Category Archives: Quilt Related

Taking care of the ‘girls’…

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After we discussed Maya Angelou‘s ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‘ at my book club last week, we found ourselves talking about bras. I’m not sure how we got there, but I know I did some of the talking because I had recently learned things I didn’t know about bra fitting. As it turns out, Jacquie knew way more… and she shared links!

The video by Caty 135 is worth the time it takes to watch it. Here’s what I figured out. I have been in a bra that was both too big and too small since I have had boobs. Sigh.

And then you should read this blog entry from Brittany, Herself. Very informative.

As it turns out, cup sizes are not the same at each band size. It is a proportional relationship. I am not particularly well-endowed and had mostly been fitted in C cups. For that to fit my body, I had to have a bigger band size. I’ve been covered, but never supported, forever. Amazingly enough, I am now in a 32 or 34 band and, gasp, a D or DD cup. That cup size on a bigger band would be bigger as well. On a smaller person than me, that same D cup would be smaller.

If you already knew all this and have been in the correct bra size forever, good for you! If you know someone who obviously needs to know what you know, please do gently share the information. Lorna, Elanor, and I went to Nordstrom’s today and we each came home with bras that fit and we are happy, happy, happy!

Seven Starry Sisters…

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If you receive my newsletter, you have already seen this quilt and read at least part of the story behind it. (FYI: I posted the Seven Starry Sisters ePattern today.)

7Sisters-18

I started this quilt in the early days of Piece O’ Cake… back in the 1990s. In fact, it was so long ago that I drew the pattern by hand!

7Sis-Drawing

My Mom wanted to make a quilt and she offered to applique blocks. I gathered fabric, made the overlay and templates and she got started. And, as sometimes happens, years passed by :-). Every now and then she’d sew on the blocks and then move on to something else that interested her more.

When Mom moved to Texas a few years ago, she gave me the blocks. Most of them were finished, but some were not. Interestingly, she hadn’t appliqued the pieced stars.

7Sis-PiecedStars

My tastes in color and fabric have changed over the years which is not at all surprising. I chose the clearest red and white blocks for the quilt I made and set these aside…

7Sis-QuietStars

And these two blocks have also been set aside. Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose these fabrics!

7Sis-BrightStars

The Seven Sisters is a traditional quilt pattern based on legends that relate to a distinctive star cluster, the Pleiades. The traditional quilt block can be pieced, although it’s a complicated block. There are probably English paper pieces that you can use to hand piece it. I have always thought that it is an easier block to applique.

I cut my blocks in a non-traditional way, with star points hitting the edges of the hexagon on all sides. I added sashing because these blocks were not all exactly the same size, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The sashing adds a terrific spark of color and sets this quilt apart.

I’m sure that I chose blue for my sashing because I found the blocks on the 4th of July. But If I had run across them at Christmas, I might have used green sashing and this quilt would be different but still great fun. Click here if you’d like more info on the Downloadable ePattern.

And, in case you were wondering, Mom was very happy to see this quilt! In fact, the top is now in her living room, waiting for me to find a little time to get it quilted!

7Sisters-18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new quilt show!

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I just returned from Midway, UT, where the very first Small Town Quilt Show – In a big way! was held. Midway is a lovely place; it is only 10 minutes from Park Cities if that helps you to get a fix on it. The event was held at the Zermatt Resort and it’s a place I would happily return to.

I didn’t take pictures of the usual quilt show things because I was too busy either teaching, or shopping, to do that. There was, however, one vendor who had some really fun things made from wool. Yes, I could make these coasters but it was so much nicer to buy them!

woolcoasters

There were some exceedingly cute sock monkeys hanging on the front of the booth (and I wasn’t the only one who thought so). As it turns out they were made by Andrew, the grandson of the lady in charge. Did I get her name? Sigh, I did not. However, the receipt is from Winnie Press. This is Andrew’s very first sock monkey, made when he was 8 or 9…

AndrewsSockMonkey-01 copy copy

He follows his own monkey-making muse, rather than a strict pattern…

AndrewsSockMonkey-02 copy

The monster was my favorite :-).

AndrewsSockMonkey-03 copy

Andrew is older by a couple of years or so now, and still making monkeys. Honestly, he could go into business… there were a lot of us who would have happily bought one of his creations. Instead, I bought a kit for Jack. He’s 6, and probably a bit young for this. Or not!

 

Pixelate it!

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An image on your screen is actually made up of lots and lots of little tiny squares, each one with its own color (a pixel). We don’t see the little squares unless the image is enlarged to the point where it is no longer smooth.

Counted cross-stitched images are created by sewing x-shaped stitches, in specific colors, inside little squares that are formed by the weave of the base cloth. The images are ‘pixelated’ so it makes sense that there is a free tool for cross-stitchers to make a pixelated chart of any image.

Even if you are not a cross-stitcher, this is a cool tool. In fact, it was a quilter in my class last week who shared the site with me (thank you, Lucy!). She is making a quilted portrait of her granddaughter from little squares of fabric that she is coloring with the help of the chart she made on My Photo Stitch.

Here’s how it works: Go to myphotostitch.com and click the try it free button. I used the VW Bug image from last week’s blog post…

VWBug-SurfBoard-2

Myphotostitch.com generated the following pattern and thread chart.

Screen Shot 2014-06-20 at 1.27.03 PM

This is one of the pages with 1/4 of the chart, showing where each color goes.

Screen Shot 2014-06-20 at 1.29.48 PM

It’s always nice to find another tool for the toolbox :-).

 

 

My favorite funnies…

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I love the funnies, so much so that I subscribe to two different comics services so that my favorites are emailed to me daily. Of the comics I subscribe to, Pearls Before Swine tops my list of morning must-reads. Back in the day, Calvin and Hobbes was in that spot.

If you love either, or both, of these comics, click on the link below to learn how these two comic artists, Stephan Pastis and Bill Watterson, came together in 3 special comic strips a few days ago.

Ever Wished That Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Would Return to the Comics Page? Well, He Just Did.

Side note: I cut the comic, below, from the paper, laminated it, and stuck magnets on the back more than 20 years ago… it has been on our refrigerator(s) ever since. Time does indeed fly by.

CandH_ImSignificant

Too many choices…

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I spent much of Sunday piecing and listening to TED talks. This one, given by Barry Schwartz, was particularly interesting to me. I hope you enjoy it, too.

We believe that more choices are always better when, in fact, that is not always the case. To bring that idea home to quilters, here’s a thought: Have you ever felt over-whelmed when you are trying to choose fabric for a quilt? If your stash is over-flowing and you have visited every quilt shop in your area, it’s probably not that you just haven’t found the perfect fabric—it’s that you can’t decide which of the hundreds of great choices is best for you. In this case, it is helpful to limit your choices so that you can begin to make decisions.