Howdy world, and howdy 2017

For the past few years I have belonged to a couple of 'groups' in the facebook world, one of them is for needle-types who have supplies that they want to sell to other needle-types who need those supplies.

Translation: It's a sellers/buyers group.  I am a buyer.

One particular group has a person in charge of it who is usually ( > 95% of the time) on top of everything.  When it comes to her own customers, she is proactive and pretty wonderful, but lately has seemed a bit overwhelmed by her own aspirations.  The wonderfulness of her customer service has become hit or miss recently, and it appears as though I am on the 'miss' end of the stick.

This is why it was hard to believe [read this with sarcasm] that she became completely outraged when I opened a case with the payment service.  I mean, after all, she only kept me waiting three weeks before finally sending the package.  Perhaps I was a little hasty, since it was only three weeks... [dripping with sarcasm] and she did offer me either silence or no less than four BS excuses as to why I was waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

But, the complaint I filed did lead to her actually sending the package, so I couldn't have been too far off the mark, right?

I have refused to correspond with her any further, and most likely I will be dropping out of that group, too.  Just too much crap in my wheelbarrow already, why invite more angst?  I suppose this means I am 'cleaning house' for the new year; unintentionally, but totally necessary.

What are you up to with the changing of the digits?

An irksome thing

I have kvetched about this before - and I suppose there will never be a time where I can see myself clear to just letting it go (and more's the pity) but there may be an explosion in my future if I can't.

There is a quilter whose work I like very much, to the point of admiration, really.  And she has only very recently chosen to walk away from her acclaim in the machine quilting realm.  She is fed up with (as she put it), "...the bullshit in the industry."  She will not quit making quilts, but will simply do so only for herself.  Huzzah, and more power to her.

So? I can hear you bellow.  What's your gripe?  What about that has you near boom-boom level?

Well, it isn't really Krista's decision to bow out of the quilt making spotlight so much that has my hackles up, but it's the quilt she is currently putting together that has me fuming. Some other quiltmaker/pseudo designer has decided to rename a glorious - and fairly straightforward - quilt 'pattern' something entirely new, just to make it seem as though she developed the pattern and instructions for others to follow.... AS IF IT'S NEVER BEEN MADE BY THOUSANDS BEFORE HER, for Pete's sake.

Heck, I've made my own string quilts by sketching out the desired size of the finished block so that I could readily duplicate and piece the silly thing accurately.  It didn't require much time or heavy thinking - and I certainly didn't rename the quilt pattern because it was something I drew up.  I looked at a few photos of older "Spider Web" string quilts before diving in, just to get some ideas of possible color placement and angles, and then I went to work.  

I totally resent J Sampou thinking it's OK to rename a standard, and well known, pattern; what an incredible ego trip she must be on. "Octagon Shimmer," indeed!  Shame on you for trying to cash in by using something that is in NO WAY your "original" creation, tagging it with a different name and calling it your own design.  I hope the people who follow you like sheep can eventually see through your flimsy veneer. 

Okey dokey - rant's over, but I am still steaming around the collar.  Has anybody got a few ice cubes handy?

When thinking can be a bad thing

There's all sorts of thinking that can be done; simple thoughts to highly complex contemplating.  Thinking that leads to conclusions (which could possibly affect countless others) or those dozens of aimless daydreams we have every day.  I won't drone on because I think you catch my drift.

Well, I've been ruminating - the serious sort of thought conjuring, too, not that simpleton stuff.  Nope, I've been having some Olympic-sized cranium sessions, wondering about my future, postulating about my current circumstances, and hair-splitting things I have already done - which, let's face it, never does anyone any good.

At any rate, my inner dialogues about this current long-term quilt thing have led me to wonder if I've made more work for myself by creating a very large material cache to choose from.  When I began constructing the 100-piece blocks my aim was to use what I had on my shelves.  Surely this would be enough (because I have a stupidly large, and very diverse stash).  And seeing the color selection as finite, I made do when choosing each inch; I was happy to have something "close enough." There was no laboring over every color pixel, the blocks came together quickly, and I factored the quilt top would be finished in one and one-half years.

Well, that was back in April of 2013.  Since then, every time I have realized I could add more greys to my background selection, or have expanded my choices of yellows and flesh tones, I have also managed to grow the time expended on building out each block.  The more precise I have tried to get to matching the actual, the more time it takes to complete one block.  What once was 4-5 hours of finding and 2.5 hours of sewing is now days in the making.

TOO MUCH THINKING!
Too many choices.
Way too much perfection.

I may need to re-evaluate what I am allowing myself as a palette.  Perhaps simplifying would be a good course of action if I ever want to see the completion of this monster.  Or... maybe I am afraid of finishing this.

