Too much of a good thing?

Well, the Houston International Quilt Festival is nearly over. It was over for me at about 4:00, Friday afternoon. I had gone to the MQG Market Meet-up the Saturday evening before Festival began and was at the Festival all day Wednesday (in class until 5:00, then went to the preview until about 8 or 9 o'clock), Thursday and Friday. And I am BEAT! Talk about sensory overload!

Quilts, quilts and more quilts!
Fabric, fabric and more fabric!
People, people and more people! (These photos were made before the hall opened. Wouldn't we all love to walk aisles that empty!)





I had told myself that I wasn't going to buy ANYTHING, but of course I did.

These lovely, new (to me) colors of South African "indigos" -- there were more colors besides the usual indigo blue and browns, I just went for the pinks and purples.



I couldn't decide which colorway I liked best of these Kaffe prints -- so I got three of them! I think strips of these will give a quilt lots of movement.



These Japanese ombre prints were just too gorgeous to pass by.



And I have admired the fabric lines from Marcia Derse for a long time, but had never seen them in person. She had a booth with big bundles and a LOT if them came home with me. I see, perhaps, a re-interpretation of an Amish quilt.

 

MQG Market Meet-up

All I can say is, "WOW!"

What a crowd! What a lot of famous faces! What a lot of prizes! What a lot of FUN!

I am ashamed to say that even though I had my camera, I did not get even one photo of the event -- I guess I was just kind of over-whelmed and star-struck. The sponsors of the event provided SO MANY prizes that nearly everyone won something! I won a charm pack of Lizzy House's new line Outfoxed by Andover Fabrics. (Now I want *acres* of those three color-ways of the pearl bracelets -- so pretty!)



I try to limit my use of the word "awesome" but in this case no other word adequately describes the evening: AWESOME!

And we have another meet-up yet to come:
Saturday, 5 November
The Hyatt Lobby Bar
8:00 pm

These are our lovely sponsors:

Travel & Retail Therapy

I am a week home from my last trip to MoKan. That 14 hour drive home is tough and it takes me a while to get back into my usual routine.



On this drive though, I still had the warm glow from a trip to Lawrence, Kansas and to Sarah's Fabrics. My Mother-in-law learned I hadn't been to Lawrence, much less Sarah's in years, so she thought a short car trip was in order.
Shug wasn't born in Lawrence but he grew up there and got his bachelor's degree at the University of Kansas -- that's were we met! My Mother-in-law probably lived there nearly 30 years and it still feels like home to her. But the point of the trip, besides a little tripping down memory lane, was to go Sarah's. Sarah's was there when I was in school back in the early 1980s. I was already dabbling at quilting & sewing and Sarah's was a favorite place to go. I am pretty sure that I got my Folkwear prairie dress pattern there along with the calico I used to make it. It was always a fun store, though a bit outside my college girl budget.

Well.
Now it is twice the size. They have not only quilting cottons, but linens, woolens, rayons -- LOTS and LOTS of fabric! I was a bit over-whelmed.









Let's all say "polka dots" the way Homer Simpson says "dough nuts".
polka dots....drool drool drool



All I managed to focus on was a big bunch of fat quarters -- I think a spider web string quilt may be in order -- and half yards of a couple of Echino prints -- a bag maybe?

 

Wordless Wednesday *

What do you think?




* Well, almost wordless.

Two-fers

In the past, my least favorite part of the quilt-making process was the cutting. I don't mind it so much anymore, but am still in the habit of cutting way more than I need and getting more than one quilt from one cutting session.
Recently the secondary quilt was finished long before the primary quilt was. The primary quilt was SNAFU, as some of you know, the reason it took so long was that I hand-quilted it. It was made of a jelly roll and khaki-colored Kona and, of course, I saved all the left-over bits. Sometimes when I am spinning my wheels, not knowing what to work on, I will get out my box of cut pieces -- lots of triangles and squares and rectangles of various sizes and just start laying out and stitching. I arranged the 2.5 inch squares together with no particular end in mind. Then I learned that one of Shug's colleagues was expecting his first grandchild, so I added a border, machine quilted it and gave it to the expecting grandparents.






For one of my next projects, I am giving myself a challenge.
I want to see if I can make something modern from this definitely not-modern stack of fabrics. It will probably be a donation quilt (or maybe a grandbaby quilt). I want to see if I can come up with something edgy with calicos and plaids!

