To Reply, or Not to Reply? Blogging Buzz

I guess the first thing to get out of the way is to ask one of the big questions:

No, that’s not it.

The big question is: why do you blog?

And if you are like most of the blogs I see in Blogland, the answer falls into these categories:

• making a living at quilting
• want to make a living at quilting
• will never make a living, but still have hope
• pleasure of sharing my quilts
• love to write and would write about making tires, if necessary

And then the next question:

Wrong.

Here it is: What do you expect of the people who visit your blog?

Should they leave a comment? Visit only? Not steal your content (it happens)? Not copy your ideas without attribution (it happens)?  Which leads us to the really big question:

(from *here*)

When I first started my blogging adventure, in September 2006, I didn’t even enable comments, coming as I was from the “pure” experience of a Creative Writing degree where it was always expected that you would write from within yourself.  Soon after that, the digital world exploded and during grad school a few years later, even though we were still yearning for that isolated writing experience, the reality of the market now loomed large, and we had classes on marketing, selling your novel, pitching stories, being aware of What’s Out There.

And that now is the world in which we quilt bloggers find ourselves, I think, which means that the pure excitement of sharing our quilts, our ideas and just chatting up the room seems to be slowly sinking into the swamp of Making Connections, Pitching My Stuff, Pick Me! Pick Me!, and so on.  I think I participate in all of everything, as do most of us.  But I was quite struck by the thoughts on Carrie Nelson’s blog, LaVieEnRosie, about how so much of blogging has become about advertising.  Carrie is one of my heroes in the way she blogs truthfully about her life, so I really perked up when she next said:

With blogs, I’m also betwixt and between about responding to comments.  I feel horribly – terribly! – guilty when I don’t answer each and every comment with an e-mail but since I can’t bring myself to send just a quick “thank you for commenting” – I think we all know I’m a bit chattier than that – do I answer just some?  And if I don’t get to it right away, is it awful to respond a week or ten days later?  That might be worse than not answering it at all.  So I stick my head in the sand and hope the e-mails answer themselves.

Sometimes I think that comments are just comments–not requiring a reply.  When I leave a comment like “Great quilt!” I don’t really expect a reply at all.  But other times I’ve been pleasantly surprised when a reply has come, and over time it has deepened to a correspondence of some sort.  However (and she peers over the top of glasses), I know several bloggers who feel so swamped by their own success, of the imperative to thank everyone who comes by, that they withdraw from blogland, retreating back to their studios to Make Stuff, which is — if you think about it — the main reason to have a blog.  And I also cringe a little when I happen on a blog where they cheerfully say “I want to grow my blog!” as we are expected to carry away a task from that honest goal, and as I slink away I feel guilty, because certainly one of the true pleasures of blogging is building a community of like-minded folks.

So, does this strange cultural custom of expected replies to comments enhance your appreciation for a blog?  Do you leave comments regardless of whether the blogger will answer you back? And if you blog yourself, do you feel compelled (and I chose that word purposefully) to answer back all your commenters?

Do Tell.

Entering the Grading Galaxy

(She moans.  Loudly.)

But!  I will return, because I excel in Grading Avoidance–a skill not all possess, but my guess is if you are a college English Teacher, you probably do.  GA, we call it around here.

But I’ve been working on some things.

Like a visit to Arizona to see two of my children and their families over Mother’s Day Weekend.  Grandchildren are the frosting on the cupcake of life, or so the sign in my kitchen proclaims, and my husband and I had a lot of fun, but came home tired.  Mothering is a young woman’s game.

Received this greeting from another son and his wife on Mother’s Day, as they took a belated honeymoon trip to Paris, France.  (I’m pretty sure he’s on the Eiffel Tower.) The card says, “Happy Mother’s Day from Paris.”  Awwww.  He’s a keeper.

Received my chicken fabric from Spoonflower, along with two textbooks for next year (Yikes! Already??) , and this:

To paraphrase something my students would say, I was like what? I was thinking what is all this?  And I was feeling awesome as I lifted it out of the mailbox.  I won for participating in the Schnibbles parade last month on Sherri/Sinta’s Another Year of Schnibbles, and had sent off my mailing address so they could send my prize.  And What A Prize:

A bountiful harvest of Moda precuts from Avalon by Fig Tree, Simple Marks by Malka Dubrawsky, boho by Urban Chiks, Double Chocolate by 3Sisters, La Belle Fleur by French General, Maison De Garance by French General (those last two were layer cakes), 200 Blocks from Quiltmaker Magazine (a book), and a lovely hand-written note from Ms. Schnibble herself: Carrie Nelson.  I was overwhelmed by her generosity and stunned that I even won at all!  I have now lots of fun fabrics for lots of fun projects–all thanks to Miss Rosie’s Quilt Company.  I feel richly blessed to be a part of the quilting community, as well you know, because I say it over and over and over.  And even if I never win anything more again in my life (which is very likely), this one time, hey, I did.

