I got too many regrets
I've smoked too many cigarettes
I've had more blondes than brunettes
I'm not expecting your sympathy
But it's all been too much for me...
-Monsoon, Robbie Williams.
Okay, so technically, the lyrics aren't quite accurate. But if I had to pick a song to fit my mood, it's be this one.
The "Do you ever feel, already buried deep, six feet under screams but no-one seems to hear a thing" line from Katy Perry's Firework is kinda accurate too.
Because lately, regularly*, I've been feeling like it's all too much. That it's won, I've lost, and now I'm stuck. It's all become too much for me.
At what point should one consider faking ones own death to escape the clutches of a dozen half-done projects, a trail of sketches for dozens more, and a fabric stash that I'm constantly worried will smother me in my sleep?
I am in too deep. My plans stretch too far forward and I will never be able to catch up, never be able to make all the projects I have thought about, done the maths for, bought fabric for. I have too much fabric, and I'm buying it twice as fast as I'm using it - three times, four times as fast. I suppose this is what if feels like to be caught up in a big lie and realising you can no longer talk your way out of it.
Hell, I was never even gunna be a quilter. I was gunna move to Adelaide, do a fashion design course, and then maybe become a buyer for one of the chain stores, or open a little bridal boutique, depending on how I was feeling about traveling. Never did "Amass over 100 fat quarters" show up on my list of life goals. I don't want "Finish your fourteen half done projects" on my to do list. And while I genuinely am the happy, optimistic person, full of wonder and amazement at everything and anything that I claim to be, underlying this is the knowledge that I'm also a big fat faker, and sometimes that bubbles to the top of my personality, and I wonder how the hell I got myself caught up so deep in all this.
I suppose I feel like I'm somehow indebted to all my half done projects, that I only got partway through creating them and what kind of mother would I be if I left them to waste away their days unfinished and unused? That I promised those fabrics something when I pressed the "proceed to checkout" button, and now they're languishing unloved in a box. That if I don't make all the quilts I can see in my head, they will never get made. But every new quilt I think up, every bit more fabric I buy makes it worse, and once the "hooray, new fabric" feeling has worn off, I remember that this has made me even further behind.
My plan to finish at least half of my part done quilts was probably the best compromise between getting at least some of them done and not driving myself bonkers by banning myself from creating new things. For that reason, I wouldn't ever ban myself from buying fabric, not least because a lot of plans I've made already still have little holes in them that need to be filled, and denying myself the option of filling them, or forcing myself to fill them with something I'm not satisfied with would probably make it worse.
But I feel guilty when I'm not getting on with something. I took a break from the big projects last night and pieced myself a couple of little pillows from the charm squares Shay gave me, and even though I needed it to escape from the pressure of the five big projects I'm actively working on, I still felt guilty about it, and tonight to make up for it I told myself I would quilt two of the basted quilts I had lying about. They're pretty much done, almost, and I probably will get them finished before I go to bed, but somedays I kinda feel like chucking it all in, running away from what I've spent so long amassing, because I worry that I'm not realising it's potential, that someone could do a better job of it than me, that I'm just faking it all and pretty soon you're all gunna realise.
BUT...
I'm not a mind reader, but I'm fairly sure we all feel this way about something or another. That we're all just pretending to know what we're doing. And what I've decided is, that's okay. If we're all pretending, and we all know we're pretending, it's a little white lie that's necessary to allow society to function, no different to the lie that a little bit of plastic or paper is worth as much as a trolley full of food. It only is because we all agree it is, and that's okay.
I've decided it's the ones who actually believe all these lies they tell themselves that you have to watch out for. And that I'm gunna get over my worries now, and go and get on with life.
I've got some quilting to do.
*when I say regularly, I mean for at least one minute every day. Regularly doesn't have to mean often. Hayley's comet comes around regularly too. I wish my self doubt only came by once every 72 years.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Compliments.
I have a question for everyone: When was the last time you complimented someone. Not in a bloggy sense, or a "yes dear, that looks nice" kinda way, but a random compliment to a random stranger.
I don't do it enough. A few years ago I put it as one of my new year's resolutions but it never really got anywhere. It's quite a difficult judgement call - will this person take it as the genuine compliment that it is, or will they think I'm being insincere?
I try to be quite random in my compliments. I shy away from personal stuff - no mention of how people are looking from me. But last week I complimented a lady on her signature - it was a very busy day at work and I told her that she had done one of the best matches to the back of a credit card I had seen in a long time. To which she replied that that was the best compliment she had recieved in ages, and that it would stay with her all day.
Was it a really good compliment? I don't think so... I certainly didn't debate on saying it for a second. I saw the two signatures, saw they were pretty much identical (they are often so different as to be completely unrecognisable) and congratulated her on that fact. But this spontaneity made it genuine, and I'm glad it made her happy.
I'm going to try to do more random, genuine compliments. I spend most of my time thinking nice stuff* and I think maybe if I share it, other people will be thinking nice stuff too.
And now, another round of random good things.
I like mini projects. Something I can complete in a night to distract me from the fact that I have four basted sandwiches that need quilting.
I like going back to the expensive chocolate I usually eat after a week eating random easter stuff.
I like going into a fabric shop with a definite list and not buying too much on top of it.
I like little blue cards in the post office box to say I have a parcel to collect.
I like getting out half my fabric stash and seeing where the new stuff fits in.
I like patches of blue in a cloudy sky.
I like roast chicken sandwiches.
I like fresh cans of coke.
I like crusty bread.
I like being bi-measuremental, when I have to be.
I like reruns of old TV shows on the digital channels.
I like how fast my iron heats up.
I like the sizzley sound it makes when I iron fabric I've just sprayed with my water bottle.
*Though recently I've spent a lot of time trying to define the difference between different brands of cola. That's been really hard, and I'm not too far off of giving up. Currently I'm at something like "Coke is good, Pepsi is okay but only if you're having KFC, and everything else is a waste of my valuable tastebuds".