The Humility Block

If you have read much about antique and vintage quilts, you have probably come across reference to the "humility block". According to the story, quilters would include in their quilt an intentional mistake -- because "only God is perfect".  I, like probably you, always thought this was a bit arrogant -- I am quite able to make mistakes without making them on purpose, thank you very much.

After completing my Sunday School Stars polyester double knit top, I did an internet search of the "humility block". I found this good article and learned that there is really no such thing. Quilt historians have found the myth to be a mid-20th century invention, perhaps by quilt dealers making the mistake in the quilt into a charming quirk. The humility block was often attributed to the Amish, who, when asked about it, thought the same as I did: it isn't humble to think that the only way you will make a mistake is to do so intentionally. Well, in a waaaay, mine is a humility block. I saw the mistake in time to fix it, I just chose not to. I had already done some ripping & resewing on this goofy quilt top and it wasn't easy picking stitches out of the double knit -- so I left it!



And in our meteorological news: IT RAINED!!!! It rained quite a bit today; so far we've had 3.5 inches (about 9 cm) and it is still RAINING!!!!! There is still way to go to make up our nearly 20 inch (51 cm) deficit, but this really helps.

You're Invited

Oh my gosh! The Quilt Festival is less than one month away!

This year, after trying for the last three years, I finally got into Hollis Chatelain's class, "Quilt Line as a Third Design Aspect". I am very excited, and perhaps a bit apprehensive, about it. (I had a dream/nightmare that I was very late and didn't have any of the right materials for the class.)

I can't believe that this will be my 20th Festival! In 1991, I flew down to Houston for the very first time. This was when I bought my Bernina; I guess she has an anniversary too! While in town, I called up an old friend from college who I knew had recently moved here for a job. Fourteen months later, Shug and I got married and I became a permanent Houstonian! It is not quite as special going to the Festival as a "townie" -- no plane trip, just a drive into town; no hotels or restaurants, dinner and chores await when I get home -- but it is a lot cheaper. My discretionary spending can all be on fabric, books and bright shiny things!

In case you don't know, there will be a couple of meet-ups of all the branches of the Modern Quilt Guild and the Houston Modern Quilt Guild is hosting them. One is during Market and one is during Festival. (Check the link for locations and times.) I'm looking forward to putting faces to the funny blog and flickr names that I know so well and for internet friends to become IRL friends!

And to my blog friends who are not in the Modern Quilt Guild and are planning to go to the Festival, please let me know! I would dearly love to make plans to meet you and put a face to the kind comments I receive on my blog.

Pressing Matters

A good many years ago, I made a square-in-a-square quilt top; it was pretty ordinary -- calicoes and plaids in browns and blues. But there was something about the top that I really liked and for a while I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Because of all the seams that would be coming together at the middle of the blocks, I decided to press the seams open.

My first sewing was clothing and with clothing, one always presses the seams open. My foray into quilt-making was pretty much self-taught and my very first project was finishing up a stack of hand-stitched, 4-patch blocks that my Mom had made with her Grandmother back when she was quite young (my Mom, not my Great Grandma). The seams in those 4-patches were finger-pressed to one side. So, everafter, I  always pressed my patchwork seams to one side.

But when I really stopped to think about it, if I was machine-piecing, not hand-piecing my blocks there didn't seem like there was any real reason to press the seams to the side -- just like in clothing construction. The first time I had done this was with that square-in-a-square quilt top. And that was what I liked so much about that top -- how flat it was. I loved the look of the newly created piece of whole cloth -- cloth made up of smaller pieces of cloth. So now I don't press my patchwork, I iron it -- I really IRON it.

But ironing isn't working with these doubleknit stars. With one of these blocks, I spent quite some time trying to get the seams to lie flat, but, well, can you tell which one it is? I can't.

 
 
So I'm just going with cardboard-like nature of this fabric. This little quilt is kind of a nostalgic, whimsical oddity anyway. I doubt it will make it among the Fresh, Modern Quilts on flickr, it just is what it is. And I am rather enjoying the journey I am taking with it.

Great Expectations

That is what I had for the weekend -- Great Expectations.