Spoonflower’s Geeks

Last year Spoonflower had a contest titled Fabric 8, in which they selected 8 contestants to design a line of linked fabrics.  I loved following that group and reading about their choices.  This year’s theme is Geek Chic, and while the semifinal voting closed May 9th, I felt like an expert, since I am married to a very nice geek.  Most people think geeks are nerdy, but they are not the same thing.  And while Nerdy always includes tape-on-glasses and stacks of books with out-of-fashion clothing, Geek does not necessarily include those symbols.  And I was especially please to see some inclusion of science geeks strewn in among the computer geeks!

Here’s what I voted for:

But this one made me laugh out loud, but only after I looked at the title of the design: Old School.

It’s this artist’s illustration of “off” and “on,” in other words the string of 1s and 0s that run our computers today.  It’s the virtual hamsters on their wheels running like crazy in the background behind our graphics and colors and text and quilts and blog posts.

I’m really lucky to have two geeks in my life: my husband, a science guy, and my son Peter, who writes code for a living and is getting his grad degree in computer science.  If this one goes to the printing phase, I may have to get some to make him a cover for his recent tablet purchase (hint: NOT an Apple).  I hope he gets the joke!

It’s Wednesday, so WIP on

Finally! I have a use for my phone app, purchased so long ago and hardly used.  Anyone else like that?

Yep, it’s Wednesday so that means I’m thinking about my works in progress.

Well, today, it was Schnibbles.  I really had fun making last month’s quilt and although I’m fairly certain I won’t be able to keep this up, winning a prize for my Schnibbles certainly helped my motivation.  It hasn’t come yet, so I can’t tell you what it is, but Mr. Random Generator Number HATES me, so I was pretty surprised when Sherri emailed me with the news.  But as I lay in bed the other night, listening to the night sounds and thinking about if I should do this month’s pattern, all of a sudden I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  It involves old sheets.  But not vintage floral sheets.

Long before Martha Stewart ruled the linen universe and long before everyone’s beds looked the same, you could go down to the department store and there’d be all kinds of sheets in all kinds of patterns, mostly percale, but a variety of eye candy for the bed.  One day in Wisconsin, in their department store, a set of Porthault knock-off linens were in the marked down bin.

Porthault?  I was stunned, and snapped them all up: pillowcases, top sheet, bottom sheet and an extra sheet.  The cool part was that the top sheet and pillowcases had a gentle scalloped edge that was taped with blue linen tape.  Verrry classy.  Well, I wore out the bedding, but still had that extra sheet.  Some years ago, I cut it into large squares to use as table decorations for something-or-other, and I knew I still had those lovely lily of the valley pieces of sheets.  Somewhere.  I rummaged through the boxes in the garage last night and found them (you don’t have fabric in the garage?  Really?), and went to work today making my Schnibbles.  I have a set of papers coming in on Tuesday when I enter the Grading Galaxy, hoping to return just before my sister and her husband arrive for a week.  Now you know why I thought I ought to get busy and get this done.

Here’s the second iteration.  The fabric has two-toned blue lilies of the valley and yellow mini-tulips with green stems and little red dots here and there.  So I added some red thread and some green thread to two of my spools, along with some yellow spools just for interest.

Here’s a close-up of the fabric.  I have my row tag on there, ready to sew up the blocks into the top.  I have enjoyed digging into the stash for this quilt, pulling blues from all sorts of different kinds of fabrics. I do like sewing with one line of fabric, I guess, but I always seem to sneak an extra bit from what I have so as to break up the quilt.  (I guess that means I don’t really like sewing from just one line of fabric.)

I cut strips of my Porthault knock-off sheets into strips for the first border, and angled the ends to help disguise the seams–I have a lot of seams because I’m cutting from those squares from long ago.

First inner border with cornerstones is on in one of those dreaded nighttime photoshots.  I stopped here for the night, and will figure out the outer border in the morning.  I was able to slide in three blue blocks made with fabric from my very first pieced quilt (#3 on my 100 quilts list, never blogged about).  I like using this fabric in quilts here and there.  I like tying both ends of my quilting life together like this.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.  For sure, I will be at the end-of-the Linky list tonight!

And here’s the only picture I could find of the sheets on the web.  Sorry it’s so teensy!