I don't do it enough. A few years ago I put it as one of my new year's resolutions but it never really got anywhere. It's quite a difficult judgement call - will this person take it as the genuine compliment that it is, or will they think I'm being insincere?
I try to be quite random in my compliments. I shy away from personal stuff - no mention of how people are looking from me. But last week I complimented a lady on her signature - it was a very busy day at work and I told her that she had done one of the best matches to the back of a credit card I had seen in a long time. To which she replied that that was the best compliment she had recieved in ages, and that it would stay with her all day.
Was it a really good compliment? I don't think so... I certainly didn't debate on saying it for a second. I saw the two signatures, saw they were pretty much identical (they are often so different as to be completely unrecognisable) and congratulated her on that fact. But this spontaneity made it genuine, and I'm glad it made her happy.
I'm going to try to do more random, genuine compliments. I spend most of my time thinking nice stuff* and I think maybe if I share it, other people will be thinking nice stuff too.
And now, another round of random good things.
I like mini projects. Something I can complete in a night to distract me from the fact that I have four basted sandwiches that need quilting.
I like going back to the expensive chocolate I usually eat after a week eating random easter stuff.
I like going into a fabric shop with a definite list and not buying too much on top of it.
I like little blue cards in the post office box to say I have a parcel to collect.
I like getting out half my fabric stash and seeing where the new stuff fits in.
I like patches of blue in a cloudy sky.
I like roast chicken sandwiches.
I like fresh cans of coke.
I like crusty bread.
I like being bi-measuremental, when I have to be.
I like reruns of old TV shows on the digital channels.
I like how fast my iron heats up.
I like the sizzley sound it makes when I iron fabric I've just sprayed with my water bottle.
*Though recently I've spent a lot of time trying to define the difference between different brands of cola. That's been really hard, and I'm not too far off of giving up. Currently I'm at something like "Coke is good, Pepsi is okay but only if you're having KFC, and everything else is a waste of my valuable tastebuds".
A very chill take on the whole dumbing down thing.
I have yet to see a quilt design done in straight lines that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to do on my lonesome. Come up with it; maybe not, but reproduce?
It's all just math. It's measurements, and angles, and thinking about how all the little bits will fit inside the big bit. To me, it is as easy as breathing (by which I mean 80% of the year I'm fine, and the rest of the time I need some drugs to help me do it) but I get that this isn't the case for everyone. Some people feel the same way about something like cooking or gardening instead and those are two things I really, really can not do.
The thing is, I'm very good at seeing the angles. There was a line in Ocean's 12 where George Clooney is talking about how he went to the bank to discuss normal person things, but couldn't help seeing the angles, where the cameras were pointing, where the entrances and exits were. I'm like that. I like knowing where I can scratch my butt at work without security recording it. I like knowing what one little bit of wire I'd have to bend to open up the security cage at work. And, for the most part, I like being able to see, and work out for myself, the angles in other people's quilts. Usually just as a theoretical exercise, to prove to myself I can do it. And afterwards, sometimes I wonder to myself why people pay money for quilt patterns. In the same way I guess that George Clooney wonders why people have real jobs when they can spend their time hanging with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon and breaking into casinos.
But here's the thing. I think modern quilting is much less about the design. And much more about what you do with it.
Yes, there are now a million bajillion quilts out there that are technically just squares of fabric sewn together. And conceptually, the instructions "get some fabric, cut it into squares, mix'em all up and sew it back together" could result in some hideous, or at the very least, quite dull, quilts. But, usually, it doesn't. There's plenty of really really beautiful quilts out there made just on these instructions. My first quilt was, and like it or not, a lot of you probably first came to this blog after seeing it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, which, when you have a look back through it, features lots and lots of really really beautiful quilts made with the instructions "get lots of little squares of fabric, and sew them together"
The difference then, is one of personalisation. Modern quilts don't have to be about the precision of the points or the intricacy of the design. They can be more about the quilter, what fabrics they like, what they want to put with what, what they want to point focus to and what they want to use to hold it all together.
All of the strict precision and skill comparison has been relegated to second place behind the expression within the choices of the design. These days, the beauty in a quilt is easier to find. We look at it. We can look at it in itty bitty thumbnail form, a hundred times too small to see that it has points, let alone whether or not they match up, and we can say to ourselves, "That is beautiful. That is a work of art. That makes my eyes happy, and it makes my heart happy" Then we can click on that little thumbnail. We can look at it close up, and appreciate the accuracy of the points, the way the quilting enhances the piecing. But we don't need to - if the point's don't match, or the quilting's a wee bit shoddy, that's no biggie.
We are looking at quilts half a world away, far too far to see the points, even if there's a high definition photo there to click on. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to dislike a quilt once I see some skew-whif points, or a little puckering in the quilting, not if I thought it was gorgeous before I noticed it's faults. My eyes have liked what they have seen, the blogger has told the story to warm my heart (if the story of someone creating something beautiful doesn't warm your metaphorical heart, I don't think you really "get" creating) and I have made up my mind. A quilt, no matter how simple the structure, says something about it's maker. It shows a vision. It is a window into it's creator's mind.
The most truly beautiful thing about modern quilting is that we are saying to ourselves "That is beautiful." We are not saying to ourselves something emotionless like "that is technically very impressive" - we care more about the beauty of creativity, about expressing ourselves in a way that is different, that is unique to us, in spite of any underlying similarities.
The lack of rules behind it means the world will never run out of interesting, evocative versions of the simple squares quilt. What the world needs though, is to stop seeing this as a bad thing. The same blank, commonplace A4 page that could potentially have been used to print boring documents could also have been used by a small child, awakening their creativity with a stick-person drawing of them and their dog. Would you tell them that it is not beautiful? That it indicative or their inexperience, that until they get the hang of something like perspective, they shouldn't be expecting any praise for their work.
A quilt of squares could be a starting point. An easy entrance to the world of quilting. Or, it could be a way to express yourself through your love of colours and fabrics, where the design is less important than how it all comes together. It can be a lot more fun than a carefully thought out piece, it can be a spontaneous celebration of your fabric stash,* that's carefree and influenced by nothing more than what you have and where your mood is taking you. It doesn't need much thought, and it can happen a lot more naturally, change more readily to impulses, than a design where every piece has it's place.