Most of Saturday was spent doing chores and errands. Sunday was free though and I got up to my room to begin working on the long list of things I wanted to accomplish: baste the postage stamp top, cut some fabric for donation quilts for victims of the Texas wildfires, make more double knit stars, pull and combine some fabrics for my next projects. But first on the list was to re-sash the square plates. Well. That took most of the day, what with ripping and re-sewing and ripping and re-sewing and time-outs to regain my temper (worst of times!). I had a Dickens of a time getting those sashes to line up!

It is finally together now and I really like the way it looks (best of times!) Those coral and yellow rays chase away the Bleak House Blues! I think I will add some more of that green as a border. As for quilting, last year at the Quilt Festival I took a class from Mary Mashuta on walking foot quilting and I think this quilt is the perfect candidate for experimenting with those skills.

Turn turn turn

Shug has been turning wood for just a little more than 2 months now -- and look at what he has spun out!



There are 14 pieces there, of varying quality, though the quality is getting better and better. There are 2 bowls upstairs on my sewing table (one with spools, one with patchwork parts) and there are a few -- though just a few -- failed attempts. Pretty impressive I think!

He is getting much more done than I am. These days, I can't seem to do anything more complicated than browse blogs, flickr, pinterest & tumblr and play find-it games on my I-Pad. It isn't that I don't have PLENTY of needle-ready projects. Here are just some of them, along with my lame excuses:

The squared plates have been disassembled, squared & are ready to re-assemble, but, well, the design wall is full. The blue postage stamp top is ready to sandwich, but the table where I do this is covered with wooden bowls. The quilting threads in snafu need to be restitched & anchored, but I am still to irritated to work with this one.

 
 
I think the shirts & slacks quilt will be about 5 or 6 blocks by 6 or 7, so I still need many more of them, but I can only work on them for a short time because they make me sad. (I think this one is a real excuse.)



I just need to make more pieces for the indigo & white stars -- just haven't made the time. The yellow zig-zag is built diagonally so I need lots of space to spread it out; it is about 3/4 done & is pretty big. I am working on the Sunday School Stars -- the one thing I am getting done!



I want to add more borders to my Habitat challenge but need to get some more Habitat fabric. Come on! That means a trip to the fabric store! Surely I can 'motivate' myself to do that! The hexagons came to a screeching halt back in January or February, I don't even remember why, but I am sure it was a good reason. And I just dug out the purple & gray squares in squares. They were going to be a gift for someone, but I came up with something I liked better. The parts are all cut for this, it would be an excellent donation quilt, I just need, well you know, MOTIVATION!



I am always encouraging people to be easy on themselves, but I am the last one to take my own advice. Like the song in this post's title, there is a time for everything. I had several pretty good finishes this summer, so maybe I can take some time to rest & recharge. (Though Ecclesiastes doesn't mention anything about the internet or computer games.)


And check this out! HMQG's Habitat Challenge projects! AWESOME!!!

Dress your family in polyester, corduroy & flannel *

I have been having fun with some pretty odd fabrics these days.

The polyester doubleknit friendship stars that I found at my Mom's house is about 3/7 done. The Easter egg pastels were either un-used yardage or left-over scraps from dress making by my Mom & both of my grandmothers. (Though one was from my prom dress -- NO laughing!) They were all good church women, so I am thinking of calling the finished comforter something like Sunday School Stars or Full Immersion Stars or Church Lady Stars. (Please feel free to voice your opinion.) Sewing doubleknit is a bit like sewing corrugated cardboard; it is hard to imagine wearing a dress made of this stuff -- it must have been like a suit of armor! And it makes this weird, sludge-like lint in my machine. I've been digging deep into my old stash and found some flannel with pastel cats that will be good for the back.



From nifty quilts I learned about National Corduroy Appreciation Day -- 11 November 2011, 11-11-11, of course! I used to save corduroy for quilt making, but jettisoned all of it several moves ago. But I do still have a top that my Mom and I found thrifting probably 25 years ago. I pulled it out and found *another* huge chunk of flannel (cowboys!) for the back. Now it is ready to prep for tying.






* My apologies to David Sedaris, though I think his sister, Amy, would approve.

Remembering

Nine years ago today, on the first anniversary of 11 September, I did not want to spend the day sitting in front of the television, reliving That Day. I wanted to remember in my own way, by doing something thoughtful, constructive and creative. I got out some batiks and the last of my Cherrywood fabrics and cut and sewed and got most of a quilt top done. Then Life interfered & it slowly moved lower and lower in my to-do pile. A while back, I found another batik that I liked for the border. So, this morning, I thought it appropriate to stitch on the border. This is my salute to the lives lost and the lives changed That Day.