As you can see, I have given this a lot of thought. Maybe it's time to stop thinking and just go for it.

Ouch and boo-hoo

Woke up early this morning, stiff-necked and nearly immobile.  What the heck!?!

In the past, when I've awakened a little stiff on one side or the other, I could always massage my neck or shoulder area, and slowly work out the kink and stiffness in a matter of a few minutes to half an hour of rising.  Today...not so much.  This doesn't happen often, either.  I would say less than four times in a year.  M-a-y-be.

Once I got to the top of the stairs, I immediately took four (200mg) ibuprofen tablets, and continued to work on my range of motion and overall movement.  But here we are - three hours later - and I feel as though my neck is spasming now, nearly locking my body into some very awkward (and painful) positions at times.  I am still continuing to work at slowly increasing my range of motion to the right, and down....and up (in some instances).

This is making any quilting activity painful and undoable.

Poop!

Tonight calls for cleaning

Cleaning and straightening in order to find colors I KNOW live in this stash.  I must be able to snap the head off this Beast-of-the-three-missing-inches (otherwise known as "H4").


I must finish H4 tomorrow!

[sniff]
[whimper]

Hide and seek

A couple of days ago I was working (semi-)diligently on VG when, after shutting off the lights and putting it to bed for the night, I found two beeee-YOO-tee-ful inches.  I mean perfectamundo (how many of you pictured Fonzi just then?).

I don't know where these two delightful discoveries have been all this time; perhaps hanging like spiders in a dark corner, waiting for their moment of surprise.  I couldn't tell you how it was they just turned up... totally out of the blue... and not even in a pile of bits from that quilt project.

I can only say - with absolute certainty - that they materialized in a completely magical - no!... make that 'supernatural' way.  As if by transporter beam to my very possession by Mr. Spock himself, directly from the  starship Enterprise.  Of course that's what happened, it's most logical.

Do you doubt me?

One of the one inch sweeties was a little crimped, so I gleefully made my way in the direction of the ironing board, intending to iron them both flat; from there I would place them in a place of prominence, nearest the layout board for my next furlow.  But I'll bet you can guess what happened.

Oh, yes, I did.  Somehow, I managed to become distracted just enough to let myself lay them carefully aside - in a spot where I couldn't possibly lose them or raise a breeze to cause them to float away and become a dusty spot on the floor...under a chair... never to be seen again.

Oh, yes I did.

Once it dawned on me that I'd forgotten to iron those bits, and that I hadn't put them in a place of importance for my next piecing session with H3, well, I was up on my feet like a shot.  Except, I couldn't remember where I had safely placed them, so I tore the house a new one looking for two dinky bits of perfectly colored, and all too necessary, one-inch squares.

Not only had I placed them in a perfect haven of non-blowy safety, but I had forgotten where that place was!

Oh, yes I did.  I know!

This morning, in my usual routine to exit the house, you'll never guess what I found just laying out in the open.  Oh, go on.  Guess.

Oh, you're good at this.  Yes, I did.  Right there, on the desk next to the front door, in fact.

So, if you will pardon me, I am heading over to the iron - right now.  There is an important mission I must complete without any further ado.

 

Yesterday's blog entry

Well, I sort of figured my stance regarding postage stamp quilts wouldn't be the most popular tome I've ever banged out here in the old blog, especially given so many people feel that a quilt made from hundreds of 2" finished blocks constitutes a PSQ ( - because it just doesn't.  Sorry.)  But... my blog, my opinion(s).

Don't even get me started on how I feel about folks fusing a quilt top together and then calling it "applique'" (because it's not.  It's just SO not).

This is what I'm finding

Over the years, in searches of books and other reference materials available prior to the 1990s, and subsequently in searching the internet for "postage stamp" quilts, the selection produced is always a little odd, quite varied, far-ranging, and (at least 50%) wrong. People want to think they are creating a "postage stamp" quilt simply by virtue of the fact they are using one cut size piece square, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

There are a LOT of 'one block wonders' - or, 'one patch wonders' - made with hundreds and thousands of simple square patches, but that doesn't qualify them as "postage stamp" quilts.  The name for postage stamp quilts came about because the diminutive pieces comprising the top were literally the size of a postage stamp - and those were small.

Less than an inch.

LESS.

