Category: Quilts

Quilts · Something to Think About

Leaving the Grading Galaxy

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

I’ve been in the Grading Galaxy for the last three days.  It was a pretty arduous trip this time.

This top paper had over 50 errors.  Which made me really cranky.  Chocolate helped as did a whining phone call to a colleague, who had just finished her trip to the Grading Galaxy last week and had another stack to grade (she has one more class than I do, which puts her into saintly territory).

But last night, after I entered in the last grade and said to myself that I’d do the prep for Monday’s class—much, much later—my colleague sent me an email saying look what I’ve been working on!

And she’d sewn 9 squares of her Christmas quilt.  Inspired by her, I started working on the centers to my Square on Square quilt, and this morning I finished them up.

I did have a flash picture, but I prefer the warm glow of no flash, even though you are all squinting and saying things about my photography skills.  Now on to the vacuuming, and if I finish that and the bathrooms, I’ll work on the rusty red triangles, working my way toward that one completed square on the right.

My daughters says her favorite months are the “bers.”  That’s September, October, November and December.  It’s those months of the year when we plan things, give things, change is always in the air (although more for those in colder climes than for us SoCal folks).  It’s a time of anticipation, of making Christmas gifts (I’m already seeing early birds in the blogosphere working on them), of remembering that first day of school, or funny Halloween costumes, or when the turkey didn’t cook, and when the newest baby was there for opening presents under the tree.

It’s such a rich time, these “bers,” and like my daughter, I look forward to them every year and am sad when they go.  I remember my mother telling me a story about my grandmother.  My grandmother had been a school teacher for many many years but then finally retired.  And every fall when she’d hear the school bell toll, she wished she were there, back in the classroom, greeting students.  My father is a teacher, as is my husband, and my sister.  Teaching runs in our blood, so even though I may have been cranky about students who want me to do their work of finding the errors, I am happy that this September found me in a classroom.  And that October will find me making a fall quilt and seeing fall foliage up in Canada.  And November has me in New York with my daughter, and we’ll meet my son and see a Broadway show and the Ground Zero memorial.  And hopefully, if all goes well and there’s no major health crisis (I always get sick in November), by December I’ll be putting the final touches on my newest Christmas quilt, welcoming the holiday spirit to our home.

I hope you enjoy the “bers.” It all begins today.  It all begins now.

Dive in.

Quilts

FSF-Pink Junk

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

So, what I have finished this week?  Well, Quilt Frolic quilt top and back, for one. And I cleaned out one of my fabric cupboards as I was trying to put the Amy Butlers back in.  It was a mess.  Or, as they might say in the art world: I deconstructed it.

And I found this, which I’ve titled: Pink Junk.  It is an idea gone south, a cake that fell, a headache turned worse and a sewing idea that never should have seen the light of day.  I had this idea to sew strips of pink fabric on a fabric base, cut it out and quilt the jacket and then (horrors!) wear this Pepto-Bismol-Mary-Kay color out in public. (No hate mail.  I was once a Mary Kay consultant and even met The Woman Herself.)

I like pink.  But I am actually really glad that this is a UFO.  I’ve pressed it and cut the sewn parts into 6″ blocks.  My plan is to sash them up in some fabuloso fabric.  I’ll probably have to find something darker to make the contrast work because all these colors are the kind you would find on Bunny Rabbits in the Easter displays.  Come to think of it, maybe that was its genesis?  As a planned new Easter outfit?

Saved by inertia.

Today I picked this Kaffe Fassett print at our local fabric shop, as all the Kaffes were on sale.  And she kept calling them “Calfs.”  (I heard from someone who would know that his name has a long a in it, as in KAYfe.) This is the shop that sends out emails with typos and misspellings in them, but at least it makes the shop memorable.  I might have mentioned to her the idea that a spellchecker would help the email writer.  Can’t be sure.  I did make sure that she wasn’t the writer before I might have mentioned it.

They had a terrific Halloween display up with lots of very appealing quilts and fabrics.  This was also on clearance (they had three bolts).  I loved it, esp. the group of witches in the middle with the scribble overhead.  Maybe they’re gossiping?  Trading barbecue recipes?

Lastly, in the back of my now-desconstructed closet, I found this group of fabrics.  I remember distinctly where and when I bought it.  It was in Amish country, outside Washington DC.  Two of the quilting ladies from my guild took me to tour the Amish/Mennonite fabric shops, about 90 minutes from where I lived.  This grouping, by Robert Kaufman in a deliciously heavy-weight cotton, was all in a row in the last shop we went to that day.  What made this place memorable was the lack of electricity (everything was done by hand, including the ringing up of things) and the black Amish buggy parked just outside.  From what little I knew about the Amish, I couldn’t believe that they had a fabric shop set up in the side room, just off the patio.  And the woman who helped me couldn’t have been strict Old Amish, because her clothing was more contemporary.  It was an interesting day, that’s for sure.  About six years ago.  And I have no idea what I’m going to do with these ornate cottons, but the stack is too beautiful to leave in the fabric closet for another six years.

I think I’d recently been to Venice, Italy and as I look at it, it reminds me of the Carnivale Masks with their swirls and flourishes and gilt touches, as well as the tightly inlaid marble floors in the Cathedral. Do you ever clean out a closet and come face-to-face with fabric you had to have, for some really pressing and urgent reason, yet now it languishes?

If anyone has any suggestions for this fabric, let me know. Right now I’m thinking quilt backs.