Friday block party

A few weeks ago I asked to join & was accepted to the Friday Block Party blog.  Then I got sick & did nothing but cough & moan for 10+ days.  I am feeling more myself & getting back into the swing of everything & have started to retrace the block party blocks.  I am going to try & keep up with the blocks going forward (I am jumping in at week 46) & then, whenever I am caught up to the current block, work my way backwards, starting with week 45.

I am hoping to get some new techniques out of it, learn to accept techniques I hate (Y seams-BLECH) & just in general see what falls out of the sewing basket.

Without further ado, please join me at the block party for my first post.

Collectible collectives

I admit I live in my head. So does A; it is a wonder we ever meet. Or ever even met.

While I was still a child (well teenager) I started collections that could not be taken away: words that mean the opposite of themselves but are spelled the exact same (my favorite was mother & mother, well actually it was catholic & Catholic but I am told the capitalization does constitute a spelling change. That's right, there are rules); women who made their ex-husband's names famous as their own (Dorothy Parker, Susan Sarandon).

While getting an english lit degree I collected opening lines (When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow). All it takes is a piece of paper & you have a collection. If you keep that paper with you & memorize it in spare moments, you can learn to encapsule anything, ready to be released when you read your list aloud.

Everyone knows someone who collects exes. C****** likes to gather musical covers. If I am remembering correctly, she once did a school project on covers of Twist & Shout. I am not all that interested in exes (although I DO like Twist & Shout, Twist & Shout & Twist & Shout).

When I was in my 20's, I began trying to take myself out of my head. Or at least to empty my head 'on the stage' so at least some of what I did had some context. That is when I began collecting collections. There is nothing that delights me more than whatever someone else has seen fit to gather. That is not true of course; I am most delighted by what no one ever meant to gather, or at least the gathering was not so much a goal as a symptom or even a side effect but when that collection is the backbone of something else entirely.

& that is when I began collecting collectives. The first one I realized was a list of so-called subversive & fringe groups that all recognize the international symbol for anarchy. Give it a minute.

Since that day I have made notes on all unintended groupings. Used books stores are fun. Somehow they always seem to have themes that emerge, often quickly, that are obvious to any new customer & invisible to any regular visitor. The used bookstores that sells silver jewlery at the counter-very heavy in the sci-fi department.  The one with the vegan cafe within its walls:  not so much on car repair.

Artisans guilds can be interesting too. I had a ring-side seat (no I was never a member) when one of the local groups had a 'political restructuring'. The theme of the new concept could be summed up in the words of one former board member "I do not care how many G*d damned kids you have, hire a babysitter or leave them home alone, but do not bring them here when you are supposed to be working".  Last time I checked a lot of guild members were child-free.

Farmers markets are another favorite of mine. Less diverse than other markets as they are self-limiting (after all if you are going to grow your own food & then sell it you are probably not doing it to gain entry into the world of industrial food), but still there is variety. The heirloom turkey breeders do not always see eye-to-eye with the vegan soap makers.

There is a new collective in town. A food co-op is trying to form in our area. I could not be more pleased. I like the idea, I agree with the philosophy & I am sure that like minded & agreeing people will provide much discussion & conflict for years to come. & yes, I think that is a good thing.  In the meantime a CSA has formed & we joined.  Every saturday we pick up our basket at the farmers market & go home & try & figure out what to do with what we got.  At last, something to do with all those obscure cookbooks I have been collecting.

Quilters quiz me vis à vis quips & quackery

Apparently some of my friends were astonished that I agreed to do a brief presentation of my string quilts to one of the bees (the Miniature Quilt Bee to be exact). While it is true that I have called the guild that sponsors these bees the Symbionese Liberation Quilt Guild the fact remains that I do still have friends there & when they ask me to do something that does not involve anything from me but to be listened to & admired, I am pretty much willing to do it. It helps of course that this group does not meet before noon. Finally, the SLQG was not actually charging for me to be there while I was expected to donate my time & that was indeed the clincher. No it was not; it has been the clincher in the other direction (group charge but me not get paid). This time the clincher was J*** asking so elegantly if I would "be so kind as to" & of course I said yes.

This is how I happened a few afternoons ago to be standing in the community rec center blathering on about foundation free string piecing. Again.

The group theme is mini-quilts: those small scale replicas of larger quilts, with tiny patterns on tiny bits of fabric held together with tiny stitches. Whereas I consider a 4' by 4' quilt to be on the small side. They have been making mini-string quilts last month, this month; mini-quilts take longer than you would think.

For me, this meant getting together at least some of the string quilts I have made & then flung to the far corners of the US. I wanted to say earth, but although I have sent strings, sample blocks & patterns to Australia & Iraq (they asked for them, no really) that seemed an exaggeration. Although now that I think about it most of my string quilts are in Florida & New England, which are actually the closest corners of the US. Whatever, it meant tracking them down.  Some were just across town, but others had further to travel. 

& track them I did, with varied success.

While not the first I ever made, this is the original pattern.  Concept, too as there were many many classic pooh scraps left over from something.  The first is, I am sorry to say somewhere in limbo.  It left here in March 2008 to be given as a mitzvah for one of my niece's First Communion (yes, we like to mix things up).  & there it has sat, still pending for reasons I am not sure I understand but...I digress.

My sister sent the quilts she & her daughter got one year at holiday time.  Guess which one belongs to the grown woman & which belongs to the child who just painted her new bedroom weirdly orange-red? 


From my mom the first string quilt I made.  I think.  The scraps were from a much larger project & we needed to use them up & clear them out.  & I showed a few others but they are either pretty routine or their pics have already been shown on this blog so Iwill spare you.  As I look over my left-overs though I am realzing I could use some freshening.