Not sure it's very "plain"...

This is turning out much louder than I intended. As a result, it's growing on me.


I'm finding I'm not as happy with the way the larger blocks of dark coral stand out, so I'm going to pull some of them -- it really works better in the narrower strips. But I like the darker yellow ones, so I'm definitely adding more of those.

I initially made a matrix in Excel to prevent myself from creating duplicate color combinations (what can I say, I'm a geek); of course, as I get into the actual layout, it's getting thrown out the window.

They warned about proportion in the book, but did I listen? No. But they also indicated that the queen size of this quilt called for 280 5" x 7" finished blocks, laid out 20 x 14 for a finished quilt of 85" x 97" -- and I can't for the life of me make that math work out. I'm doing mine a little smaller at 18 x 13, so I have extra blocks to work with and trade out.

I'm still trying to get the balance right, taking my glasses off and looking for dark spots or too much blue (this same technique works for distributing lights on the Christmas tree evenly -- two rare times being nearsighted has its advantages), then going back to the stacks of remaining blocks to find replacements. Then repeat ad infinitum.

I think I could rearrange blocks on this for the next week and still not be satisfied.

Simple enunciation to some...

Plain Spoken to others.

Ever since I found this beautiful cattail print a couple of years ago (Field Study by Free Spirit), I've been collecting solids with the intent of making a Plain Spoken quilt from here, using the print for backing.

As they say in the book, the key is getting the colors right and in balance, and I'm almost there. Most of them are pretty close in color to the print; this week I found a couple additional blues and buttery yellows and a beautiful dark teal at the local quilt shop to give it a little more variety and not have the corals pop quite as much. I'm a little out of my element given this isn't my typical color palette, but I'm all washed, ironed, and ready to cut.

It will be an anniversary gift, so I'm hoping a looming deadline will keep me on track. Maybe.

Rant follow-up...

Last night before I went to bed I was still annoyed about this thing -- so, packaging warnings be damned, I took an Xacto blade to it and made a hole in the back big enough to put the crevice tool of my vacuum into...and sucked all the hair right out. Voila -- problem solved! It didn't keep me from sending them an irate e-mail, but I'm slightly less annoyed today.

Yes, it's a really good product, but I still think it's stupid and irresponsible of them to create yet another needlessly disposable product for the sake of repeat sales.

Only in America, Land of Everything That Can Be Thrown Away.

Zheesh.

Warning: my first rant

I don't feel the need to get on my soap box very often (in fact, I don't even have a soap box -- I had to borrow this one from my neighbor), but every once in a while something comes along that defies my logic and makes me crazy. And authoring a blog (albeit one that's supposed to be about quilting) means I can complain to the world instead of just pacing around my house qvetching at the cat. So today, it's this:

Photo courtesty of pledge.com

I saw a commercial recently for this handy-dandy Fabric Sweeper from Pledge. It's shedding season, and everything in my house is covered with a thin, orange and white layer of Archie's winter coat; the timing of this new product release made it seem like a gift from Housekeeping Heaven. So I got my little self to Wal-Mart and picked one up. At $4.62, it's an OK price, but I figured if one little tool could do the job of my washable lint roller/rubber glove/vacuum combo method, it was well worth it (I found out later there's a $2 off coupon offered on the website).

And you know what? It works great! It has these two parallel half-rollers that, using a back-and-forth motion, wick the hair up into the clear plastic reservoir to rid your upholstery from pet hair (and threads!). They proclaim on its packaging that it's "quick & easy," and it is!

But here's where the wonderfullness stops. Because the clear plastic reservoir? Doesn't. Open. Which makes this handy-dandy Fabric Sweeper a non-biodegradeable, landfill-contributing, $4.62 one-hit wonder that's going to last about a day and a half. It's "disposable." When you've filled the thing up in three sweeps around your family room, I guess you're supposed to go out and buy another one?

It even comes with a warning: "Do not try to empty or disassemble disposable sweeper." Apparently SC Johnson thinks our environment could benefit from the addition of an organic substance like cat hair permanently encased in impenetrable polypropylene; they don't even suggest you recycle it -- you're instructed to "Simply throw the sweeper away when it is full."

My question is this: would it have killed them to make it so you could empty it out? Or did they think it was so great that people would buy it again and again instead of feeling suckered, like I did? Did they really think that something like this needed to be disposable? And didn't anybody in their myriad of focus groups ever say "Lemme get this straight: I can only use it ONCE? How stupid is that?"

If I could use this thing over and over, I'd be singing its praises to the blogosphere and recommending it left and right instead of ranting about how wasteful and expensive (yes, even with a $2 off coupon) and un-green it is. I guess if you've got money to "simply throw away" and don't give a crap about the environment, go buy yourself a case of these things. I'm going back to the old way.

OK, I'm done. My neighbor wants her soap box back, anyway.

I'd return it free of cat hair, but my Fabric Sweeper's already full.

Forgive me...

I've been a bad blogger. But I've been a little busy.

I arrived at the beach last week to open up the house for the season. It's a tiny cottage, but there's a lot to take care of each year, so sadly there's been very little sewing going on.

There's been a lot of this...

...probably more than I would have liked. I spent four hours shoveling sand from the driveway the day I arrived, and I couldn't move my arms for two days. Which was OK, because that's when the rain and winds arrived, forcing me back inside to do things like laundry, washing floors and vacuuming, which still hurt but didn't demand quite as much from my muscles. Thank God for ibuprofen!

The cold came with the rain as well, resulting in a lot of this...

Note that I brought several unfinished projects along with me, but six days later I have yet to get to them. Oh well.

Yesterday, though still chilly, was the first clear day we've had since last Tuesday, so it was nice to finally get out with my camera and take some pictures. It's always good to see this place shake off the Midwest winter and gear up for another beach season.

And then there are always the sunsets. Now that the weather's cleared, we're getting more of these, which are always spectacular:

Back to crafting soon, I promise!

Time out for Mother's Day gifts...

OK, so I waited to do these until the last minute, and now I'm going to have to ship them overnight. But Mom's worth it!

Raggedy rag...

I have wanted to make a rag quilt with some leftover homespuns for a while now -- it's been on my mental checklist of projects since I bought a bunch of them during a homespun frenzy last summer. And ever since AmandaJean put up her tutorial for a Ragged Squares quilt back in October, I've been wanting to make one of those, too. They have a great comfy look to them, and appear as if they would go rather quickly.

And I'm all about fast these days: "get 'em done and get 'em out of the house" is my new mantra.

When I came across the bundles of fat quarters at the end of March, a thought hit me: what if, in the process of sewing down the squares for the ragged edge quilt, you were quilting the squares at the same time? Quilting as you go and killing two birds with one stone, so to speak?

The beginnings of yet another Kate experiment: a Ragged Edge Rag quilt

I do not know if this is a good idea, or if it can even be done well. I do not know if the quilting will hold or if it will fall to pieces the first time I wash it. It's probably not anything new, but I have nothing to go by, because I've never seen it done before (maybe I just don't read enough blogs!).

What I do know is that with this stretchy, twisty fabric you cannot do this very well if you can't lighten the pressure on your walking foot (the Singer squished and distorted things into shapes very unsquare, and I ended up doing a lot of un-sewing). I had everything cut and ready to go, but had to wait until Bernina was back in the house to continue.

In spite of these unknowns, I have begun to forge ahead, making sandwiches of homespuns and batting and stitching them together to realize my vision, foggy though it may be.

I'll keep you posted.

A celebration is in order...

I finally got my Bernina back from service! There is much joy in Chicago this weekend! And there's going to be much sewing, too!