Yes, there is a place for intricately pieced, traditional quilting, and in much the same way that the trends of haute couture show up eventually in the local Kmart or Target (albeit in a much more practical fashion), so too in their way do clever little design bits and bobs from traditional, more complicated quilts find their way into the modern quilter's lexicon.
But I like my jeans and my checked shirts, okay? I like being different while being exactly the same**. It may be safe. It may at times be a wee bit boring. But it's very very me.
*That phrase best sums up how I feel about my first quilt.
** I find it amazing the number of middle class women now who are covered in tattoos and have odd piercings. Sometimes if feels like all I have to do is wait, and eventually they will all be covered in so much indistinguishable ink, that I will be the unique, interesting one because I'm completely bare. It's unrelated, but it's something I think about a fair bit. Similarly, sometimes I think I'm the only normal one and the rest of the world's gone crazy, but I may be wrong about this too. It's probably quite a common misconception.
It's all just math. It's measurements, and angles, and thinking about how all the little bits will fit inside the big bit. To me, it is as easy as breathing (by which I mean 80% of the year I'm fine, and the rest of the time I need some drugs to help me do it) but I get that this isn't the case for everyone. Some people feel the same way about something like cooking or gardening instead and those are two things I really, really can not do.
The thing is, I'm very good at seeing the angles. There was a line in Ocean's 12 where George Clooney is talking about how he went to the bank to discuss normal person things, but couldn't help seeing the angles, where the cameras were pointing, where the entrances and exits were. I'm like that. I like knowing where I can scratch my butt at work without security recording it. I like knowing what one little bit of wire I'd have to bend to open up the security cage at work. And, for the most part, I like being able to see, and work out for myself, the angles in other people's quilts. Usually just as a theoretical exercise, to prove to myself I can do it. And afterwards, sometimes I wonder to myself why people pay money for quilt patterns. In the same way I guess that George Clooney wonders why people have real jobs when they can spend their time hanging with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon and breaking into casinos.
But here's the thing. I think modern quilting is much less about the design. And much more about what you do with it.
Yes, there are now a million bajillion quilts out there that are technically just squares of fabric sewn together. And conceptually, the instructions "get some fabric, cut it into squares, mix'em all up and sew it back together" could result in some hideous, or at the very least, quite dull, quilts. But, usually, it doesn't. There's plenty of really really beautiful quilts out there made just on these instructions. My first quilt was, and like it or not, a lot of you probably first came to this blog after seeing it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, which, when you have a look back through it, features lots and lots of really really beautiful quilts made with the instructions "get lots of little squares of fabric, and sew them together"
The difference then, is one of personalisation. Modern quilts don't have to be about the precision of the points or the intricacy of the design. They can be more about the quilter, what fabrics they like, what they want to put with what, what they want to point focus to and what they want to use to hold it all together.
All of the strict precision and skill comparison has been relegated to second place behind the expression within the choices of the design. These days, the beauty in a quilt is easier to find. We look at it. We can look at it in itty bitty thumbnail form, a hundred times too small to see that it has points, let alone whether or not they match up, and we can say to ourselves, "That is beautiful. That is a work of art. That makes my eyes happy, and it makes my heart happy" Then we can click on that little thumbnail. We can look at it close up, and appreciate the accuracy of the points, the way the quilting enhances the piecing. But we don't need to - if the point's don't match, or the quilting's a wee bit shoddy, that's no biggie.
We are looking at quilts half a world away, far too far to see the points, even if there's a high definition photo there to click on. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to dislike a quilt once I see some skew-whif points, or a little puckering in the quilting, not if I thought it was gorgeous before I noticed it's faults. My eyes have liked what they have seen, the blogger has told the story to warm my heart (if the story of someone creating something beautiful doesn't warm your metaphorical heart, I don't think you really "get" creating) and I have made up my mind. A quilt, no matter how simple the structure, says something about it's maker. It shows a vision. It is a window into it's creator's mind.
The most truly beautiful thing about modern quilting is that we are saying to ourselves "That is beautiful." We are not saying to ourselves something emotionless like "that is technically very impressive" - we care more about the beauty of creativity, about expressing ourselves in a way that is different, that is unique to us, in spite of any underlying similarities.
The lack of rules behind it means the world will never run out of interesting, evocative versions of the simple squares quilt. What the world needs though, is to stop seeing this as a bad thing. The same blank, commonplace A4 page that could potentially have been used to print boring documents could also have been used by a small child, awakening their creativity with a stick-person drawing of them and their dog. Would you tell them that it is not beautiful? That it indicative or their inexperience, that until they get the hang of something like perspective, they shouldn't be expecting any praise for their work.
A quilt of squares could be a starting point. An easy entrance to the world of quilting. Or, it could be a way to express yourself through your love of colours and fabrics, where the design is less important than how it all comes together. It can be a lot more fun than a carefully thought out piece, it can be a spontaneous celebration of your fabric stash,* that's carefree and influenced by nothing more than what you have and where your mood is taking you. It doesn't need much thought, and it can happen a lot more naturally, change more readily to impulses, than a design where every piece has it's place.
Yes, there is a place for intricately pieced, traditional quilting, and in much the same way that the trends of haute couture show up eventually in the local Kmart or Target (albeit in a much more practical fashion), so too in their way do clever little design bits and bobs from traditional, more complicated quilts find their way into the modern quilter's lexicon.
But I like my jeans and my checked shirts, okay? I like being different while being exactly the same**. It may be safe. It may at times be a wee bit boring. But it's very very me.
*That phrase best sums up how I feel about my first quilt.
** I find it amazing the number of middle class women now who are covered in tattoos and have odd piercings. Sometimes if feels like all I have to do is wait, and eventually they will all be covered in so much indistinguishable ink, that I will be the unique, interesting one because I'm completely bare. It's unrelated, but it's something I think about a fair bit. Similarly, sometimes I think I'm the only normal one and the rest of the world's gone crazy, but I may be wrong about this too. It's probably quite a common misconception.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Friend. Like. Buy it Now.
