couple of tries, but yesterday I finally settled into Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven, and I've barely put it down since. I have several of Hoffman's books, but I've never actually finished one. This one has taken hold of me, though. Her writing is subdued and the plot doesn't seem to be going anywhere at first, but before I knew it I was pulled away from myself and into another world where I know these characters and feel for them and share their emotions. I think I'll up round my other Hoffman books up now and work my way through them.

I managed to figure out the dual-action on the airbrush, and I'm experimenting with painting fabric. It's harder in some ways than I expected, but I love the soft, brushed colors. I'm looking ahead to my next project and trying to figure out ways to incorporate all the fabric I've been dying, painting, and now airbrushing.

Notes for the Survival Guide

I'm still working on my grandson's quilt. I didn't get much done on it this weekend with Mother's Day and all, but I've learned some valuable lessons. I now know that I can't trust basting spray to hold my sandwich together until I get some stabilizing lines sewn. I "stitched in the ditch" between the sashing rows and I think the sandwich shifted so that the backing fabric was off. As a result, the quilt ended up slightly wonky. I also know it's VERY difficult to tear out quilting stitches, so after giving it an honest effort, I just left the lines they way they were. I'm hoping that my grandson doesn't notice. Of course, that will be difficult, since I'll obsessively point out this major flaw to anyone who comes NEAR the quilt.

The second thing I learned is that, if my tension for free-motion quilting is fine, but my stitches suddenly start acting out-of-control (the bobbin thread showing on the top, for example), NOT to tighten the tension. That is, apparently, what's been causing the needles to break, and it doesn't resolve the problem. Instead, what actually seems to work is to rethread the machine, and take the bobbin out and put it back in (thank you, Sandra, for the suggestion to back off the tension when I was breaking needles left & right!).

Finally, I learned that I don't really like all this nice, patterned, geometric quilting. I had much more fun with the first quilt I made, which was more free-form. That's what I'm going back to with the next project.

We were out this weekend and I happened to check at Harbor Freight for an airbrush compressor. Sure enough, they had one on sale. I bought my airbrush months ago to paint glass, but I never got around to learning to use it. Plus, the idea of hooking it up to the monster compressor that I use for my sandblaster was too frightening, so the airbrush has been resting on the top shelf of the closet until I could get a small compressor. This particular model can be used in either single-action or dual-action mode. Single-action means that pressing the button releases both air and paint; dual-action requires pushing down for air, sliding back for paint (sort of a rub-your-tummy-pat-your-head trick).

At this point, I wish I had just been brave enough to buy the dual-action, instead of thinking, "well, if I'm completely uncoordinated, I'll just stick with single-action mode." I'm managing single-action just fine (and it's a LOT of fun!), but switching over to double-action on the brush is tricky and involves spinning a little wheel back and forth, and I can't quite figure out whether I'm doing it wrong or whether the brush is not working correctly. It came with a video tape (fortunately, we still have a VCR!) so I'll have to rewatch it and practice changing the brush from single-action to dual-action. Anyway, I brushed a scrap piece of fabric I had lying around, and I love effects and the way you can gradiate the color from very light to very dark.

Pressing On

My sinus infection is no better, but I can't stop working. I had a co-worker once who described this as the "Protestant Sick Ethic"; that is, if you just keep working hard and ignore your illnesses, you'll be rewarded by having them go away.

At any rate, after waking up at 3 am every morning for the last 2 days, and working on these for a little while each evening, I ended up with 6 variations of the log cabin block. I had picked up a copy of Log Cabin Quilts With Attitude by Sharon Rotz, and I like the slight wonkiness of the blocks (both because the strips vary in size, and because you then trim the blocks by tilting them). So I futzed around with some fabric I already had until I came up with something that reasonably resembled a quilt. I'm adding borders now (the smaller blue border, a larger purple one after).

It's interesting: now that I look at the picture (as opposed to the actual piece) I don't like the layout of the blocks. Maybe next time I should take a digital photo of the layout and evaluate it before I sew anything together.

My 7-year old grandson, who lives with me and my DP, has been begging for his own quilt since he saw the first one I made. He wanted it EXACTLY like his "Mimi's" (my DP's "I'm-not-old-enough-to-be-a-grandmother" name; mine is "Nana"). Of course, I had no interest in trying to duplicate the same quilt, so when I was far enough along with this one I presented it to him and asked his opinion. I told him I thought it was bright and cheerful just like he is, and his face lit up. "Is it going to be mine?" he asked, and I was incredibly relieved to say, "yes! it is!" as if I had planned it that way from the beginning.

He's already asking when he can make a quilt. When I hauled out the machine weeks ago, he stared wistfully at it and said, "I wish I could learn to sew." I helped him make a little drawstring bag, and then a simple pillow, and he was thrilled. Afterward, he said "Nana, you can't imagine how much I wanted to learn to sew." Who knew? At any rate, it looks like I may have a traveling companion. He's an adventurous little guy; he's already talking about how all the trips he'll take someday to China, India, and Mexico.