This and That • August 2021

August 29, 2021September 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.34 Comments

Oh my goodness. The brain is fried, the eyeballs are smarting because of smoke in the air and it’s too hot to move or do anything which explains my SECOND round of August This and Thats. What can I say?

I have finally OD-ed on podcasts (more on that later) and found myself a good book: another Maisie Dobbs novel. I have three hours left to go.

What I mean is, it’s the first one done of four I have to do for the first-of-nine giant Bear Paw’s Ruler-free block. I’m playing along in the FingerPaintsQAL on IG and had the opportunity to take a class with Laura yesterday morning (I scribbled on the pattern above to hide her work). It was fun to see people I recognized! Above this block are scenes from class: the fabric key at the ready, the stack of fabric (I took her advice and cut 5″ strips of fabric from all the colors: saved me a lot of time) and ruler-free cutting in process.

Like the lady says, it’s not a race.

Did I mention that California is having a gubnatorial recall? Like either of these goofballs will win my vote, but check out Mr. Drake. Wouldn’t it be cool to tell your kids that one time you ran for governor of California? Or drop that bit on a first date?

Just want you to know I still have a few things on my To Do List from March 2000. This is because we chatted about To Do Lists in the last post.

Occasionally I fall down the rabbit hole of art galleries on Instagram. Jim Isermann turned up. Quilters, start your engines:

We’ve had more than a few fires in our state this summer, but I loved the write-up about grabbing a quilt.

Generally, the news has been weighty and ponderous and horrifically sad, with covid, airlifts, fires, babies in hospitals, angry young men (and some angry old men), divisiveness, coupled with more suffering and death in country far far from here. I realize that this post could be construed as lightweight and frivolous. But all this news reminds me of old news: the fall of Saigon long ago, my father’s bout with polio and stories my mother told me of getting her first vaccines for Whooping Cough because her baby sister had died of that disease. That is why I have avoided podcasts: they are wearying. Add in the sorrows I read daily on Instagram in all your lives, the divisiveness in our families over vaccines and masks (and yes, I’m making more masks this weekend) and it’s no wonder I’m grabbing bits and pieces, sewing and quilting, poking fun at candidates for California’s governor when inside I’m weeping a bit that it has all ended up in a Big Fight All The Time.

Our individualism has run rough-shod over our ability to come together as a community and do what’s best, what helps those babies and children have a better world. And then I see little toddlers held tight in Afghan arms as they walk into the belly of a very big plane with no seat belts and no snacks and somehow they all don’t need to be ducktaped to their seats (what seats?) for their 3 hour flight to freedom, to what we have and what we fight over but somehow don’t understand how fragile it is. They leave everything behind: little treasures in their bottom drawer, ties to their communities, friends and that bowl that Grandma always had on the top shelf, and I snip off a piece of this hope, tuck it into my heart and keep going.

The other night I found a photo of the first sewing machine I ever owned: The Genie, by Singer. My parents gave it to me for Christmas when I was a Freshman in college, majoring in Clothing and Textiles. I sewed on it forever, then passed it on down to my daughter. I have a lot of memories like this that are easily recalled when I see photos. I’m thinking on what I have that I could give up…give up to the refugees that are certainly coming our way. And to end this post on a better note (I’m not really going to jump out the window, I promise), I want to give something away to you.

I finally got all the bits from the last two giveaways mailed out, so before summer disappears, Shelley of Nanakaboodle (ETSY) and I are doing a teeny giveaway of Cluck, Cluck Sew’s Diagonal Seam Tape. I’ve ordered multiple times from Nanakaboodle and she always has really prompt shipping and a cheerful customer service.

UPDATE: Giveaway is closed, but thanks for reading!

~~To win this roll of seam tape, leave me a comment below telling me about your first sewing machine.~~

Think Good Thoughts & Let’s Share Joy and I don’t know what else, but you do.
Happy Quilting!

