Clearing the canvas. A remodel is required and reinvention looming. Will it last? There's no way to know. You just have to birth the newest rendition and hope that it is a better version of you and not a tenth generation a la Multiplicity. To ink or to crayons, let the new writer emerge.
*Men in Black (1997)
Friday, November 04, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Not a Quilt Post. (of course)
This satirical piece is called
Mocking Horse Winner
There's money to be made at the race
to the top.
"There must be more learning gains!"
"There must be more learning gains!"
They were found dead, slumped over their testing packets
Pencils in hands
Their epitaphs bubbled in completely.
~I.G.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
..."And now for something completely different"
It's not that I have given up or that I have employed the exacto blade in ways not intended for its use or even that this post is going to be a big blog of excuses, it's just that I had to go back to work this week. Work comes with a 4 am run, an hour commute and overtime. Sometimes it comes with extra work as a means for secondary income.
No worries, though. The thread is still running through my veins. I can't look down at the tile in my classroom and not see mini quilts and block combinations. I even found a stray rectangle of swirled fabric in my purse the other day and looked away longingly with a forlorn smile when I doted upon the summer I spent with the quilt. I have no new pictures of products to show and I have scrolled through the site and found that the pictures are getting boring and repetitive. To breakup some of that here are a series of products I found in Wal-Mart to break up the monotony:
Zote: The Racist Soap!
Who wants prissy dew anyway? Taste the Lightning!
How can we make cheese more healthy?
Baby Granny! I can't wait to change those diapers!
Who says sausages are sexual?
No Comment
So, I have proved that the blog is not dead. Maybe it's a little anemic from neglect, but certainly not dead. As soon as I have a moment to sew, you'll know.
No worries, though. The thread is still running through my veins. I can't look down at the tile in my classroom and not see mini quilts and block combinations. I even found a stray rectangle of swirled fabric in my purse the other day and looked away longingly with a forlorn smile when I doted upon the summer I spent with the quilt. I have no new pictures of products to show and I have scrolled through the site and found that the pictures are getting boring and repetitive. To breakup some of that here are a series of products I found in Wal-Mart to break up the monotony:
Zote: The Racist Soap!
Who wants prissy dew anyway? Taste the Lightning!
How can we make cheese more healthy?
Baby Granny! I can't wait to change those diapers!
Who says sausages are sexual?
No Comment
So, I have proved that the blog is not dead. Maybe it's a little anemic from neglect, but certainly not dead. As soon as I have a moment to sew, you'll know.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Like toilet paper
So, instead of creating an entirely new blog to "litter the blogosphere" with, I am just going to add my new project to this old vehicle for sarcasm.
The young, bitter blogger has transformed into a elderly cat lady. It seems I have found harmony and have decided to disrupt that calm with the endeavor of quilting.
You may believe that this pastime is reserved for grannies and the feeble-minded, pack-rat hoarders of the backwoods, but I have discovered that this task is the marriage between extreme OCD, architecture, mathematical genius and incredible dexterity.
I thought I knew something about quilting because a while ago, I spent an entire year quilting my uncle's old concert tees together .
As you can see, there is nothing really uniform about the segments - I kind of just sewed everything together and hoped for the best - after backing every single shirt with jersey so they would all stretch the same.
It's been a few years now and the scars have healed over. I thought that a reasonable project I could do was do make the real deal. I was armed with a book my mother bought me and a pattern I liked. There are a lot of rules on quilterschache.com about stealing stuff - so I am telling you now, the block I am using comes from that site - click the link.
The first thing I learned in my journey was that I am still bad at math despite cramming for the GRE many years ago. Figuring out how much fabric I needed was difficult because of the way fabric is sold and because I did not use equations mixed with tangrams to get my numbers. I basically winged it - and had to go back to Jo Ann's three times. The last time I needed more fabric I was so embarrassed that I ordered it online. I don't know how many times I can tell the cutting lady that I suck at this sort of thing. The book AND the site afford you many tools to use to figure out how much you'll need, so of course, I estimated.
Anyway, step 1 was to cut.
After more math and heartbreak, I figured out that I would need 49 blocks to make a queen sized quilt. That meant cutting 98 strips of some fabric - for each color...one of them twice. They keep advising that you are exact, but fabric isn't exactly wood - it stretches and it behaves weird and sometimes I am like 1/8th off and it is no good. This is where the OCD can really be an advantage.
Oh, and before you ask, I am not hand-quilting. As it is, this will take me 6 months. I do know someone who did hand-quilt her own, but she is crazy. I can't tell if it was from quilting or if she was that way before...
