Amelie Pattern Giveaway Winner, A Stitch in Time: June, and My Trip to Crazy Town

The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place. –Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

I usually reserve Sundays for posts of a more spiritual nature. Today, however, my back is up against a wall. I've yet to announce the winner of the promised giveaway and there should be some sort of linky party going on around here starting today. With my most humblest apologies for not being on top of everything like I always think I can, let's take care of some business.

First, I threw everyone's name who entered for the giveaway into a hat. OK, it was a dish, but you know what I mean. And Grasshopper pulled out the winner.

Congratulations to

P.

at The Way I Sew It

P., check your inbox .

Now, about the June Linky Party. I've debated back and forth and have decided that there will not be a linky party for June. I'm also considering taking the summer off. And maybe not ever starting back up again after that. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I'm juggling a lot and while it is really hard to let go emotionally to the idea that I can do everything, it makes the most sense at the moment to let a few things go. The June Linky Party is one of those things.

You see, LadyBug and I are going to Girl's Camp for the week. It's this thing we do in our Church to torture the girls by making them survive out in the wilderness for five consecutive days without technology and also to make the leaders crazy getting ready for it. I happen to be on the Crazy Town Express at the moment. I still have packing to do, my gluten and dairy free food substitutions to prep and about fifty other things before my self-mandated 9:00 pm bedtime, because I have to be up at oh-five-hundred hours tomorrow morning. I'm pretty sure the No-Bake Dark Chocolate Granola Bites that I made a special trip to the Health Food Store to get Sunbutter for {like peanut butter, only made with sunflower seeds} because peanut butter and I don't get along, and then discovered I'd left my wallet and home and had to run home and back in order to make my purchase are not going to get made.

Our packing lists are about a mile long and we have to make everything fit into one bag. LadyBug and I just spent 25 minutes coercing foam pads into rolls so that we might have some hope of sleep this week. We're not really camping. We're sleeping in cabins and the cabins have bunk beds, but the bunk beds just have wooden bottoms — no mattresses. Hence the need for foam pads. We also have showers with hot running water if you're the first or second in line. And kitchens with fridges and electricity and everything. There's a canoe lake and a ropes course and hiking and the food is fantastic, from what I hear. So, it isn't really camping. But it isn't like home. And it is a lot of work to get ready for it. I'm not ready.

Wish me luck!

The Signature Block Conundrum

A pretty face will always grow old. A nice body will always change with age. However, a good woman will always be a good woman. –Unknown

The other week, I had the day off of work. It was a Friday and I was happy to start the weekend early. My plan was to meet up with my mom in the big city and enjoy some quality time together while the Not-So-Little Bugs were in school. Unfortunately, LadyBug was sick. So, instead I stayed home with her. I decided that while I had some "extra" time on my hands, I'd do a little on-line shopping for fabric for a semi-special project.

The story goes like this: there is this cutest little old lady in my ward {congregation} who is 99½ years old and still sharp as a tack. Although she can no longer see well enough to drive and she's getting a little frail, she still lives alone in her own home, takes care of herself and spreads happiness wherever she goes. As a matter of fact, last fall she asked if Grasshopper would come over and rake up her leaves. By the time we got to her house the next afternoon, she's already gotten the leaf blower out and blown them into a gigantic pile in the back yard. All we had to do was bag them for her.

I have really enjoyed getting to know her over the last nine or ten years. She is truly an amazing woman. Ever since she turned 99, last September, I've been thinking about making her a signature quilt with, wait for it . . . 100 signature blocks. I'm sure that the people she knows and has influenced could fill about 10 hundred-block quilts, so I'm thinking that all the members of a single family could have one block to sign, and we could keep it to a single quilt at a manageable size.

I've always wanted to do something with 1930's reproduction fabrics, and this seemed like the perfect project. This sweet lady would have been 16 in 1930. I want to do something really scrappy. Keepsake Quilting sells 10" pre-cuts in a variety pack of 1930's prints. Several months ago, thinking of this project, I searched the interwebs for signature block quilts and one particular layout that creates a lattice stuck in my brain, but I wanted to have a plan before I ordered fabric so that I could make sure that I liked the layout and that I ordered enough fabric. I started doodling around with the old {Microsoft} Paint box. {This took me forever. Perhaps EQ should be on my Christmas wish list.}

Lattice Layout

I like the looks of this layout. It is made with the simple block below, which I found on-line. When I went back to my original pencil-and-paper doodle on graph paper from several months ago, which was based on allowing for pre-washing of the pre-cuts and then using the maximum amount of fabric with the least amount of waste to get the biggest block possible, I discovered that the white signature area of the block I drew up was bigger than the one below by about ⅞", which would make the white lattice bigger and the scrappy 1930's reproduction fabrics smaller than in the layout above. I'm not sure if that would be too much white lattice and not enough 1930's reproduction fabrics.