I can hardly waits • This and That August 2021

August 8, 2021September 15, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

I open the page in my calendar for the new month and write in family birthdays and decorate the squares with a looping border, even though all the people I celebrate live far away from me and I won’t be getting together with them, singing songs and having slices of cake. Next, I write in the mundane: car service, dr. appointments, reminders for a hair cut (which lately has been a fraught experience). And then I notice: Where are my I can hardly waits?

This idea came from Annie Mumolo, in an interview in the LATimes:

“My dad calls them the “I can hardly waits.” He says there came a point when he turned 40 and he felt like all of his “I can hardly waits” were over, and then what do you do? I can hardly wait to get married, I can hardly wait to have kids, whatever your hardly wait is.”

The interview is worth the read, if only for Wiig’s and Mumulo’s description of middle-aged women who are kind of “invisible,” but I was most struck with this idea of the I can hardly waits, and by naming them, I realized mine had all but evaporated over the last two years. Yearly, my husband and I had penciled in travel dates on the calendar. We’d circled squares for visits to family, notable achievement celebrations and so on. We sorta-kinda had one coming this fall for a conference in Ann Arbor, but that’s turned into a virtual conference with the rise of the Delta variant.

Which leads me to registering for QuiltCon. (You knew I’d get here eventually.) It’s an annual ritual of controlled mayhem. The management at QuiltCon is always looking for a way to reduce the bloodshed, wailing and gnashing of teeth that happens at the moment the registration site opens. They’d changed this year to the people who manage ComicCon registration, but apparently the new people (Configio) didn’t read the specs, didn’t allot sufficient bandwith/server space/whatever and so the whole thing was The Worse One Yet. I imagine Configio treated “all those nice little quilters” much like the women in the movie Barb & Star, who are “kind of invisible,” “aren’t on TikTok” and are an “unrepresented portion of the population” (from here).

I got on at 7:00 a.m., which was our time here on the West Coast. It’s always good to have a registation buddy to ~~rant~~ text with, so Simone was in Northern California doing the same thing. She got through to the registration portion before me, at about 7:15ish. I tried every which way, but saw these too often:

Finally, by 7:44, I had two of my classes. I went back in three more times over Wednesday, and by the afternoon, I had all my lectures and classes. Here is my schedule, if you are interested:

Yes, I know I clipped short the foundation piecing class on Saturday to go and hear Tighe, but I figure (since I’m in the age group of Barb & Star) I’ll be sort of <all done> by the time 3 p.m. rolls around. If not, I’ll be late to the lecture, or miss it. Here is a class that made me laugh:

I actually have one of these going, stashed away in my sewing room, along with a vintage family apron for inspiration.

Many athletes had a lot of I can hardly waits with the Olympics this past two weeks. The Washington Post put up an array of photos that were fascinating. Here are a few:

This month’s blocks for our Gridster Bee are a combination of three flying geese (cut the colorful part 2.5″ x 4.5″ then snowball on two low-volume corner blocks 2.5″ square). Strips on the side were added (cut 1.5″ x 6.5″). Although Linda only asked for four blocks, once I got started in my scrap drawer I couldn’t stop.

And in ankle news, at almost 6 weeks I’m getting there, walking on it a little bit, going to get a pedicure, although I was really careful to let my pedicurist know not to touch the sore spot. We had moderate success in that goal, and I cut it short to go home. I also got a hair cut yesterday, trying to salvage the over-processed mess from the last stylist. This new person is my third to try after my regular guy moved to Florida. And yes, I know. it’s pretty pathetic if your I can hardly waits consists of a visit to a hair salon.

not mine! It’s Posh Penelope from Sew Kind of Wonderful

I looked at Road to California classes (coming in January) and thought Sew Kind of Wonderful’s Posh Penelope was lovely, but do I really want to add another project to the pile waiting to become quilts? Not really.

I have a lot of the not reallys going on lately, and not too many of the I can hardly waits. However: I have a pattern I just finished writing last night for a workshop I’m teaching in September to the Santa Clarita Quilt Guild, my very last Guild presentation and workshop. I’ll be teaching Blossom and if you are interested in seeing if they have any openings, let me know. I’ve taught for them before and they are a super guild with lots of lovely quilters. That and QuiltCon are the I can hardly waits right now for me.