An outsider looking in might get the impression that I wasted tonight.
That outsider would be so very, very wrong.
Because that outsider doesn't understand how brilliant free upload week is on the vistaprint website. Or how tempting it is to take them up on their offer of free postage when I spend $60 or more, since I normally pay about $40 in postage anyway. I'm ordering a keyring, and three big magnets to chop up and stick on my car, and 5 mugs, and a window sticker, and 1000 business cards, and a stamp, and a graph paper notepad so I can design quilts on it, and a t-shirt. And since all this has come to $61, my postage is free.
That outsider really has a lot to learn on how important it is that I find new and interesting ways to waste my money.
That outsider also needs to realise how important it is that he or she click on this link, and like this page. If the outsider didn't have a facebook account, I would tell them to get one so that they could like this page. And maybe to make some fake profiles to like this page.
What the hell, now that the outsider's on facebook, they can friend me as well. Sara Hosking.
Welcome in, outsider.
That outsider would be so very, very wrong.
Because that outsider doesn't understand how brilliant free upload week is on the vistaprint website. Or how tempting it is to take them up on their offer of free postage when I spend $60 or more, since I normally pay about $40 in postage anyway. I'm ordering a keyring, and three big magnets to chop up and stick on my car, and 5 mugs, and a window sticker, and 1000 business cards, and a stamp, and a graph paper notepad so I can design quilts on it, and a t-shirt. And since all this has come to $61, my postage is free.
That outsider really has a lot to learn on how important it is that I find new and interesting ways to waste my money.
That outsider also needs to realise how important it is that he or she click on this link, and like this page. If the outsider didn't have a facebook account, I would tell them to get one so that they could like this page. And maybe to make some fake profiles to like this page.
What the hell, now that the outsider's on facebook, they can friend me as well. Sara Hosking.
Welcome in, outsider.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Silver Linings.
Tonight started well (after I had spent an hour or three on eBay and watching The Queen.) I got around to steam ironing my half-star blocks, and I was thinking about doing a bit of sewing, until I stopped for a minute to put movies onto the tablet. And then I hit that point, you know the one, where you don't know if you can be bothered with sewing. But then you think "...but I really should..."
So you do. And it all turns to shit.
Yesterday I finished for the night after doing a bit of straight line quilting, with a stitch length of 4. So today I started piecing... with a stitch length of 4. After about 6 blocks I noticed and put it down to the 2.75 I usually use, but it's okay, because my sewing at the start was so rubbish I needed to unpick and do-over anyway.
So, silver lining there.
Not enough to keep me going though. I'm blaming Kelsey; her Egg Hunt was lovely, but the whole getting up in "the morning" part of it kinda sucked. There's a reason I work nights.
The reason I work, period? To buy stuff like this, which will probably go higher than I want to pay. I really need to stop deciding I really like fabrics that got released a couple of years ago. Instead, I may end up buying this, or possibly this.
Why the sudden interest in Layer cakes? Well, I can make a crazy, lots of different fabric-d version of my star quilt with a layer cake. And these are my favourites.
I've never used precuts (not including fat quarters, obviously) before. Could be interesting.
For the full ranges: Arcadia, Hello Betty* and Oh My**.
*Shay wants this one. I can tell.
**I'll probably get this one. It's quite nice - a good mix of brightness and funkyness.
So you do. And it all turns to shit.
Yesterday I finished for the night after doing a bit of straight line quilting, with a stitch length of 4. So today I started piecing... with a stitch length of 4. After about 6 blocks I noticed and put it down to the 2.75 I usually use, but it's okay, because my sewing at the start was so rubbish I needed to unpick and do-over anyway.
So, silver lining there.
Not enough to keep me going though. I'm blaming Kelsey; her Egg Hunt was lovely, but the whole getting up in "the morning" part of it kinda sucked. There's a reason I work nights.
The reason I work, period? To buy stuff like this, which will probably go higher than I want to pay. I really need to stop deciding I really like fabrics that got released a couple of years ago. Instead, I may end up buying this, or possibly this.
Why the sudden interest in Layer cakes? Well, I can make a crazy, lots of different fabric-d version of my star quilt with a layer cake. And these are my favourites.
I've never used precuts (not including fat quarters, obviously) before. Could be interesting.
For the full ranges: Arcadia, Hello Betty* and Oh My**.
*Shay wants this one. I can tell.
**I'll probably get this one. It's quite nice - a good mix of brightness and funkyness.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
I was feeling good about all this...
Is it weird that I'm simultaneously reading the new issue of Fat Quarterly and the Balls in the Bush forums? On the one hand, pretty pictures and precuts, on the other, drunken debauchery and rootin' in the back of the ute...
I suspect it would be weird for anyone else, but that's okay. I like being the only one with a hand made quilt in my swag.
Tonight, after getting the gunnas out of my system with a couple of hours of vintage boot browsing on eBay, I pieced two points of each star block into pairs, and then, when I couldn't be bothered going out to press the seams, I quilted one sixth of the the straight line quilting on the blue, green and purple there never was a nine-patch quilt.
I like to call them that, well, I think of them as that, but in all of my notes to myself I refer to them as no9 patch quilts because that's easier to type. But at no point while doing any of them (there has been four: Kelsey's, The quilt with no name, Helen's and The blue, green and purple one) did I ever actually make a nine-patch block before chopping it up. I made three-patch chains and chopped them, and then made what were technically six-patch blocks which I chopped up, but never a nine patch.
My ruler was too short at the time to cut it. Sad but true.
What else is sad but true is that 1/6th is only 16.5ish%
My achievements don't seem as satisfying anymore. I was gunna do more, but then I got and email duhdonk, and after that I remembered that I'd got the new issue sent to me, and then something or the other reminded me to check the Balls in the Bush website, and now it's been an hour and I suppose I won't be getting any more sewing done tonight.
Still, it's better than nothing.
