Just because

This is a Carrie Nelson Schnibbles pattern made from a Sandy Gervais charm pack. No particular reason to make it. Just because.

Hopping around the sewing room, and I'm not even the Easter bunny

I'm just a girl who can't say no ... ... ...to another project. Barbara Brackman's Civil War sampler, my Bonnie Hunter Addicted to Scraps column patriotic sampler, my local quilt shop's Saturday Club sampler, my Orange Crush quilt, my Carrie Nelson charm pack project, my ---well, my, my my.

Yep, I'm fragmented. I'm the ADHD quilter who can't stay with one project until it's done. I'm the needle and thread embodiment of the Buddhist description of monkey mind, always charging off into three different directions at once. So I've gotta find a method to keep track of all these little loose blocks. Here's one idea:
Pushpins on the design wall, a ziplock baggie for each project. Bigger stuff gets its own plastic bin, like the 100 block sample that's ready to assemble now that I've picked the sashing and border fabrics.

Orange crush still needs three borders, which are laid out on my cutting table whilst I while away the time on my latest distraction, Carrie Nelson's little OSO charm pack quilt. It's cute and it will only take a minute...but you know, I never finished that Christmas table topper and if I made it now I could surely get it quilted by next holiday season...

See? I'm hopeless.

Why did I expect anything different? We ARE talking about software customer support.

I just spent over an hour in a Live Chat session with TurboTax software customer support reps trying to figure out why the software isn't handling my input information correctly. Result? Nothing was accomplished. Zero. Nada. Squat.

(And why can't I have a phone number and TALK to them instead of typing everything? Are they trying to irritate me? If they are, it's working. Live Chat sessions are one of the stupidest things to arise from the internet culture.)

The software has a bug; it's obvious. When you select certain conditions and input your data, and the next screen says the exact opposite of what you input and branches off on a different decision tree based on its' erroneous understanding, that, my friends, is a bug. Did the rep realize it was a bug? Maybe. Would she say so and initiate an action to fix it? You're kidding, right?

The best she could offer was "try it again". After four "try it agains" I was burnt out and late for dinner, and had had enough. Tomorrow I'll throw away the file I created, start completely fresh and see what happens. If TurboTax does the same mistake again, I'll print the forms from the Treasury website, fill them out by hand and admit that I flushed $29.99 down the drain buying buggy software. Sigh.

A comment about foundation piecing

Foundation paper piecing was never my favorite. I think it's because I used it for pictorial subjects, where all the little patches were very random shapes, and it's sometimes more difficult to figure out what size piece of fabric to cut that will cover the area but not waste fabric, when working upside down and backward. I always felt there was a lot of waste.

But using it for geometric blocks is a whole 'nuther story! You can measure each segment, cut patches that are the right shape and a bit larger with minimal waste, and know that when you flip the patch over after stitching there won't be the "DOH!" moment where it's just a little too small. (I know you know what I'm talking about.)

And the points and corners and lines are so crisp and straight, no matter how small the patches. Removing the paper is still a pill, but the results might be worth it, if you're working small.

One hundred little blocks

One hundred eight inch blocks, ready to become a very large quilt. I know I'm going to use a 1 1/2" to 2" sashing with corner blocks, and 3" or 4" outer border, making a quilt that's around 105" square. What I don't know is what color these pieces are going to be! Some of the blocks have neutrals around the edge so light neutral sashing would allow the blocks to visually "bleed" into the sashing. Other blocks have tan patches at the edge which would do the same if I use a darker neutral. There are so very many colors in this group that what would go with them all?

Here's the blocks. I'd love to hear suggestions.

On a final note, I love love love that last block! About 15% of the blocks were paper pieced, and it makes for such beautiful sharp corners and lines. Also take a look at that Snail's Trail block ad all the blocks with flag-like motifs. Foundation paper piecing is the only way to go with those.

The other Barbara Brackman Civil War sampler is also going forth. Today's block was Kansas Troubles. That quilt will have 52 blocks set 7 x 8, with a large applique block in the center. The applique is planned to be an eagle and shield design if I can find one I like. I'd appreciate suggestions on that too. The block will be 18" square.

Thinking about color

My sampler quilt is continuing and has gathered into its blocks many more fabrics than I originally intended. At first the leftovers from a Kansas Troubles collection were to be the basis but I quickly determined that my remaining pieces would never be enough for the entire quilt. My husband constantly asks for brighter colors in my quilts so I started raiding the stash and pulling in brighter greens, pinks, yellows and more black and shirtings for contrast. The group of blocks is a riotous melange of shades now but will make an interesting sampler.

While I was looking at colors I thought about our perceptions of them. Take what we almost universally think of when we say "Williamsburg colors". The grayed blues, subtle tones and muted palette. The kind of colors you get with milk paint and natural dyes. It might shock you to talk to the restorers at Colonial Williamsburg to be told as I was during a tour that the shades of paint identified by the investigations in the original buildings were decidedly brighter - mustard yellows, bright greens, red.

Or consider the recent story I saw in a House Beautiful magazine about work at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. I remember the dining room there when I visited the house over twenty years ago. The walls were a somber and muted blue. Archaeological restoration has discovered by analysis of paint chips that in the later years of Jefferson's time, the room was painted a quite jarring shade of chrome yellow, that color being available due to the recently invented chemical dyes coming from France in the last part of the eighteenth century. The newly painted room was quite a surprise. Curators acknowledged that it would shake up a few people, but pointed out that Jefferson, a progressive man, would have found the new paint colors that were becoming available to be modern and interesting.

I remember a few years ago when the PBS program "This Old House" was restoring a colonial farmhouse and a paint expert was called in to take samples and determine the original color scheme used on the exterior. This house was in an historic area and changes, including colors, would have to be approved by the Historical Society. Everyone was quite shocked when it was determined from microscopic analysis of layers of paint removed from protected areas of the exterior that the original color of the house was a rather garish mustard yellow and the shutters were green. The Historical Society - that bastion of preservation, faced with the fact that their dream neighborhood of white houses with neat black shutters was, in fact, a dream - refused to approve the new color scheme, since it clashed so badly with their idealized vision of what a colonial home looked like.

While working on the Civil War quilts project from Barbara Brackman's blog, I started following links to articles about period fabrics and came upon a photo of a piece of preserved mid-nineteenth century calico and the modern reproduction fabric that was made from its design. I couldn't help but notice that the vivid reds that were still visible on the original fabric had been toned down decidedly in the reproduction. That made me think about the rather subdued colors in many of the Civil War repro fabrics I had bought in the past. Are we rewriting color history again?

I just walked back to my husband's den to get a page off the printer and found this: It's almost dinnertime - and she's not going to let him forget it. He's trying to copy and restore old photos. Ha! Not while Molly's keeping the scanner lid clamped shut. "Might as well give up and go feed me," she says.