I love these quilts -- special edition

From the time I was very small, I was a frequenter of thrift stores. My Mom, while not a quilter, was a good seamstress; at the thrift stores, she would buy for herself and for me clothing to wear and clothing to alter into other things. My Halloween costume when I was 5 or 6 years old was made from a quilted, leopard-printed circle skirt -- she made a pair of pants, shirt, tail and little tie-on cap with cat ears -- all that was left to do was draw whiskers on my face with an eyebrow pencil. So I have always looked at used clothing as a possible source for fabric.

I am not alone in doing this. There are many quilters who use the good cloth in old clothing for their quilt projects and have many reasons for doing so -- economy, philosophy, memory, to name a few.

Men's office shirts are a great fabric source. The many shades of blues, the many varieties of stripes, plaids and checks make for lovely quilts. Here is one by meliBismakingthings.



This awesome one, called Office Stripes, was made by Binita.

Some quilters have more of a philosophy to use thrifted clothing and textiles in their quilts. LeilaBadBlood is one. She has made many beautiful quilts from recycled cottons and linens and has been commissioned to make quilts using family textiles. One of my favorites is M's Quilt.



Another and special category of quilt from clothing is the remaking of a loved ones things into a memory quilt. As quilters, we can take a stack beloved dresses or shirts or pants and create for ourselves something that will always bring to mind our loved ones. sewandtellquilts did that with her Grandmother's dresses and her Grandfather's shirts.





Even without knowing these people, I can look at these quilts and peak inside the lives of the people who wore these clothes -- Grandma loved her flowered dresses, Grandpa was more traditional with his plaid shirts.

I will always be grateful to completely cauchy not only for this blog post, but for bringing to my attention the wonderful This I Believe essay by Priya Chandrasekan. "I believe that to love, and to bare the boundless depth of our love, we must have the courage to reshape what we inherit."

Sometimes we quilters can give a wonderful gift to friends mourning a loss. Look at this lovely post by nifty quilts -- Sacred Work indeed. J R Webb was also able to provide a beautiful memory for someone. He made this amazing quilt and even a necklace with the buttons from the shirts.



I would be remiss if I did not mention Sherri Lynn Wood and her Passage Quilts. Sherri teaches, consults and does commissions of the making of these beautiful and touching quilts that commemorate lives. A lovely example is her quilt made from her Grandmother's clothing, a gift to her Father.



"Old clothes carry something with them. You can feel the presence of the person who used to wear them. It has a spirit in them. Even if I don't know the person, I know someone wore these pants, and it feels lovely and warm to me."
Mary Lee Bendolph
Gee's Bend, Alabama


My thanks to everyone who allowed me to use their quilt here. You can find these and other "I LOVE these quilts!" in my flickr gallery.

This old quilt.

If it weren't for bad luck, this quilt would have no luck at all.



I finished the binding on this one today. I think I will call it "SNAFU".

It began well enough. I bought a jelly roll (it has been so long ago that I no longer remember the designer or the line) and made the top in pretty short order. Then I decided to hand quilt it; I pin-basted it and began stitching away. Now, with Houston weather, you do not often want a lap-full of quilt, but I was making pretty good progress in the evenings while watching television. That was maybe 2.5 years ago. Then in August of 2009, the kitten Louis came into our home. His first weekend I closely watched him to make sure he knew where the litter boxes were. From time to time I would put him in a box but he would promptly jump out. This quilt was neatly folded on the seat of 'my' chair. The adorable kitten Louis jumped on the chair & I thought "oh how cute, he is going to nap on my quilt" but, no, he was not going to nap on my quilt, he was going to pee on my quilt. And since he had not relieved himself for about 24 to 36 hours, he really had to GO. So in spite of quickly snatching him up, he pretty well soaked the quilt -- the pin-basted quilt. I had to drape it outside so it could dry, then I hastily (and not very carefully (it smelled of cat pee)) machine-basted it, removed the safety pins (checking for rust spots -- that is one problem the quilt dodged) and put it in the washing machine. So for 2 years I have been quilting on this ragged-looking quilt and finally put the last stitch in about a month ago.