I suspect it would be weird for anyone else, but that's okay. I like being the only one with a hand made quilt in my swag.
Tonight, after getting the gunnas out of my system with a couple of hours of vintage boot browsing on eBay, I pieced two points of each star block into pairs, and then, when I couldn't be bothered going out to press the seams, I quilted one sixth of the the straight line quilting on the blue, green and purple there never was a nine-patch quilt.
I like to call them that, well, I think of them as that, but in all of my notes to myself I refer to them as no9 patch quilts because that's easier to type. But at no point while doing any of them (there has been four: Kelsey's, The quilt with no name, Helen's and The blue, green and purple one) did I ever actually make a nine-patch block before chopping it up. I made three-patch chains and chopped them, and then made what were technically six-patch blocks which I chopped up, but never a nine patch.
My ruler was too short at the time to cut it. Sad but true.
What else is sad but true is that 1/6th is only 16.5ish%
My achievements don't seem as satisfying anymore. I was gunna do more, but then I got and email duhdonk, and after that I remembered that I'd got the new issue sent to me, and then something or the other reminded me to check the Balls in the Bush website, and now it's been an hour and I suppose I won't be getting any more sewing done tonight.
Still, it's better than nothing.
Monday, April 25, 2011
I am a turtle.
Today, I am feeling like I very much don't care. Not in a bad, apathetic way, but in a "does it even matter?" way. Why can't we be more chill all the time, like turtles?
Nonetheless, I'm very glad I did my ranting, because I consider it to be a much better alternative to seething. And now I can get over it. The internet's a big enough place for all of us. It is technically finite, in that there is a limit to the number of possible IP addresses (actually, we've already run out of those), the number of servers in the world and the amount of harddrive space available, but since the latter two are always increasing and someone's doing stuff about the IP problem, even if there isn't enough space, there'll be more in a minute.
Likewise, it's not like we're fighting over who gets to use the last of the fabric. The economics of supply and demand only apply to the coveted fabrics which the top echelon of modern quilters are paying (wasting?) $20 a fat quarter for, and the rest is balanced out by economics of scale, which say we benefit from lower prices when they can print a million billion miles of each fabric at a lower price per yard than they could if they were printing half as much for one group or the other.
So, moving on. After a night spent being the easter bunny, and a day working the quietest Sunday of the year, and an evening going and being the easter bunny again (Hi Kelsey) I've come home to a tin of baked beans, and the regular do I/don't I quilt debate.
I should finish the star quilt... or quilt one of my four basted quilts. Or even just cut the ten squares of fabric to put in my little stack...
If anyone wants to do a scathing criticism of "gunna" quilters like me, I won't do a nasty reply. I'll probably set up GQA... Gunna Quilters Anonymous...
"Hello, My name is Sara and tonight, instead of quilting, I spent 2 hours watching random videos on youtube" *Everyone politely claps*
"Hello, My name is Zoe and instead of working on one of my eighteen half done quilts, I decided to do the maths for a new quilt" *Everyone mumbles something supportive*
"Hello, My name is Jenna and I had planned on getting some quilting done, but then I got a sale newsletter in my inbox and I went online and bought another 18 yards of unneeded fabric instead" *Everybody demands to know where from, and how much, and if there was much more left*
Okay, so maybe it's not the best idea ever. Though it would be a good way to find out where the internet sales are happening.
Nonetheless, I'm very glad I did my ranting, because I consider it to be a much better alternative to seething. And now I can get over it. The internet's a big enough place for all of us. It is technically finite, in that there is a limit to the number of possible IP addresses (actually, we've already run out of those), the number of servers in the world and the amount of harddrive space available, but since the latter two are always increasing and someone's doing stuff about the IP problem, even if there isn't enough space, there'll be more in a minute.
Likewise, it's not like we're fighting over who gets to use the last of the fabric. The economics of supply and demand only apply to the coveted fabrics which the top echelon of modern quilters are paying (wasting?) $20 a fat quarter for, and the rest is balanced out by economics of scale, which say we benefit from lower prices when they can print a million billion miles of each fabric at a lower price per yard than they could if they were printing half as much for one group or the other.
So, moving on. After a night spent being the easter bunny, and a day working the quietest Sunday of the year, and an evening going and being the easter bunny again (Hi Kelsey) I've come home to a tin of baked beans, and the regular do I/don't I quilt debate.
I should finish the star quilt... or quilt one of my four basted quilts. Or even just cut the ten squares of fabric to put in my little stack...
If anyone wants to do a scathing criticism of "gunna" quilters like me, I won't do a nasty reply. I'll probably set up GQA... Gunna Quilters Anonymous...
"Hello, My name is Sara and tonight, instead of quilting, I spent 2 hours watching random videos on youtube" *Everyone politely claps*
"Hello, My name is Zoe and instead of working on one of my eighteen half done quilts, I decided to do the maths for a new quilt" *Everyone mumbles something supportive*
"Hello, My name is Jenna and I had planned on getting some quilting done, but then I got a sale newsletter in my inbox and I went online and bought another 18 yards of unneeded fabric instead" *Everybody demands to know where from, and how much, and if there was much more left*
Okay, so maybe it's not the best idea ever. Though it would be a good way to find out where the internet sales are happening.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Disrespect, man.
Warning: I'm dissing some fellow bloggers quite hard here. I know we're supposed to be respectful and nice, and coexist Kumbaya style, but you've caught me at a bad time of the month. Nonetheless, you have been warned.
I know this is quite a late entrance to the debate. I know the discussion has been going on for almost a month now, but what the hey. I only read about it today, and I suspect I got more offended than a lot of people. I'm gunna target most of what she said, and be obnoxious and offensive along the way, and I'm doing it for one simple reason. According to this post, I will never be anything more than a beginner because I cant sew a consistent quarter inch seam. Of course I bloody can't - I quilt in metric. In some parts of the world, measurements have moved on. Your way is not the only way. My way is the future*.
I'm talking about the (so called) Dumbing Down of Quilting. Google it. Have a read. There's lots of comments by now, so skim through them too.
