Breathe In, Breathe Out

Yesterday was a weird-ass kind of day. Mid-February, and the first snow of the season (when November is more usual). The kind of day when I am told by a 70-something year-old woman that she had eaten a McDonald’s Happy Meal (presumably for the first time in her life) and it was dee-LISH-ous! Have you ever tried one? The kind of day that goes from the uphill battle of explaining that a pile of documents rubber-banded together go to the tax preparer via a trust officer (she described the experience of reading a 1099 that arrived in the mail as “mind-blowing,” yet oddly failed to understand that the 1099 needed to go to the tax preparer, too) to where a bank deposit becomes a battle of wills with a bank employee who was poorly trained and has the darnedest time conceding that she might not understand banking regulations as well as she thinks and should call a supervisor (the call was ultimately placed, and to her dismay, I was right - duh) The kind of day when during the long drive home I become acutely aware of a mounting tension (understandable) in the neck and head muscles, which will likely end in a pounder of a headache, and want nothing more than to end the day with the simplicity of Advil, Irish coffee, and a crackling fire.

So for a break from that, first a video about Mickey, the Firefighting Cat:



My favorite part is when Mickey slides down the pole.

After that refreshing drink of water, on to quilting fun.

I am a 100% self-taught quilter. I tend to prefer modern quilts over traditional, but as with painting, even abstract modern painters should have a good foundation in the basics of the discipline. And so I found myself signing up for an online quilting class earlier this year. That’s a BOM, or Block of the Month, class, for the initiated.

January’s quilt blocks covered two methods and techniques for inserting linear accent fabric across a quilt block. February’s lesson demonstrated two ways to cut and sew triangular patterns.

Block one: the Balkan Puzzle Block, using the magic triangle method:



Using this method, much of the sewing is on the bias, which leads to stretching and possible frustration. You may notice the reddish fabric panels. Those are from my stash. I bought what I considered to be one of the most hideous fabrics ever because I wanted to practice embroidery duplicating the gold/green design in the pattern - and it was on sale. Funny that it turned out to be such a perfect choice for this block.

Block two: the Chunky Chevron Block, using the drawn line method:



The king-sized winter (2012-13) quilt is still coming along slowly but surely. While that project is the opposite of portable, I’ve nominated hand-quilting its matching shams to be the project of choice for the upcoming hospital waiting room season.