I stitched on the binding, *trimmed the seam*, and began stitching the binding down. Then I kept seeing these really short, loose quilting threads -- about 0.5 inches, sometimes even less. Yikes! I was blaming this on Louis as well; I thought it happened when I was pulling out the basting stitches. I was in the final stretch with the binding when I thought "I TRIMMED the seam!"! I CUT OFF my anchoring knots -- that is why the quilting stitches are coming out!

Now I would love to continue to blame this on Louis, he won't know, he's just a cat. But I am afraid I am going to have to own this one -- along with the other bone-headed mistakes I have been making recently.
To quote one of my blog friends, "MEH!"

In other news, I'm very close to finishing my Habitat challenge top -- it is a bright one!

A challenge, something unexpected & my mind is blown (again)

I had a pleasant Sunday.

I spent the morning cutting and sewing HSTs for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge using Jay McCarroll's Habitat fabric line.  I am thinking of doing something kind of old-school with this edgy, urban fabric.  I'll show you more of my progress later, but until then, here is a tease.



In the afternoon, I did something I very rarely do: I got a book, stretched out in bed & "read". It felt indulgent and a little nurturing to nap in the daytime, but I think I needed to do it.

In the evening, while I was stitching on a quilt binding, I re-watched NOVA's Fractals: A Sense of Scale.  It is a great program, watch it if you have a chance.  There is something they say that gets me every time: a line defining a closed space -- think a circle or a square -- is, when fractal-ized (my word), mathematically Infinitely Long! Wait!?! WHAT?!? No Way!!! KA BOOOMMM!!!!
My mind is BLOWN!!!

Welcome to my nightmare

Don't worry. I'm just tired and whine-y.

I am recently home from a very stressful trip up to the midlands to see my Mom. She wasn't doing so well, was, in fact, the worst I've ever seen her. (Have I mentioned that Alzheimer's sucks.) We are at a place with her house when we really have to start making it not look like our family home -- closets & cabinets & drawers & the basement are pretty well cleaned out, next comes taking down things from the walls, dealing with furniture, etc, etc, etc.
I made the road trip up & back alone -- 13 hours up, 14 hours home. I brought home yet another load of miscellaneous stuff that I think I want and have to try to assimilate into our home. Everything from my family home smells of ancient, stale cigarette smoke & mildew and that smell permeates into everything -- I always have loads of laundry to do when I return, even re-washing clean clothes. So a looong day of driving, a day of laundry, then back to work. pooh



But I found this awesome blog post. And I found this awesome video. Both reminded me that simple pleasures are the best and they still are all around me, I just have to open my eyes to them.

*My trip was bracketed with brief but pleasant stays at my Mother-in-law's house.
*Even though my Mom makes less and less sense, she still knows me and still loves me.
*While I was away, Shug got us a case of Hatch, NM green chiles.
*I drove 1600 miles without incident. I got safely home to find Shug eagerly waiting for me with a gin and tonic in hand and the makings for a breakfast burrito (with green chiles!) on the stove.

So, I'm feeling better now. I am still tired and sad but can see there is still joy out there to be enjoyed.

I LOVE these quilts!

I had so much fun with my last 'I LOVE this quilt' post when I looked at 3 quilts (I felt like a real curator!) that I thought I would do it again.

Today I'm looking at 3 quilts inspired by painters. (I am reluctant to say "artists" because I think that we who make quilts are artists.)

The first quilt was made by Maritza at m_soto and was inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly. Kelly is a hard-edged, minimalist painter whose work lends itself to patchwork interpretation. The randomly-placed, colored squares dissolving into the white edges are similar to several canvases by Kelly but not a re-creation of any one. The movement of the colors and the restful white spaces keep my eye busy. I am eager to see how her quilting takes this quilt beyond the painting.

The second quilt is called "Homage to Mondrian" and was made by Noga at noga quilts. This quilt was a personal challenge & Noga well-met the challenge. It is not a literal interpretation of any particular Mondrian painting, but is true to the spirit of his work. The black edging with the occasional, un-edged primary color blocks is very like the artist. She has added a bit of herself with the quilting -- the perpendicular & diagonal lines are an added 'something' that Mondrian could not achieve with paint. She has kept the edges simple with a pillow-case finish.