I just went and looked up Porthault *online* and a sheet set is going for about two grand.  Yep.
Of course, it is the real thing, and not the knock-off.  Makes quilt fabric look like a bargain.

Feather

When Suz of PatchworkNPlay said she wanted to do an Anna Maria Horner Feather for her monthly block (I think that link will get you there or just Google it), I started in on some new territory. For one thing, this block is really tall–like 17 1/2″ tall and about 9 1/2″ wide.  On the screen it always looks so dainty.  This is not dainty, but bold and much more interesting than I had thought.

Because Suz lives Down Under, as we Americans call it, or OZ, as they like to call Australia, and she sent us her background fabric via air mail, I was desperate not to screw this up.  So I laid out my fabrics in the colors she’d requested, then printed out TWO copies of the pattern and laid it all out, too.

As per Suz’s advice, I followed *this visual tutorial* to paper piece the feather blades.  What I learned: thinner through the middle works better than thicker.  Work really hard to keep on the angle suggested on the pattern.  And even if you biff on those two things, it will still come out just fine.  Our group has made several:

Mine’s on the top, laying sideways.

We each also including a signature block.  I have a template I use because I’ve spelled the name of my blog wrong more than once  (which is why if you want to reach me you can just type in OPQuilt and it will get here).

Done! for the month of May.  Now I want to make a bunch more!

Doleket, deconstructed

When the theme of fire was announced for our Four-in-Art group, I immediately thought of all those days spent roasting marshmallows over campfires, just like Betty did.  And then afterward, when people would gather back and just sit and watch the flames, as they moved and shifted.  It was that movement I was trying for.  I had thought about taking a lot of pictures of fire and scanning them onto fabric.  What was I going to do, light a bunch of bonfires and take photos?  Nyet.  Then it was patch together a lot of squares, and “color” them by doing rubbings of a textile crayon onto the surface.  Because I couldn’t come to a vision of that one, it faded, too.  So one day in a church meeting, I sketched the bit on the left:

I dropped the notebook and when I picked it up, I noticed I liked it better the other way (the version on the right).  With the triangles pointed upwards, it also had a birthday candle effect.

I dutifully drafted and cut out a bunch of orange and yellow-gold miniature triangles, and pulled red, ochre, rust, magenta fabrics from the stash.

I chose whatever colors I had in my stash that had that “fire” color to them.

Because I wanted that idea of movement, I pieced up the strips with two colors.  It’s about this stage in the process that I begin to talk about it to my husband.  I told him I’d been reading in a book, Why Faith Matters, by David J. Wolpe, and although I hadn’t gotten very far, I had read the section about Abraham and the idea of doleket, and how the duality of fire was presented in that passage.  I began to research this idea, and to think about it as I worked.

If this was to be a consuming fire, then wouldn’t there be fallen timbers?  I took a few of the strips, laid them across the upright timbers, stitched down on edge, then folded them over.  I figured I didn’t need to really nail these appliqued pieces to the cloth, for it was in a place of construction/destruction.  I may sound like I’m spouting malarky, but how do you explain where the brain wanders?

First draft Doleket.  This measured way over our constraints of 12″ per side.

So I laid two pieces of cloth over the top and bottom, trying to figure out where the trim line would be.  Whoa!  Tidying up that jagged line really bothered me.  I’m usually one who likes her quilts — and edges — all tidy and pristine, but this wasn’t where this quilt was going.  Construction, or creativity, and destruction by fire happen in a random, haphazard manner.

So from the back, I raggedly hacked at the edges, purposely making them uneven and slightly unkempt.

Our group is keeping to the idea of a quilt sandwich and I knew I wanted the batting to be organic–cotton, rather than my usual.  But I needed to piece some scraps. I auditioned several pieces for the background of the burnt timbers, but ended up going with a text written in a vintage style.  I was thinking about words, how they also are permanent, yet ephemeral.

Now to quilt.  I just started stitching along the strips, quilting right over the crosswise strips.  I’d done a few, and really liked the hanging threads — they reminded me a prayer shawl (seen mostly in the movies, to be quite frank), and I liked them.

I took it outside on a bright sunny day, laid it on this yellow cloth and took a photo, but realized that the small details of the threads couldn’t be seen.  I also had a hard time photographing this because the reds would freak out the camera sensors.  I think this version is the best representation of the color.

Betty had started making labels for her pieces, and I wanted to follow suit.  So here are the three we’ve finished so far.  Our next theme is “owl.”  I’ve known lots of owl collectors (of trinkets, mostly) in this world and I’ve never been one.  But it’s really in nod to wisdom, so Betty says, so I’ll have to think about that.  Our next reveal is August 1st–right after Rachel delivers her baby.