Happy Quilting!

Creating · This-and-That

Color, Venice and Valentino • This and That July 2021

July 18, 2021September 15, 2025 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

“Fashion is not ‘art’, because the latter is sufficient in itself while the former always has a purpose, a function, a use. Recognizing the differences is the first step to instructing mutual listening, made up of curiosity, enthusiasm, and respect. This listening needs time, just like Haute Couture and ultimately also like art. In fact, the maturation of the project was slow, a rhythm perhaps unusual for our world but just and intimate for the world that I would like to.” -Pierpaolo Piccioli (from here)

And if you understood that, then you are more experienced than I in the language of haute couture–the clothing, the dresses, the fashion that is more concept than something you would hang in your closet. But just like the movie The Devil Wore Prada in that withering scene where Meryl Streep’s character critiques Ann Hamilton’s sweater, the fashion houses often tilt us to what’s coming in shape, in color and in what we’ll be wearing post-pandemic when we finally decide to crawl into stores and buy ourselves some clothes.

It’s also very likely that we’ll be seeing some influences on the colors we use in our quilts, or maybe even the shapes we’ll experiment with (if you are a half-way, non-traditional quilter). Or not.

So I was pretty amazed by the colors put together by the designer for Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli, and while I can’t pretend to really absorb what he said (above), I do speak the language of color, and thought you might like to see some of his designs, shown recently in the magical city of Venice, Italy. The contrast between that very old city with its own recent struggles with over-tourism, pollution and dwindling residents is a perfect contrast and foil to the glamorous, hand-sewn clothing made with extraordinary precision with pricey fabrics.

As Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times wrote: “[The designer Piccioli] has been conversing with contemporary artists — about their work, sure, but mostly about life in general, process, emotion, what turns them on — thinking about how to integrate their points of commonality in cloth…The result — shown at sunset beneath the brick arches of the former shipbuilding yard of Venice, with water lapping at the edges of the runway…was as powerful an argument for the interconnectedness of time, human connection and creativity as anything fashion has produced. The lushness of Mr. Piccioli’s palette — as a designer, he is the best colorist since Yves Saint Laurent — was on full display; so was his throwaway elegance, and his generosity. Not just to his atelier (his show notes name-checked the individuals who sewed each garment [italics are mine]) but to the bodies that will wear the clothes.”

So, what do I see?

In the above image, I see scale: large shapes on a larger garment, then those same large shapes on a more narrow profile of a dress. The designer plays with scale in many of his other pieces, using different shapes to emphasize different parts of the body, and different lines (like those flowing hats!).

I also see a lot of color blocking: large swaths of color against slivers of color (a bit of scale, again), causing each to accent the other. This collection is not about fussy little prints. Mostly I see lush, elegant and rich, deep colors:

This palette is missing the mint of the shirt. Sure, it’s a metallic shimmer of color and hard to catch, but that really makes this grouping, in my mind.

In this one, the palette generator is capturing a lot of the background, but it’s that’s slice of bubble-gum pink against those deep coral trousers which really caught my eye. The grey isn’t those flat greys we are used to seeing in our quilting fabrics, but a soft mellow gray, warmed up slightly, but not heading towards taupe or green-gray — maybe a deep off-white?

Orchid appears to be heading our way, but a vivid hue of that color, especially when paired with bright jungle green.

While the palette generator captured a lot of the background (I don’t see that pinky brown anywhere on the model), this palette is a “be-still-my-heart” series of shades for me as I love aqua blue. But it’s a new take on that–a refreshing deeper shade.

Now to shift gears from haute couture to the nuts and bolts of my life lately:

How about some velcro bolts? This is the boot they gave me to wear while my ankle heals. I hate it for a variety of good and not-so-good reasons (would it kill them to add some color?). The doctor okayed my getting around the house without it, so I’ve just decided to ace-bandage-wrap my ankle for protection, stay off it, and stay home. What’s four more weeks of pandemic quarantine?