While I was doodling, I decided to try out another layout I'd seen in my previous search. I don't like it as much as the first layout, but maybe with larger white signature areas, I'd like it better.

Diamond Layout

While I was thinking and doodling and searching the interwebs for a refresher on the two layouts above, I found this block.

If the block is turned the right way, it makes pretty flowers. I really like the way this looks, but it leaves the least amount of room for a signature. And a pre-washed {a.k.a. pre-shrunk} 10" square could not comfortably make four 5" blocks. I don't think a 10" block that hasn't been pre-washed could do it. I'd need to take a different approach to getting a variety of fabrics with enough of each fabric to make all four blocks for each flower. On the plus side, the signature area is completely finished and there won't be a problem with people signing into the seam allowances.

Flower Layout

My original plan was to do 5" blocks. That makes a 50" square quilt with either the lattice or the diamond layouts, before borders. The flower quilt has 2" sashings, which makes it 62" square before borders. If I bump it to 6" blocks, that pretty much takes using 10" pre-cuts off the table for all of the layouts. The top two layouts would be 60" before borders and the flower layout would be 75" square {I think I'd increase the sashings to 2½" to maintain the same ratio} before borders, which is pretty huge for a lap quilt. If I was going to go big, then I'd do 7" blocks, and with 2¾" sashings, it would be 86½". Slap on some borders and you've got yourself a queen-size quilt. Which really wasn't my plan.

If I'm going to do this, I'd better get a move on. I've only got six months. In the weeks since I doodled these out, I'd almost decided to go with the flower layout. Looking at them again now, I'm kind of back to liking the lattice layout. I've always like the diamond layout least of all, so at least there's one thing I can rule out.

There are pros and cons to every layout and every block size. Ruling things out further, I think that I will stick with 5" blocks to keep the quilt size in check. I'll probably have to find a nice magnifying glass to give with the quilt so this little old lady, whose eyesight is very poor, can read her own signature quilt. In the cons column for the lattice layout, as previously mentioned, the strip of white fabric will be bigger than pictured so I'm worried that will overpower the quilt. Not previously mentioned, I'm also worried about people signing into the seam allowances, even if I provide clear instructions. I've considered using a Frixion pen to mark the boundaries, but you never know. In the cons column for the flower layout, the signature area is tiny in a 5" block. And it will have to be paper pieced in order to come out right at 5".

If you've got an opinion, please share! It always helps me to decide what I want when I hear from other people. Right now, I'm on the fence between the lattice layout and the flower layout. Vote for your favorite in the comments.

Sea Glass

Earth and sky, woods and fields,
Lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea,
Are excellent schoolmasters,
And teach some of us
More than we can ever learn from books.
–John Lubbock

Finishes have been few and far between around here lately. I'd almost forgotten that awesome “got it done” feeling. And so I'm completely thrilled to show you my latest quilt, finished in time to be delivered to a very dear friend, Michelle, on her birthday last Saturday.

This amazing lady and her family have a special spot in my heart {see also; Birthday Aprons, Jazz Jammies, Baby Frolic and Echoes of Eternity}. Seven weeks ago, she had a serious health issue and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. I wanted to do something special for her. And by special, I mean make her a quilt. I tossed around ideas of finishing a quilt that I already had cut or one of the ones that I already had partially assembled, but nothing seemed to fit. With a prayer in my heart to find the right design and the desire to make something simple and fast enough to get it to her when she needed it, I rummaged through my stash and came across a page I'd ripped out of a catalog and put with some cute prints with the intent to use them to make that quilt. A plan began to form.

I bounced ideas off Mr. Bug as I auditioned fabrics. I knew that batiks were the way to go. I {re}discovered two yards of a very pretty brown batik in my stash. That amount of yardage is unusual for me. Most of the time I only buy half-yard cuts. The majority of my batik stash is fat quarters {because Connecting Threads sells fat quarters at regular yardage prices. Woot!}. When I bought the piece of brown, probably a year or more ago, the lady at the cutting counter asked me what I was making. I told her that I didn't know, but the fabric was pretty and I had to have some. When I came across it, I knew it would be perfect for the borders and the long rectangles in this quilt.

At first I was thinking of going with a rainbow spectrum for the colored squares. But the turquoises, greens, blues and purples really stood out. They reminded me of the ocean and I started turning over names for the quilt. Enchantment Under the Sea? Cheesy movie reference. How about just Under the Sea? A slightly less cheesy movie reference. And halfway through the second verse of the song of that name from The Little Mermaid, I realized two things. First, I know the whole song, which just goes to show that you never know which bit of useless information is going to stick. And second, I couldn't name the quilt that or everybody would be singing that song in their head every time they saw the quilt. I dug a little deeper and Sea Glass came to mind. The name was perhaps inspired by the sea colors combined with the stained glass effect the batiks create. Or maybe it was an echo of a memory of a quilt that Kelly called Sand and Sea Glass. Maybe it was both.