We’ve settled into a comfortable groove now, and while sometimes it’s been interesting to bring the discipline to get these done on time (we did move one deadline), I’ve appreciate how the process, and the product, has been gratifying.  I was curious to see if I could make “art.”  And with this last piece, I think I can say I’m approaching it, if only in my small way.

I’ll end with a few thoughts from a recent obituary for Eudorah Moore in the LATimes, describing her as someone who “blurred the boundaries between art, design and craft.”  She championed “mixed-media inclusivenss,” working for years as curator at the Pasadena Art Museum, which later became the Norton Simon Museum.  In 1973, she wrote:

“We’re going to put down the 19th-century idea that unless you are an easel painter you aren’t an artist.  We’re going to accept that an artist is a person who has a definite statement to make, and can make it in any material.”

Now onward to wisdom, and owls!

Four-in-Art #3 Reveal!

Doleket

While no one really knows how the prophet Abraham came to know God, many a rabbi has told a tale, a midrash, about this event.  One famous one is how Abraham came upon a castle alight — a castle doleket. According to many, the term doleket has two meanings: one is that the castle was radiating “brilliant light.”  But others maintain it was burning, being destroyed by flame.  Who is the master of this castle, asked Abraham, that they would build it only to allow it to burn?  And so, the midrash goes, he came to know God.

I wanted to convey this idea in my quilt — while something can be in flames, it can also be full of light.

So I made the one-inch timbers of this creation stand strong and straight, then allowed some to fall at an angle, denoting fallen beams.  I kept the fabric intact, but left the edges ragged, and threads raveling.  The body holds together, but is mounted on a fabric with text, as the written word is both permanent and ephemeral.

The implications for this idea of doleket are numerous and obvious.  We struggle through a searing experience, only to discover new strengths.  We recognize that often we make fumbling and brutal mistakes with this life we’ve been given, yet continue to work to make things right.  This quilt is less literal than my other two, but I could think about this idea for a long time, and in many of its permutations.  I’m glad I had the chance to think about flame, about fire, and to try to put it into art quilt terms.

************

I have other companions in this quarterly art quilt foray.  They also have created quilts with the fire theme:

Leanne, of She Can Quilt

Rachel, of The Life of Riley

Betty, from Flickr

Check back for the next post, describing some of my creative decisions, a veritable deconstruction of Doleket.

This is quilt #113 on my 200 Quilts list.

WIPs, early

I have the Four-in-Art reveal tomorrow, so am writing about my works in progress today.

DONE

Take Me Back to Italy, both a Schnibbles quilt and a Finish-A-Long quilt

Four-In-Art #3 (check back tomorrow)

And if you read my Instagram, you know I cleaned out my sewing studio drawers this week as I was looking for a spool of thread and one thing lead to another (plus I was doing Grading Avoidance, a truly marketable skill I’ve developed), but while doing all that, found this sweet little Polaroid patch that Debbie sent to those who participated in the Polaroid Swap last summer.  So I was able to get that stitched next to the label on onto Snapshot, and calling it FINISHED.

Not one, but two quilt squares for the Mid-Century Modern Quilt Bee.  I don’t tend to press the heck out of my blocks, as I don’t believe in wearing out my quilts before I get to use them.  So maybe the one on the right doesn’t look quite as spiffy as its twin.  But it is just fine, really.

WORKS IN PROGRESS, or  LOST IN SPACE

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’m still thinking about it.  It’s my EPP quilt, and the top is completed, but I’m not going to show it until I’ve finished it.  It’s coming.

A new crazy idea that surfaced one day last fall, and has taken this long to bubble up.  I’m showing you the bitsiest vision of it I can, because frankly, at this point, it’s really really a Work-in-Progress.

Can I show the fabric that is headed this way?  I finally dipped my toe in the Spoonflower water, and purchased a ten-pack of fat quarters from their weekly contest.  I already have an idea.  This:

Yep, I swiped this photo right from Anne’s website (she’s having a sale on her patterns).  I think the chickens will look fabulous running around this quilt.

Don’t we all have too many ideas?  And not enough time?  That’s my set for this week.

Linking up to Lee’s WIP Wednesday.

QuiltPro Quilt Software

I’ve used QuiltPro software for about a decade now, choosing it first because it worked on a Mac as well as a PC (I’m a Mac user, and Electric Quilt has ignored people like me).  I’ve been reading about another quilt software program that you rent monthly, and thought I ought to talk about an alternative to that, especially since QuiltPro is having a sale right now of 30% off. 