The third quilt was made by Fabienne at chabronico and is called "a la maniere de Vasarely". This quilt is a beautiful salute to this abstract painter. The shape-within-a-shape theme is one often seen in Vasarely's work. Fabienne has made this piece her own with the rich and varied palette of southern France. The piece is not finished in this image but she later added spiraling quilting within the ovals and a white binding. She has continued to expand this pattern with other colors and with prints -- all beautiful and all unique.
(As an aside, reading in a foreign language about a subject you know well is an excellent way to learn. "La toile thermo-collante double face" -- fusible webbing, of course!)

Inspirations for quilts are, quite literally, everywhere. Painters and architects and graphic designers are especially good. An internet image search of a painting style or a name will produce a delicious pageful of  ideas waiting to happen!

Compare & contrast

I made a hasty post last Sunday showing the finished "Little Opal". Some kind people asked where this quilt had come from, so I thought I would talk about its origins.

At the Quilt Festival in 2006, I purchased a charmingly packaged stack of about 110 2.5 inch squares, hand-dyed by Wendy Richardson. It was kind of a non-standard purchase for me &, I think, my very first purchase of pre-cut fabric. The colors were so pretty that I fell in love. Well, not far from her booth, I came across a booth that was selling Oakshott fabrics. They make absolutely beautiful cross-woven solids, plaids and woven stripes; they are silky, the colors are gorgeous and being a company based in the UK, they are a little hard to find in the US. Their colors coordinated so nicely with my new little hand-dyed squares that I bought a bundle of subtle woven stripes. I lovingly stroked and gazed at my purchases until that Christmas, when my Mother-in-law asked for a package of Thimbleberries charm squares. The colors were perfect for my nascent project, so I bought a pack for her and a pack for me. Fairly quickly, Opalescent was pieced together.

 

"Little Opal" happened because I now always visit Wendy Richardson's booth at Quilt Festival. I think I got my second pack of 2.5 inch squares in 2008; I also got a stack of larger squares. The booth selling the Oakshott fabrics was there again, so I got some solids this time. (No, I had not (and have not) used up the previous purchase -- I just wanted more, OK?). At the Art Gallery Fabrics  booth I got several colorways of a kind of Asian, dahlia-like print. Later, I found a cheap woven stripe from a chain store. This quilt was slightly more of a challenge -- for one thing, I had to keep it 'different' from its big sister. But it was pieced pretty quickly, though I struggled with the quilting.



I like charm pack and jelly rolls, it is a fun challenge to come up with something unique with the very strict limitations of the fabric size. I really like these two little quilts -- no, I *love* these two little quilts. But they are really very similar and I think it is time to move away from the muted-color charm packs!

 

Mending

I have this tea towel -- I am pretty sure it belonged to my Grandma, my Mother's Mother -- that touches my heart.
It is a humble object, made of humble material -- probably a feed sack. There are several tears down one side of the towel, you know the kind, when you catch on something and end up with an L-shaped hole. Well, someone (Grandma? Great Grandma?) found some of the left-over sacking fabric, carefully matched the stripes, stitched down a patch and turned under the frayed edges of the tear. Not just once, but several times. Now, I will sew up ripped seams in my clothing, replace missing buttons, sometimes darn moth holes; I've patched (in a very crude way) Shug's pants when the knees or seat were worn through. But I don't know that I would mend a tea towel! And in such careful and caring way. I just find it sweet. It speaks to me of a time when things were not so disposable, not so easily replaceable as they are now.

The weekend

I finished this



and got more work done on this.

Dazzling...

...my stupidity, that is.

I mentioned yesterday how I began sashing my squared plates *without* measuring them first. It isn't cute enough to call 'liberated' or 'improvisational' -- it just looks bad. So I will be removing the sashing, trimming the plates, then *re-sashing* them before I can move this one into the to-be-quilted pile.



Then today, I began to piece the shirts and slacks blocks. Well, some of you may have already noticed that I had problems ahead -- I didn't until I pressed my first seams. I had Shug cut me a cunning little template for the Crooked Path squares; I made a drawing for him and he cut it as instructed. But, as you know, you CANNOT take a square, cut that square into two pieces, sew the pieces together and expect to still have a square!!! That is Quilting 101!!!!



Well, I had to take a time out. The damage is not irreversible, in fact, there is no real damage. My blocks will just be smaller (and more labor-intensive) than I had planned. But, GRRRR.