Now that you've done that, I'm gunna get mean.
According to some bloggers (one in particular), the existence of modern quilts is creating a generation of quilters with their heads in the sand regarding traditional techniques, leaving them to live a miserable existence bereft of half square triangles, which, because they spend too much time on blogs which are all style and no substance, they think are far too complicated for anyone who can't do anything better than a wonky square in a square (or something like that). Simple modern quilts are the death of skilled craftsmanship, yada yada, we and our precise points and old fashioned quarter inch* seams are up here on our moral high ground while the proletariat are chilling down the hill with their slavish addiction to designer fabrics.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit meaner than I originally planned. I get that that's not what the lady meant, but it's very very easy to hear it that way. And while my love of the centimetre* may cement my place as an eternal beginner, I consider myself to be an expert at unnecessarily rude rebuttals.
The first part of rebutting is to concede a small point, and I'm going to say that I do feel that the obsessions with a particular fabric or designer (Denise Schmidt, Kaffe Fassett, cough cough) that sweep through the modern-quilting blogosphere from time to time can do a lot to curtail originality. That making a quilt using only the fabrics from one range is an easy alternative to having to pick and choose a selection from all the fabrics in all the world. But the thing about a fabric range is, it does go together. It's meant to - all those fabrics compliment one another nicely because they were designed and printed for that very purpose.
But to take it to the extent that she has, decrying modern quilting as a lesser alternative to the traditional variety, and saying that modern quilters are somehow inferior artists because of these foibles, is ridiculous. It's like a meat eater decrying a vegetarian's inability to cook a sausage, like a footballer saying that netball is an inferior game because it's players can't kick the ball... Actually no, what it is, is a soccer player decrying Aussie Rules as easy because the players can use their hands. Because the thing is, it doesn't matter. You are almost comparing oranges and apples. Despite the fact that they are both called football, it's a completely different thing.
Perhaps that's what it is. It's traditional quilters worried that, god forbid, after all that time spent learning how to make two bits of fabric join together in some special way, they're being lumped in with the modern "easy" stuff because the two different styles share a name. Well I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous too, since quilting is actually the process of layering fabric, batting and fabric, and then sewing through all three. Quilting has nothing to do with half square triangles, or blocks, wonky or straight. And it may just be that I'm going to the wrong kinds of blogs (you know, the ones with the pretty photos) but most of the modern quilts I've seen have been quilted by the piecer, while the more traditional quilts seem much more likely to get the professional treatment.
But the thing that made me laugh the most was the suggestion that modern quilting is about making "the same 7 quilts over and over" Well, yes, I've made quite a few of my quilts a second or third time, mainly so I could play with new colours or fabrics, but y'know, I've not yet copied a quilt off of any other blog, or book, or from history. I've never used a pattern I didn't do the maths* for myself. And if anything, aren't traditional quilts just copies of quilts from the last 200 years, made over and over again?
Here's another thing - simplicity is not the same as stupidity. For me, the best part of quilting is finding the most efficient way to get all my pieces from the fabric available. Yes, I posted a pattern for a square in a square quilt. Yes, there's already hundreds of them out there. But the goal of mine when I was coming up with it was to work out the simplest way to fit all the bits I needed into the uncut fabric. A way that uses just 2 yards of fabric to make the top, that can use directional fabrics without issue and has pretty much no waste whatsoever. By considering quilting to be purely a technical exercise, a "how accurate can I get this point" competition, you are missing out on half the fun - the fun of coming up with new and innovative ways to use fabrics that have been bought by thousands of other quilters in a way this is unique to you, the fun of turning a simple design into something that is aesthetically both pleasing and striking.
Modern quilting is more about design than technique, and while more advanced techniques can lead to more complex and potentially interesting designs, complexity does not impart superiority. Nor does simplicity though, it is context which imparts superiority. In the context of your point of view, modern, simpler quilts are getting an undeserved share of adulation. In the context of my point of view, you're acting like a jealous poo head, because the masses have spoken, with their fondness for pretty colours and more efficient methods. Yay for context!
Okay, so calling the opposition a poo head is generally regarded as the end to civilised argument. I think for a minute there I thought I was in a GNW Great Debate - Paul McDermott will probably pop out at any moment and sing a song, and there will be a confetti explosion. Nonetheless, I get that I've taken a post that wasn't meant to cause offence and got really really offended by it.
But when you knock my love of the centimetre, I take it personally.
*The USA is the only major country still using imperial measurements. And while I agree that it can make the math easier, this is only because a .5cm seam (as opposed to the .64cm that is easily stated in imperial as a quarter inch) is cutting it a little too fine to guarantee a secure seam, a problem that could be fixed with better quality fabrics which fray less. As it is, I can calculate fine by adding .75cm to my straight seams and 1cm to anything at a 45° angle, and my points are consistently correct to under 2mm, despite the fact that I press all my seams open. Pretty clever for a dumbed down beginner, no?
I know this is quite a late entrance to the debate. I know the discussion has been going on for almost a month now, but what the hey. I only read about it today, and I suspect I got more offended than a lot of people. I'm gunna target most of what she said, and be obnoxious and offensive along the way, and I'm doing it for one simple reason. According to this post, I will never be anything more than a beginner because I cant sew a consistent quarter inch seam. Of course I bloody can't - I quilt in metric. In some parts of the world, measurements have moved on. Your way is not the only way. My way is the future*.
I'm talking about the (so called) Dumbing Down of Quilting. Google it. Have a read. There's lots of comments by now, so skim through them too.
Now that you've done that, I'm gunna get mean.
According to some bloggers (one in particular), the existence of modern quilts is creating a generation of quilters with their heads in the sand regarding traditional techniques, leaving them to live a miserable existence bereft of half square triangles, which, because they spend too much time on blogs which are all style and no substance, they think are far too complicated for anyone who can't do anything better than a wonky square in a square (or something like that). Simple modern quilts are the death of skilled craftsmanship, yada yada, we and our precise points and old fashioned quarter inch* seams are up here on our moral high ground while the proletariat are chilling down the hill with their slavish addiction to designer fabrics.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit meaner than I originally planned. I get that that's not what the lady meant, but it's very very easy to hear it that way. And while my love of the centimetre* may cement my place as an eternal beginner, I consider myself to be an expert at unnecessarily rude rebuttals.