Any quilt created from the mid-twentieth century and before, with finished pieces exceeding 1" was not referred to by its creator as a "postage stamp" quilt. I've yet to find one.  Those quilters had pride of work, and were not as boastful or in need of [internet] glory and fame as are today's quilters - and they would not stretch the parameters of what should be in order to claim something they made was other than what it was. Their pride came in the form of a neat, precision-pieced and hand quilted end result.  They might allow for modern day quiltmakers to feel special by claiming 1.5" finished pieces to fall within the realm of the postage stamp title, but they'd do so with a wink and a knowing nod shared between them.  So let's be honest with ourselves...whadaya say?

1.5" cut pieces will yield a finished patch of one inch. Likewise, a 1" cut piece becomes one half inch when pieced with its neighbors.  Those are traditional, acceptable, and true sizes for creating a postage stamp quilt.

Cutting and piecing 2" cut pieces (whether by joining strips and cutting, or by joining individual cut squares) does not make a postage stamp quilt.  Not in random placement, not in creating Granny Squares, small Trips Around the World - or larger whole 'Trips' - etc, etc, etc.  Nope, the traditional postage stamp quilt was comprised of thousands upon thousands of postage-stamp-sized pieces.

Does it take patience?  Yes, lots of it.  Does it take a lot of work cutting and organizing and piecing it well? Oh, you bet it does - this I can attest to.  Isn't it time-consuming; couldn't I create and finish a quilt faster (and then move on to another project sooner) if I only used larger pieces and took shortcuts?  Yes, without a doubt, but the huge portion of me that is a traditionalist quiltmaker would have to throw the other portion of me down a flight of stairs for being untrue to the spirit and beauty of traditional quilting if I strayed that far from the honesty of what is right.  If I told a quilt lie, I would totally expect to be called out for it.

What I'm finding is I am becoming (sadly) intolerant of the title "Postage Stamp Quilt" being used so freely by people espousing their non-postage-stamp-sized pieces to be something they're not.  So, if you are making (or have made) a PSQ using any square pieces of a finished size equaling more than one inch... and I am within range... and you hear me scoff or snort or guffaw or bristle noisily at your lovely quilt, please know it is only because your quilt doesn't deserve the honor of the title "Postage Stamp."

Happy update

No, I am not finished with H1.... BUT, there are only a mere four inches to find.

A frustrating four inches.

An aggravating four inches.

An impossible four inches.

Stupid four inches!

Stick with me, daylight, please.  Together, we can make it happen.

UPDATE: 
As of 5:03PM - Two missing inches.
There's always tomorrow.

Wow, lots more cleaning

Aaaah, maybe not "cleaning" so much as 'neatening'.  Lots of useful fleshy stuff and shadowy material bits unearthed, with much more identified background loveliness amassed.

Truthfully, it seems to be something of a reclamation binge that I accomplish with infrequent regularity (can that really be a thing - "infrequent regularity"?).  My intentions are also the best of the best.  I always intend to clean up as I go, or get to the end of a color group and clean up then carry on... OR,  get to the end of a row then tidy as much as need be, but it is always forgotten in the excitement of the moment.

"No, no, no," my eager self yells.  "Don't lose momentum. Everything is right here where you left it.   Keep going.  Keep going!  We'll clean up in a bit."

Trouble with that is that, well, er... it never happens.  Eager self is a pretty unrelenting bitch, and we just keep mucking through until the piles of cast-off material begin tumbling over us like tsunami waves on the New Zealand Pacific shoreline.

No, I have only recently adopted the policy of putting Unrelenting Bitch into a headlock at the end of each row; and then throwing her into a closet when the need arises to actually grab a pitchfork to clean out the work area.  See, if you can't find anything you know you saw just 'an hour ago', and
you can't make a spot big enough to use a tiny cutting mat for one inch squares, and
you can't move freely without knocking something over...

So, I guess you know a little of what took place today.

Slightly off topic...but only slightly

I belong to a few groups on facebook - I have limited myself to less than ten on purpose - and the few groups I follow are of the quilting/art variety.  Can't help it if I am filled with class.

As it so happens, my chosen groups (or, the administrators of these groups) are of the sort who fairly well harbor the same sentiments I feel surrounding decorum, information sharing, types of 'posts' from members, etc.

Listen, I am an administrative type; I've worked in the corporate world and in the film industry - and in the many grey areas in between and all around those two fields - and if it's one thing I think I have a handle on it's process and guidelines.  The work world does not function well without some sort of order or process...it doesn't matter what industry it is.  Truth be told, nothing functions without process, not driving your car on the road, buying groceries, mowing your lawn, flying a plane (or taking a flight somewhere).  Whatever.

As for fb groups, it's like this:
When you join a group, take the time to read the group description, and any little 'by-laws' or addendums the person who created that group wants you to know.  It may be a 'pinned' post (that will be the post that is constantly at the top of the timeline), or it may be something the admin posts as a casual reminder from time to time.  Take heed, these are the operating standards for the group.  If it states you should stick to the topic, like quilting or applique', and you want to post images of your Christmas tree or craft items....think twice, and then DON'T post those photos.