What I like about this program is its simplicity.  It didn’t take me long to figure it out–click on the square icon and draw a square, click on the triangle (there are two kinds) and draw a triangle.  Click on the paint can and color in your shapes.  It does have a fabric library, but after a few times, I’ve skipped over that and just use the solids, coloring in what I want to show value and placement. (And sometimes I wonder if that’s not why we’ve had such a surge of popularity in using solids–we see them in our quilt software and then want to make those quilts? Who knows, but I’ve thought about it.)

And if I want to, I can change the colors by double-clicking on one of the little squares.

There’s a block library if you want it, but I use QuiltPro mostly to work up a design that’s in my head, like this one:

Which became this:

and this

Or this design, to make use of some lovely bits and pieces from a cherished set of fabrics, which became this:

A quilt for a friend who needed some quilty hugs.  And I’m now thinking about how to make this one, dreamed up recently:

Sometimes when I read quilty blogs, I get the feeling that whatever is being shown, or pitched, becomes an extension of that quilter.  That is to say, that if you buy this, or shop here, then that’s like a ‘vote’ for that quilter, and you say you like her better.  I don’t really care if you use QuiltPro or not.  I do use it and I’ve had great success with it as a tool to help me get done what I really do love: quilting, so I thought you might want to know about it.  I used to draft blocks using graph paper, pencils, rulers, drawing out the templates by hand.  This program does all that for me (yes, it prints the templates too, so I can measure them to use with my rotary cutter and rulers).  It’s my tool.  I’ve used this tool in my little quilt group, Good Heart Quilters, when we do our block swaps, or someone needs me to draft up how their chevron quilt will look.  It’s been very helpful in a lot of ways.

Here’s a photo of Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs in combat.  She was recently profiled in the New York Times–go read the article; it’s short and sweet and makes you want to cheer.  But I liked what she said here:

“Q: When you wake up do you feel a sense of loss when you realize what happened to your legs?
A: Of course. But I have a different perspective for what my legs are now. Now they’re just tools, you know? If I still had my legs, I would be in line for a battalion command, and instead I’m flying a desk.”

I want to fly my version of a desk–my sewing machine–making quilts and sewing and playing with cloth and squares and triangles and designs.  I love quilting and am happy to have my rotary cutters and rulers and yes, my QuiltPro software.  It’s just a tool, you know, to get the quilting done.

Take Me Back to Italy!

I have this thing for Italy.  So when I saw Va Bene!, a line of fabrics depicting scenes and buildings and landmarks from Italy, it had to come home with me.  Many of our trips are detailed on my travel blog, Traveled Mind, which I’ve maintained for several trips, and it serves as a journal of sorts.  It’s always fun to go and read it to remember the perfect bruschetta pomodora in the courtyard just beyond the steps of Santo Spirito in Florence (and is why I put the snippet of fabric showing this on the quilt label).

The facade of the church Santo Spirito, Florence

Brushetta Pomodora (pronounced with a hard sound: brus-ketta)

Recipe is found *here.*

So with this memory floating in my mind, I fell in love with the tomato fabric and the sights fabric and the background fabric with the Venetian gondolas and knew that I wanted to make this for Another Year of Schnibbles that Sherri and Sinta are hosting.

This was my first attempt.  I ending up snipping off the piano key borders — even though they are in the original pattern — because everything seemed “mushed” together.  I think a quilt should have strong focal point, or perhaps several places where the eye can travel to, and with the borders and this fabric, it just wasn’t working.

I also quilted the nine-patches in the ditch, and then did a heavy stippling on the triangles to smash them flat into the background, hoping the nine-patch design would pop up a bit.  I think it also helped with that no place for the eye to rest thing I was talking about.

Windows of Santa Croce

I’d purchased this tea towel on a very hot day when we were touring Lake Como, and tucked it away in the suitcase.  You can’t always find fabric in distant places, but there’s always a tea towel or two, showing the sights.

Florence Duomo exterior

Tuscan countryside

My husband is a great traveler, very adventurous, and loves to rent a car and just drive around, trying new places to eat, finding the out of the way place, avoiding the tourist traps, although he will put up with a few if the sights are top notch.  So Italy fits us well.  Enough people speak English, the food is amazing, and the scenery is picturesque.

So what else could I name this quilt but Take Me Back to Italy?

This is Quilt #112 on my 200 Quilts list.

It’s also my second finish for the second quarter of Leanne’s Finish-A-Long,

. . . and my first Schnibbles in Another Year of Schnibbles.

 That’s a pretty big pedigree for such a small quilt, but this one can handle it.

 It’s Italian.