The first part of rebutting is to concede a small point, and I'm going to say that I do feel that the obsessions with a particular fabric or designer (Denise Schmidt, Kaffe Fassett, cough cough) that sweep through the modern-quilting blogosphere from time to time can do a lot to curtail originality. That making a quilt using only the fabrics from one range is an easy alternative to having to pick and choose a selection from all the fabrics in all the world. But the thing about a fabric range is, it does go together. It's meant to - all those fabrics compliment one another nicely because they were designed and printed for that very purpose.
But to take it to the extent that she has, decrying modern quilting as a lesser alternative to the traditional variety, and saying that modern quilters are somehow inferior artists because of these foibles, is ridiculous. It's like a meat eater decrying a vegetarian's inability to cook a sausage, like a footballer saying that netball is an inferior game because it's players can't kick the ball... Actually no, what it is, is a soccer player decrying Aussie Rules as easy because the players can use their hands. Because the thing is, it doesn't matter. You are almost comparing oranges and apples. Despite the fact that they are both called football, it's a completely different thing.
Perhaps that's what it is. It's traditional quilters worried that, god forbid, after all that time spent learning how to make two bits of fabric join together in some special way, they're being lumped in with the modern "easy" stuff because the two different styles share a name. Well I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous too, since quilting is actually the process of layering fabric, batting and fabric, and then sewing through all three. Quilting has nothing to do with half square triangles, or blocks, wonky or straight. And it may just be that I'm going to the wrong kinds of blogs (you know, the ones with the pretty photos) but most of the modern quilts I've seen have been quilted by the piecer, while the more traditional quilts seem much more likely to get the professional treatment.
But the thing that made me laugh the most was the suggestion that modern quilting is about making "the same 7 quilts over and over" Well, yes, I've made quite a few of my quilts a second or third time, mainly so I could play with new colours or fabrics, but y'know, I've not yet copied a quilt off of any other blog, or book, or from history. I've never used a pattern I didn't do the maths* for myself. And if anything, aren't traditional quilts just copies of quilts from the last 200 years, made over and over again?
Here's another thing - simplicity is not the same as stupidity. For me, the best part of quilting is finding the most efficient way to get all my pieces from the fabric available. Yes, I posted a pattern for a square in a square quilt. Yes, there's already hundreds of them out there. But the goal of mine when I was coming up with it was to work out the simplest way to fit all the bits I needed into the uncut fabric. A way that uses just 2 yards of fabric to make the top, that can use directional fabrics without issue and has pretty much no waste whatsoever. By considering quilting to be purely a technical exercise, a "how accurate can I get this point" competition, you are missing out on half the fun - the fun of coming up with new and innovative ways to use fabrics that have been bought by thousands of other quilters in a way this is unique to you, the fun of turning a simple design into something that is aesthetically both pleasing and striking.
Modern quilting is more about design than technique, and while more advanced techniques can lead to more complex and potentially interesting designs, complexity does not impart superiority. Nor does simplicity though, it is context which imparts superiority. In the context of your point of view, modern, simpler quilts are getting an undeserved share of adulation. In the context of my point of view, you're acting like a jealous poo head, because the masses have spoken, with their fondness for pretty colours and more efficient methods. Yay for context!
Okay, so calling the opposition a poo head is generally regarded as the end to civilised argument. I think for a minute there I thought I was in a GNW Great Debate - Paul McDermott will probably pop out at any moment and sing a song, and there will be a confetti explosion. Nonetheless, I get that I've taken a post that wasn't meant to cause offence and got really really offended by it.
But when you knock my love of the centimetre, I take it personally.
*The USA is the only major country still using imperial measurements. And while I agree that it can make the math easier, this is only because a .5cm seam (as opposed to the .64cm that is easily stated in imperial as a quarter inch) is cutting it a little too fine to guarantee a secure seam, a problem that could be fixed with better quality fabrics which fray less. As it is, I can calculate fine by adding .75cm to my straight seams and 1cm to anything at a 45° angle, and my points are consistently correct to under 2mm, despite the fact that I press all my seams open. Pretty clever for a dumbed down beginner, no?
My clothes remain very much on... But not for much longer ;)
Last night while I was sewing I came up with a really good post for FTF, but it's okay, I'll change my days quoted from "yesterday" to "last week" and we can pop it forward to next Friday. Unfortunately, that leaves me feeling a wee bit guilty that I don't have any progress to show or any interesting or insightful things to talk about. My major consideration for the day was to do with something called WMWifiRouter, but that's boring even for me, as well as a bit of a disappointment, because I was stretched for time and I took the easy way out and paid for it instead of finding a working keygen. No, don't ask, it's all very very mindnumbing.
And while it's only just gone midnight and I could very well complete my blocks at the very least for the latest mingle quilt, if not the whole quilt top, it's very cold, and I don't feel like it.
Today I was looking for some plastic egg cases that I bought over two years ago but still haven't gotten around to using. I'm being Maddy's Easter Bunny this year, and since the weather's a bit crappy everything gets it's own little case. I bought some more but these ones that are hiding were larger and I wanted some size variation, unfortunately they will have to wait another easter as I can't find them. What I did find though was a lovely stack of 10cm squares - 20 fabrics of which there is 20 squares of most of them, except that for two of the yellows there's only 10. Possibly that's why it was stashed.
I've since bought another half yard of one of the half-there fabrics, so I can do that one, and the other may just still be at Stitch and Knit. Hopefully, since it means I only need to pay $2 for 10cm, instead of $20 for a yard on etsy, since the only seller I can find doesn't want to post to Australia, and roundabout ways of posting are usually add up to it being just as expensive as buying locally.