Very proud of this: I drew the spools up by hand. Well, digital hand. Yes, it’s in my favorite color (aqua blue). I have found lately that getting the hang of a few tools in my Affinity Designer has opened up new worlds for me in terms of satisfaction with my work; it was a bit of a struggle at first, but a bit smoother sailing now. And why did I make these?

Pattern Shop Refresh!

I didn’t like the nuts-and-boltsy (notice how I’m stretching the metaphor) look of BEFORE as it was too chunky and disparate. I also wanted something as well that would indicate degree of difficulty at a glance. So, I made spools. And I like how the shop looks now.

This is the new display pattern front. I still have a few things left to do, but have finished most. PayHip upgraded some of their marketplace tools, so I thought it was a good time for me to fuss around a bit, too.

Quilting SeaDepths (a variation of Azulejos) in spurts, while listening to this:

I like how the themes overlap: the ocean in Harper’s book with the theme of SeaDepths on my newest quilt. I can hardly wait to go upstairs and quilt. I’ve listened to two of her others: The Dry and The Lost Man and loved both of those. I will reserve my review on this until I finish it (5 more hours). While I listen, I think of Susan of PatchNPlay, and her trip to Tasmania. I can’t wait to show off the backing I chose for this quilt.

Lastly, there seems to something in the zeitgeist here, but truth! Patti chose this without knowing all the other watery connections I’ve just mentioned. If you jump on this link, you can see a lot of the blocks she’s received, all laid out together. I love how nice they all play together.

And that’s it for today. Happy July, Happy Not Wearing My Boot, and Happy Quilting!

Digital/Virtual World · Shine: The Circles Quilt · This-and-That

Abecedary • Late June 2021

June 27, 2021October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

A is for Abecedary, or a way of organizing this post.

It’s also the name of my Lecture I present to Guilds, and I’m coming up on my last Abecedary of Quilts lecture next month (a milestone). And by the way, today I might skip a few letters. Subtitle: This and That • June 2021.

B is for bibimbap

which is a favorite summer dish, shown here on my placemat made out of Simone’s fabric, back when we supported her in her fabric launch. In the Before Times.

B is for Bunny ears.

C is for Criss-Cross. Fun to see Kathy’s finished quilt on the Glendale Quilt guild’s IG account.

E is for exclamation points, for which I often use too many and always have to edit them out.

F is for feet on Instagram, specifically feet on quilts. Seems there are strong feelings about this.

I is for new ironing board cover.

1. I always leave lots of padding, but maybe shuffle them around. This is multiple year stack-up of padding.
2. My pattern has me lay the ironing board down on some fabric then draw an outline about 3″ away from the edge. No precision needed. I then make a separate “hood” for the top, by duplicating the upper portion. No reason. It’s just the way my most favorite commercial ironing board cover was made, way back in the day, and I’ve just continued it. I sew it on the top part, RST, then flip it. It’s tricky to get the casing around those edges, and I always find myself unpicking bits here and there to get the drawstring through. Don’t judge me by my underneath-the-ironing-board-cover business.
3. I slap an interfaced square on the lower edge and put in two buttonholes (for drawstrings), making sure they are closer to the raw edge. Make a hem of about an inch of fabric all the way around and stitch it down, doing your best. No, I don’t finish the raw edge. Why should I? After that, slide through some sort of long string-y thing (not yarn or string). The best one I’ve found is to use two packages of seam tape, seamed together and overstitched. I’ve re-used it over and over.
4. The underneath, after I’ve pulled it all up into place, and tucked in the strings.
5. My newest gig is to sew on a giant rectangle, right in the middle (pink arrows). I just tuck the edges under after pinning, and topstitch it down. Yes, I fit the board with this after laying the cover on, but before drawing up the string. Why this? When it gets grunge-y after constant use, I unpick the stitches and yippee! Fresh and clean ironing board surface.

K is for Kitchen Sink Cookies.

You can find this recipe on my daughter’s new website, Sweet Mac Shop, made and launched this last month for her macaron-baking efforts.

L is for Leisa.