A fabric-decoupaged wine bottle is not appropriate fodder for a hand quilting site - neither is a photo of your pet chihuahua wearing handmade elf ears (I don't care if they are hand stitched, and the pet in question is adorable in them).

Think about the audience of that group.  You may receive a few 'aw' comments, and a number of 'likes', but by and large, the greater majority of the members are going to bombard the poor administrator with questions about why those photos are on the timeline.

Seriously, if you feel a need to share your crafts and pets and such, do you really have to be reminded that you have your own fb timeline?  Share those sorts of things with your own set of friends and relatives, please.  You may receive a delicately worded message from the admin asking you to please remove those images and why, before they have to do it; that's not a fun note for an admin to write.  Don't make the admin don a Snidely Whiplash moustache and become the Gestapo - you are going to feel picked on and unwelcome because your photos will vanish.

Don't make it necessary, just play nicely and follow the rules (hate that word), and everything will run like silk ribbon through satin.  Ah.

Grammar lesson (yes, in regards to quilting)

One thing I have been pondering lately are the words "quilting" versus "quiltmaking".

I saw that someone had read the entry entitled "I think, therefore I quilt", and thought to myself how wrong that seemed.  I began to realize what I actually meant (and should have written) was, "I think, therefore I am a quiltmaker".

For those of you who don't make quilts (either at all or on a regular basis) you may not think there is a difference, but believe me when I tell you that there is.  There really is.

A quiltmaker is exactly that - a maker of quilts.  I am a top-to-bottom sort of quiltmaker...from beginning to end.  I cut and piece the top; I sandwich the top with batting and the backing; I quilt and then bind the piece, and regularly add a sleeve, too.

I take part in every aspect of the quilt creation.  

I make quilts, I don't simply piece the top and get the backing together then hand it off to someone else for the quilting portion.  

I am a quiltmaker.

I am also a quilter.  I quilt my quilts, and I quilt other people's quilts as well.  That is to say, I do that decorative/utilitarian/very necessary stitching you see all over the quilt.  You know, that stitching that keeps the layers together and embellishes the quilt piecing.  Yeah, that 'stuff'.  I quilt.  

But make no mistake.  Quilting and quiltmaking are two different things.  Quilting is an act of quiltmaking - a very important piece of the quiltmaking process - but it is still just one component of the overall activity which is quiltmaking.  

Do you see the difference now?  Can you get behind the theory and the practice?  Good.  I knew that you could.  It's a very big distinction, don't you agree?

So when someone tells you they are a quilter, you can feel free to ask them if they quilt for themselves or if they quilt for others, as well.  Otherwise, you could (if you were so inclined) feel free to press the point by letting them know they are, in fact, a 'quiltmaker' of the very highest order - and not simply a 'quilter'.  A very good thing indeed.

_______

Oh, and before I forget, I am seven inches away from completing F10.  Seven inches of torture, but I will persevere.  ;v)  What have you been working on lately?

UPDATED - Whimpering along

With a small update to the count:
Eighteen more pieces to acquire.  18!
It is progressing slowly today.  Taking lots of time-outs to nurse and rest my foot - and it's not helping to complete the laying out of F4.

grrrrrrrrr

Blast it all with thunder and tarnation!


UPDATE:
As of 2:30PM, I still have 14 to go!  Ugh - I think I did more replacing and rethinking than actually finding new.

Needs to be said

Actually, it needs to be shouted from the rooftops, but this will have to do.

This is a chevron

 =

This is NOT a chevron

Neither is this,*

or this,*

or this.*

Nice try, so close...but still
NOT a chevron.*
These are *ZIG ZAG* patterns.



ZIG ZAG!

These ARE chevrons -

Heck, even this configuration is closer to actually being a true chevron than a ziz zag.

Want to know how you can discern the difference quickly?  Does your material design or quilt block layout look like this? (notice the Private, Corporal, and Sergeant bars)

Chevron!


I don't care what some quilt pattern 'creator' huckster boob calls their design, and I do not give a tinker's doggone for the naming convention of a fabric company.  A zig zag is a never-ending series of lines - think Charlie Brown's sweater.  True chevrons are PAIRS of lines, forming a 'v', whether inverted or 'right way up'.


There, I almost feel better, but not happy knowing there will still be SO MANY people calling a zig zag patchwork quilt a "chevron-something-or-other" when it's not correct.  Help me spread the word, to correct the misuse of a word.

Whaddaya say?