So once I fill in my missing 10 squares, doing them in a simple 20x20 diagonal grid is now another one on my list of to-do quilts. I think it's been on the list and off the list and on the list again, which is quite confusing.
Anyway, just cause it's Friday, and apparently a "good" one at that, here's a quick stuff I like.
I like those zippers that have the double pull so you don't have to have it done all the way down to the bottom when you don't want it to be.
I like packet muffin mix.
I like having my very own sniffing nose humans*.
I like hidden caches of chocolate.
I like getting Peppermint Club chocolate, and nibbling the side off of the block and then sucking the peppermint creme out, and not actually eating the rest of the chocolate (which is dark, and a little too rich to eat all of).
I like coming from a family where Easter is an excuse to sit around a fire, have a few drinks and tell rude jokes, and that I don't have to get up early on Sundays (or any day, actually)
I (secretly) like that I thought Mexican night was tonight when it's actually tomorrow, because I'm working tomorrow night and that means I don't have to drink tequila, and thank god for that, since tequila makes your clothes fall off.
*I have no sense of smell and the aforementioned packet mix muffins were just starting to burn when my Mum arrived and told me.
oh, and the ;) in the title is because I'm going to bed now.
And while it's only just gone midnight and I could very well complete my blocks at the very least for the latest mingle quilt, if not the whole quilt top, it's very cold, and I don't feel like it.
Today I was looking for some plastic egg cases that I bought over two years ago but still haven't gotten around to using. I'm being Maddy's Easter Bunny this year, and since the weather's a bit crappy everything gets it's own little case. I bought some more but these ones that are hiding were larger and I wanted some size variation, unfortunately they will have to wait another easter as I can't find them. What I did find though was a lovely stack of 10cm squares - 20 fabrics of which there is 20 squares of most of them, except that for two of the yellows there's only 10. Possibly that's why it was stashed.
I've since bought another half yard of one of the half-there fabrics, so I can do that one, and the other may just still be at Stitch and Knit. Hopefully, since it means I only need to pay $2 for 10cm, instead of $20 for a yard on etsy, since the only seller I can find doesn't want to post to Australia, and roundabout ways of posting are usually add up to it being just as expensive as buying locally.
So once I fill in my missing 10 squares, doing them in a simple 20x20 diagonal grid is now another one on my list of to-do quilts. I think it's been on the list and off the list and on the list again, which is quite confusing.
Anyway, just cause it's Friday, and apparently a "good" one at that, here's a quick stuff I like.
I like those zippers that have the double pull so you don't have to have it done all the way down to the bottom when you don't want it to be.
I like packet muffin mix.
I like having my very own sniffing nose humans*.
I like hidden caches of chocolate.
I like getting Peppermint Club chocolate, and nibbling the side off of the block and then sucking the peppermint creme out, and not actually eating the rest of the chocolate (which is dark, and a little too rich to eat all of).
I like coming from a family where Easter is an excuse to sit around a fire, have a few drinks and tell rude jokes, and that I don't have to get up early on Sundays (or any day, actually)
I (secretly) like that I thought Mexican night was tonight when it's actually tomorrow, because I'm working tomorrow night and that means I don't have to drink tequila, and thank god for that, since tequila makes your clothes fall off.
*I have no sense of smell and the aforementioned packet mix muffins were just starting to burn when my Mum arrived and told me.
oh, and the ;) in the title is because I'm going to bed now.
Friday, April 22, 2011
So old it feels new...
After so long piecing backings without much pre-planning, and before that mainly piecing quilts by cutting long strips and sewing them together, it was nice to get back into the swing of chain piecing for my third mingle quilt.
This is, sorta, what it's gunna look like. I'll keep shifting the fabrics till I'm happy: I worked my way through dozens of variations already tonight.
I think my problem is that I'm not quite sure which fabric print is the one that most needs the even spread. Instinct tells me that it's the one with the dark brown stripe, surely, but when I'm shuffling them about I'm most concerned with not having the brown circles and the purple and green stripe together, which makes it a bit silly that I put one of them inside the other. Whoops. And then, looking at this picture, it's the dark green that stands out the most, so I'm a bit confused.
And what do I do when I'm confused? CGI rendering of course.
The shading is way off in that, because I just chopped squares out of the above photo and it's always darker at the top of the shot. But I like the more random* seeming one. I'll try it in real life tomorrow. I didn't want to sew my start blocks yet because I wasn't sure which one might end up in half, but I'm 99% sure it will be the ones shown in half there, no matter where all the others are. So that's about 14% sorted then.
In other news, I bought pair #2 of yesterdays boots, and I'm still seriously considering #3 and 4. I think this kinda progress deserves many new shoes, since I paid about that much for these fabrics.
*the pattern is actually almost as regular as the top one, just 180 swiveled instead of duplicated as is, with the center ones swapped so it wasn't touching itself*
*because eww.
This is, sorta, what it's gunna look like. I'll keep shifting the fabrics till I'm happy: I worked my way through dozens of variations already tonight.
I think my problem is that I'm not quite sure which fabric print is the one that most needs the even spread. Instinct tells me that it's the one with the dark brown stripe, surely, but when I'm shuffling them about I'm most concerned with not having the brown circles and the purple and green stripe together, which makes it a bit silly that I put one of them inside the other. Whoops. And then, looking at this picture, it's the dark green that stands out the most, so I'm a bit confused.
And what do I do when I'm confused? CGI rendering of course.
The shading is way off in that, because I just chopped squares out of the above photo and it's always darker at the top of the shot. But I like the more random* seeming one. I'll try it in real life tomorrow. I didn't want to sew my start blocks yet because I wasn't sure which one might end up in half, but I'm 99% sure it will be the ones shown in half there, no matter where all the others are. So that's about 14% sorted then.
In other news, I bought pair #2 of yesterdays boots, and I'm still seriously considering #3 and 4. I think this kinda progress deserves many new shoes, since I paid about that much for these fabrics.
*the pattern is actually almost as regular as the top one, just 180 swiveled instead of duplicated as is, with the center ones swapped so it wasn't touching itself*
*because eww.
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