She’s coming up on the one year anniversary of her stem cell transplant and we are celebrating by taping up a quilt (left side of the photo) for her niece. She had this little quilt of mine out on her antique sewing machine, so I took some time to re-acquainted with an artifact from an early day.

This was one of my earlier attempts at Home, Sweet Home, using a Lemoyne Star in the center, which is a juggling act all the way around (my pattern has an easier method).

It’s like old home week, visiting these fabrics once again.

L is also for Link Tree.

This is what people see when you set up a space to list a series of links off of Instagram. Typically you put it where your ONE available link address is, thereby giving you way more links. Michelle, a brand stategist, often has little tips in her stories about how to make our online life easier, and more clever. One day she had a tip about creating a Link Tree in Canva, a website that will assist you in design tasks.

But then I got to thinking: can’t I do this on my own, using a page from my own website? Since I know her IRL, I asked her and she said “Yep, you can.”

I use WordPress for my blogging software, and they use Blocks for text, images and anything on the page, I colored my Blocks in different colors, wrote my text, and since I didn’t give the page a title, it has a naturally short web address.

Voilá! My very own Link Tree that I can change at a moment’s notice.

N is for Northern Star Quilters’ Guild.

I just finished teaching Criss-Cross and presenting my Abecedary of Quilts lecture to a wonderful group of quilters all the way across the country in New York state. What wonders of our era, to be in California and NY at the same time.

O is for Obama.

I’m almost done listening to the first part of his memoirs, and boy, have I learned a lot about government. A brilliant writer, with an easy-going style. His strong character traits, as well as some of his flaws, do come out in this book, but what I’ve appreciated learning is the bits of history he builds in to each international incident: it gives me a fuller appreciation for the difficulties of managing the expectations of the presidency in both foreign affairs and domestic. Love him or hate him, a lot can be learned by listening to, or reading this book. You’ll learn more about how bills are passed — and blocked — by taking the time to hear from a former president.

P is for pre-wash your red fabrics.

After they come out damp from the dryer, I press them and let them dry on the guestroom bed. This was in preparation for my Summer Snowcone Quilt. I don’t always pre-wash all my fabrics, but I ALWAYS pre-wash the reds.

S is for Shine, the red, white and blue version.

My goal is to get this done by the end of next week, in preparation for the Fourth of July. I have now finished most of the white thread, most of the red thread, most of the blue thread. Next up is light-blue thread, and then going back for borders and finishing touches.

W is for Writing Patterns.

Next up is Azulejos, a pattern to be made from a quilt finished in the Before Times. This pattern is almost done. I use Affinity Software (Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher) and for the last while they’ve been offering a smoking hot deal at 50% off. (Hooray! No more chained-to-Adobe-subscription prices, although they do have excellent software.)

Well, that is ending soon, on the 30th of June. If you have a hankering to design, or to tweak your photos, or other creative uses, head to Affinity by Serif and pick up your copies before it goes off sale. I’ve written about this before and I will again. It’s a great set of software apps for ~~creatives~~ ~~Creative Peoples~~ Creative People and Quilters. It will take you some time to get to know it, I won’t lie, especially if you have no Adobe experience. I had never used Illustrator by Adobe, but I purchased Affinity’s Designer. I had to do a bit of research here and there, but they have a great series of tutorials (I went through them all and Took Notes), a hefty online design community, a comprehensive online manual and even a hardcover book, that walks you through lessons on how to use it. I was up and running fairly quickly, and continue to learn new things.

Speaking of sales, get this, too. QuiltFolk. Ending Soon, and all that stuff.

V is for a sad move for Viking Sewing Machines.

Somehow I never think it is a good sign when equity firms own our sewing machines. We recently lost one good tool when QuiltPro, a favorite design software (it used vectors, not lines) was purchased by a corporation, and let it slide into nothingness. Admittedly, it is still around and functioning for Windows machines, just not on Macs. Superior Threads was also sold, and I miss talking to my favorite help person on the line, although the threads themselves are still the high quality threads I know and love. And now these three sewing firms. I’m somewhat encouraged by the last line of the announcement, but not much.

Z is for Zee End.
Happy Beginning of Summer!