So, four days later, I have all my pieces cut. Now comes the sewing. I immediately wasted a few squares on retarded things like sewing them on the wrong side o
r matching them up incorrectly. Once I got everything straight, it was midnight and I wasn't going to bed until 1 block of 49 was finished.
It was finished ...but disappointing.
As you can clearly see, things are mismatched and not aligned.
The back wasn't looking too hot either.
So,after a good night's rest, a LOT of coffee, a hot iron and my most stubborn qualities all riled up, I tried again.
I did these things differently:
I ironed everything
I cut uneven sides down to match before sewing
I made my 1/4 inch seam as scant as I could (that's craftspeak for I sewed along at a little less than 1/4 inch.)
I ironed, trimmed and measured before assembling the blocks into rows and then again before putting the rows together. The slight puckering you will see below is due to too much ironing and no starch. I will adjust for the next one.
So, here's the 2nd block.
There are still slight misalignments, but not as bad as the one before. This block also has the correct shape overall. (YAY!)
Here is the back:
I decided not to split the seams here. It was easier this way, but I am not sure if it is correct. It may account for the slight puckering. Either way, I am MUCH more pleased with the second block of 49!
At the very end, it should look like this according to quilterscache.com
If you have any tips, please share. I will incorporate them into the next block and you can see your own help hard at work.
See you on the next block.
The young, bitter blogger has transformed into a elderly cat lady. It seems I have found harmony and have decided to disrupt that calm with the endeavor of quilting.
You may believe that this pastime is reserved for grannies and the feeble-minded, pack-rat hoarders of the backwoods, but I have discovered that this task is the marriage between extreme OCD, architecture, mathematical genius and incredible dexterity.
I thought I knew something about quilting because a while ago, I spent an entire year quilting my uncle's old concert tees together .
As you can see, there is nothing really uniform about the segments - I kind of just sewed everything together and hoped for the best - after backing every single shirt with jersey so they would all stretch the same.
It's been a few years now and the scars have healed over. I thought that a reasonable project I could do was do make the real deal. I was armed with a book my mother bought me and a pattern I liked. There are a lot of rules on quilterschache.com about stealing stuff - so I am telling you now, the block I am using comes from that site - click the link.
The first thing I learned in my journey was that I am still bad at math despite cramming for the GRE many years ago. Figuring out how much fabric I needed was difficult because of the way fabric is sold and because I did not use equations mixed with tangrams to get my numbers. I basically winged it - and had to go back to Jo Ann's three times. The last time I needed more fabric I was so embarrassed that I ordered it online. I don't know how many times I can tell the cutting lady that I suck at this sort of thing. The book AND the site afford you many tools to use to figure out how much you'll need, so of course, I estimated.
Anyway, step 1 was to cut.
After more math and heartbreak, I figured out that I would need 49 blocks to make a queen sized quilt. That meant cutting 98 strips of some fabric - for each color...one of them twice. They keep advising that you are exact, but fabric isn't exactly wood - it stretches and it behaves weird and sometimes I am like 1/8th off and it is no good. This is where the OCD can really be an advantage.
Oh, and before you ask, I am not hand-quilting. As it is, this will take me 6 months. I do know someone who did hand-quilt her own, but she is crazy. I can't tell if it was from quilting or if she was that way before...
So, four days later, I have all my pieces cut. Now comes the sewing. I immediately wasted a few squares on retarded things like sewing them on the wrong side o
r matching them up incorrectly. Once I got everything straight, it was midnight and I wasn't going to bed until 1 block of 49 was finished.It was finished ...but disappointing.
As you can clearly see, things are mismatched and not aligned.
The back wasn't looking too hot either.
So,after a good night's rest, a LOT of coffee, a hot iron and my most stubborn qualities all riled up, I tried again.
I did these things differently:
I ironed everything
I cut uneven sides down to match before sewing
I made my 1/4 inch seam as scant as I could (that's craftspeak for I sewed along at a little less than 1/4 inch.)
I ironed, trimmed and measured before assembling the blocks into rows and then again before putting the rows together. The slight puckering you will see below is due to too much ironing and no starch. I will adjust for the next one.
So, here's the 2nd block.
There are still slight misalignments, but not as bad as the one before. This block also has the correct shape overall. (YAY!)
Here is the back:
I decided not to split the seams here. It was easier this way, but I am not sure if it is correct. It may account for the slight puckering. Either way, I am MUCH more pleased with the second block of 49!At the very end, it should look like this according to quilterscache.com
If you have any tips, please share. I will incorporate them into the next block and you can see your own help hard at work.
See you on the next block.
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