When considering which solids to use, I wanted something with a similar weight and feel to the batik fabrics. I'd worked with Pat Bravo's Pure Elements solids and knew that would be the perfect fit. I choose Creme de la Creme {reminiscent of sand} and Coffee Bean {because the pattern called for a dark sashing}.

Then I did a little research on sea glass, to see if I was headed in the right direction with the name. What I found was pretty interesting. According to Wikipedia, sea glass is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of salt water. Sea glass begins as normal shards of broken glass. The glass is rolled, ground and tumbled in the ocean for years until all of the edges are rounded off and the slickness of the glass has been worn to a frosted appearance. Most sea glass comes from bottles, but it can also come from jars, plates, windows, windshields and ceramics, either from waste discarded into the ocean or even from shipwrecks. Among the most common colors are white {clear}, brown and green. Blue is less common and purple even less.

Sea Glass seemed to fit perfectly for this quilt.

I set to work and soon discovered that I would not be able to finish this quilt in the short time period I'd set for myself. I debated back and forth and back and forth again on whether I should have it quilted by a long-armer or do it myself. I decided to extend my deadline, quilt it myself and make it a birthday gift. But time got away from me and my second deadline was looming close. I made a rescue call to Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting, who fit in my rush order and enabled me to finish the quilt in time for Michelle's birthday. {The Voices, Reason and Passion, had a lot to say about that and I couldn't get them to stop arguing. But a third Voice, Experience, kept saying “wash the quilt.” And she was right. Once it was washed and crinkly and soft, I absolutely loved it and it didn't matter anymore that I hadn't quilted it myself. All the Voices were satisfied. Passion did a beautiful job with the colors and precision piecing. Reason got it to the long-arm quilter because that was the only way to get it done in time. And Experience knew how to make Passion and Reason play nicely together.} You can see my original quilt label at the bottom left of the photo below, which was for when I was planning on doing the quilting. I cut the Sea Glass portion of the label {made of French knots in 20 different colors of floss so as to look like bits of sea glass arranged on the sand to spell out the words} away from the rest, made a new “information” section, giving Melissa quilting credits, and sewed it into my strip of fabric along the seam of the quilt {top right photo below}.

As a side note, not only is the top of the quilt a palindrome, but the back of the quilt is as well {cream, chocolate, brown batik, chocolate, palindrome [more or less] strip of colored fabrics w/label, chocolate, brown batik, chocolate, cream}.

This was a fun gift to deliver. Upon opening the quilt, Michelle asked the name of it and curious to see if I'd put anything on the back, she flipped it over and looked at the label. I explained that the colors inspired the name Sea Glass. She told me that their family loves to go to the ocean. Many of their summer vacations are spent at the beach. She told me that they had been to Catalina Island once and took a tour in a glass-bottomed boat. She said that the sun shone through the waters and made everything look vibrant and the quilt reminded her of that.

I remembered the prayers I'd had in my heart while I worked on fabric and pattern choices and when to get it to her and knew that they had been answered.

Today's post brought to you by:

Random Bits: Vol. 10

A destiny is not realized until we let go of the illusion of control.
–Master Oogway, Kung Fu Panda

Getting Warmer
With a little help from Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting, the quilt I've been working on for a friend is right on track to be finished and delivered on time for her birthday tomorrow.

I started this quilt a little over six weeks ago, but have been bouncing back and forth between projects trying to get something finished. {You think I might have figured out by now that picking one thing and sticking to it would get me to “finished” a little faster.} My friend had a pretty serious health issue, which included a trip to the hospital. I wanted to do something special for her during her recovery and I was thinking I could throw together a simple quilt and get it to her in a week. Not so much. The quilt pattern wasn't as simple as I thought {especially since I didn't actually buy the pattern, but sort of reverse engineered it from the photo and dimensions listed} and I debated back and forth about sending it out for quilting to get it done quickly. In the end, to take some stress off I decided to make it a birthday gift, and put it aside to work on other pressing projects thinking I had all the time in the world to get it done.

But at the beginning of last week, I realized I only had two weeks to finish it. Last Saturday, with one week to go and the borders to put on the top and bottom and back to piece, I was really feeling stressed about having enough time to get it done. In desperation, I called Melissa and asked if she could help. She kindly accommodated my rush order and did a lovely job with the quilting. I picked an all-over pattern, dropped my quilt off and in a few days, I had it back, ready to be bound, washed to crinkly softness and given away.

The two voices, Reason {a.k.a. What I Can Do} and Passion {a.k.a. Go Big or Go Home}, are still arguing in my head. Passion says I should have done the quilting {edge-to-edge is usually not my first choice; I think it often masks the piecing. I like to “color inside the lines” and try to quilt a design that accents the piecing}. Reason says that there is no way I would have had time to get the quilting done {especially since I've had a migraine since last Friday night. I'm hoping it is finally gone, but the jury is still out} and finished is better than perfect.

