I received an e-mail today to subscribe to QH. Since I hadn’t gotten around to sending in the card, I clicked on the link and in 2 minutes, I was done. I am behind an issue now, so I still have to go and find that one, but am glad that I won’t have to hunt around for hilarious quilt reading material after this.
And while you are at it, read the Washington Post article. If the Post asks you to register, get a slightly used login from BugMeNot.
Linda Cline, a very prolific and talented quiltmaker has started her own blog, Linda’s Art Journal. Although she only has a few posts up, I was immediately struck by her comments on sketchbooks/visual journaling in her first post.
Linda plans to use her blog as her visual journal, which is an interesting idea. Obviously, I do that, but I don’t think it is the same as a visual journal in which I use colored pencils, markers, crayons, etc to convey and idea or get an idea out of my head. I feel, for myself, that the screen and the keyboard are a kind of barrier. Not a complete barrier, because, obviously, here I am writing away. Still, I do find them to be a partial barrier. In order to post something, I have to use the keyboard to write it, modify (crop, shrink) photos in a piece of software and then upload everything so you can see it.
I enjoy putting pen/pencil/crayon etc to paper. I enjoy the feel of the implement gliding or sliding or rubbing over the paper. I enjoy the feeling of the paper on my hand.
I think there is a place for both in my fiber and visual work. I look forward to exploring more on this topic with you. I think there is value in exploring creativity via different media.
Welcome to the Blogosphere adventures, Linda!
I didn’t get to spend the entire day on Friday on the Pineapples as I would have liked, but I got to spend some time on them and make some progress.
First, I needed to figure out the corner problem.
For Pineapple corners, you need to cut a square in half. The book assumes you have pieced perfectly and tells you to cut squares which are 1.75″ wide and use them to make the block and the squares that go on the corner. Because I was actually using fabric, which stretches and has fabric qualities, 1.75″ didn’t work for me. Below are the sizes I tried.
2″ works on some, but not all. I don’t want to rip the ones out that are too small and I can’t tell until I have sewed them, so 2″ squares (cut in half to form a triangle) are out.
3″: a little too big. I don’t need that much extra overlap.
2.5″ : still too big. I still don’t need that much extra for trimming.
2.25″ : looks too big, but once you sew it on it isn’t.
Here is the triangle cut from the 2″ square laid on top of the triangle cut from the 2.25″ square. It gave me a visual clue of the difference in size.
With the 2.25″ squares (cut into triangles), they work. They have enough play so I can trim them and make the blocks look beautiful. I was pretty excited about REALLY finishing the blocks and putting the quilt together until…
I put four blocks together. Sigh.
As you can see above, the border blocks fit pretty well together, but the center blocks (well, at least the one I finished with corners) are much too small, which means that they don’t work with the border blocks.
What does this mean?
How did this happen?
I used the same strips, the same sewing machine.
The only difference was the iron.
I am exceptionally down about this and truly ready to put this quilt away and start something new. That is exactly what I didn’t want to do. For once, I wanted to work on a quilt from start to finish.
I will add a few more corners to other center blocks and see if they are all too small, then I will decide what to do.
I bought this fabric sometime in the past, but can’t figure out when or where. I thought it was at PIQF 2006, but it appears in Thoughts on Dots before that, so it had to be some earlier. I looked all through the first half of 2006 and PIQF 2005 to no avail. I gave up. It didn’t matter anyway.
There is a point, in case you thought I wasn’t getting to it, and the point is that when I bought this, I was with TFQ and we only bought a quarter yard, then we split it, which left me with an eighth of a yard. I never know what fabrics will spark my interest, but something about this one did as I used it for Thoughts on Dots and now on the Pineapple. When I was close to cutting the last strip off for the Pineapple, I began to think I needed more of it. I looked everywhere – online, in shops, at shows. No luck. The more I didn’t find it the more desperate I became. This one fabric took on a holy grail sort of mindset for me.
I did anyway.
TFQ sent me her eighth yard earlier this week, thus the gorgeous picture at the top of the screen and it put the bug for this fabric back in my ear. Wednesday night, in between preparing the feast, I went online and mindlessly put “timeless treasures” basix blue dots into a search engine and was rewarded with an eBay store, Elisabeth’s Barn Shoppe, that had 13 half yards of the fabric (why she counts half yards as one, I don’t know). I couldn’t believe my luck! I bought a yard. I wondered if I should buy more or buy it all, but I bought just a yard.
One quest complete. Unless I decide to buy more.
There seems to be a lot of confusion around come of my recent posts where I have used Clipmarks. Clipmarks is a social networking tool for posting and providing attributes to non-AQ websites and blog posts I use in my blog. Each Clipmark post has an address bar at the top giving you the original URL or link to a blog post, so you can go back and read the whole thing. It is good to use the links to go back and read the original post as I often don’t convey the original meaning of the author’s post, but put my own personal spin on it.
I use Clipmarks when I see a fantastic image that provides inspiration or someone has posted something particularly interesting that I don’t feel like rewriting or reviewing. I was turned on to it by a subscription newsletter called Neat Net Tricks. Check it out!
Which brings me to the title of my post. The picture of the lady in the post from yesterday is NOT me. She is from Apple Blossom Quilts. See the cartoon to your right? That is me. 
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Here are the last four blocks for the Pineapple. It took some time to get these done. I started out normally, but when I got to the last few rounds, I paid special attention to the fabrics I was choosing, so they would be perfect. Perfect is, of course, relative, because of the fabrics they will be placed near, but I just wanted to put some of the dots that I really liked in the last blocks.
I counted several times to make sure that these were the last four blocks and that I had counted correctly initially to make sure I had calculated the number I needed properly, but I fully expect that will have to make more.
As I said, Finished is Relative. Now I am on to adding corners to the blocks. I need to do that so there aren’t big holes in the quilt. I suppose that would be a look, though.
I started out with 2″ squares and cut them in half. They work on some corners, but are too small for others. I want enough extra so I can trim the corners, if I need to do so. I will try 2.5″ or 3″ squares next. I cut a bunch and don’t think I will be able to use these.
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