I must pause here to say that Melissa did a great job on the quilting. Her prices are very, very reasonable, she was seriously awesome to work with and the quilting is beautiful. Would I recommend her quilting services? Absolutely. Especially if edge-to-edge is what you're after. Will I use her again? Definitely. I have at least one quilt in the pipeline that is a great candidate for edge-to-edge.

The tug-of-war going on here is my choice to have edge-to-edge quilting done on a quilt that might have been better served with a custom job. The choice to send it out for quilting lifted a huge amount of stress off of me and made it possible to have it finished in time for my friend's birthday. Although I'm not 100% certain, I think the trade-off might have been worth it. At any rate, I'm hoping it will all come out in the wash.

Getting Colder
On Tuesday, we had a new air conditioning unit installed. I like to be prepared.

OK. The real story is that we needed to have our furnace replaced. Last winter was the coldest we've had in as long as I can remember. We kind of limped along with our furnace and had a few times where we wore multiple sweaters and borrowed space heaters while we waited for our repair man to come and fix it. Just when we thought we'd made it through winter and were well into spring, we had one more week-long cold spell and the furnace left us, well, out in the cold. We decided we'd better have it replaced.

But once it turned warm again, it wasn't such a pressing issue. The air-conditioned summer months lulled us into a sense of false security. But the temperatures have dropped early this year {I'm hoping we're not in for another deep-freeze of a winter, but I've heard rumors that it has already snowed in some areas} and we had to get out the space heaters and sweaters again. And the time was ripe to replace the furnace.

As it turned out, though, it was the air conditioner's fault that we needed a new furnace. It has something to do with the coil and condensation and rust dripping down into the furnace. They offered to knock $500 of the cost of labor on top of the pretty fabulous discount we negotiated through our handy, dandy repair man. We decided it would be in our best interest to just do it all at once.

The new furnace is chugging along and we're all toasty warm. It's just too bad we didn't replace the furnace in the spring because, we could have saved quite a bit of money on the electric bill this summer, since in this case it was a package deal.

Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascending
The Piano Guys are at it again. This time on the Great Wall of China. Seriously. Check it out. And if you're wondering how they got the piano on The Wall, check this out.


Available for purchase from The Piano Guys or on iTunes

Palindrome

“Madam in Eden, I'm Adam.” Thus the first words ever spoken were a palindrome. –Unknown

Palindromes are words that read the same backwards and forwards. There are simple ones like mom, dad and Anna. Radar and rotor get a little fancier. And my favorite of all time is racecar because it's a too-cool-for-school sort of word disguised in an every day vocabulary kind of way. There are longer single-word palindromes, mostly in other languages. But tattarrattat {the sound a drum makes} is a pretty long English one.

I asked Mr. Google what he knew about palindromes. It turns out that aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes. And, palindromes are not limited to single words. Sotades, an ancient Greek poet with a somewhat shady character, is credited to have been the first to use palindromic phrases. Like their ancient Greek counterparts, lots of the modern-day-written-in-English ones are just nonsense. But every once in a while a one of them makes sense. Mostly. Here are a couple of amusing ones.

Never odd or even.

Do geese see God?

Murder for a jar of red rum.

And for party schools — Campus Motto: bottoms up, Mac.

Palindromic numbers, sometimes called Scheherazade numbers {in reference to the storyteller in 1001 Nights} are pretty cool, too. I like to watch the odometer in the car every once in a while to see how close it is to the next Scheherazade number. Last I checked, Mr. Bug's odometer was approaching 247,742.

There are also 2D palindrome squares which read the same left to right and top to bottom and take palindromes to a whole new level of coolness.

--

About six weeks ago, a dear friend had a very traumatic health issue, which included a ride to the hospital in an ambulance. I wanted to do something for her, so I decided to make a quilt. I chose a simple pattern, pulled out my stash of batiks, held auditions, ordered some Pure Elements by Pat Bravo in Coffee Bean and Creme de la Creme and got to work. The Pure Elements solids are very similar to the weight and feel of the batiks and the two fabrics worked together very nicely.

And as it turns out, quilts can be palindromes too. The pattern of colors in the rows from top to bottom are Turquoise, Green, Turquoise, Blue, Purple, Purple, Blue, Turquoise, Green, Turquoise. I kind of love it.

I just finished the top this week. Even though I thought I'd picked a quilt that was going to be simple, it has 793 pieces. A few days into piecing, I realized I wasn't going get this quilt finished quickly enough to use during her recovery. So, I took my friend and her family dinner and decided to finish this quilt as a gift for her birthday. It is this coming Saturday. With a little bit of help, I think I'm going to make it. I'll keep you posted.