Various & Sundry 2018 n.6

I am kind of slacking on Various & Sundry posts this year for some reason. Oh well, life, I suppose, or just busyness.

Doing Good

I have mentioned Covered in Love projects before. Valerie of Evening in the Garden Quilts contributes regularly. If you need just need to sew, this group will take all the blocks you can make and they give you the pattern. The May-June ask is for X-Plus blocks like I made for the BAMaQG pillow swap. This is an ongoing request, so you can keeping making those blocks as long as you want.

The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles is partnering with the Mayor’s office in a gun buyback. For each gun turned in, the owner will receive cash and a quilt. The museum is collecting quilts for this endeavor. Find out more on their page.

WelcomeBalanket.org is collecting blankets for an exhibition at he Museum of Design in Atlanta that will eventually be given to refugees and others in need. The website reads:

Welcome Blanket will be part of MODA’s “Making Change: The Art and Craft of Activism” exhibition, from June 3 to September 9, 2018. Betsy Greer is the curator.

Please send your Welcome Blanket and note by August 25, 2018 to:

Welcome Blanket
MODA
1315 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, GA 30309

Sadly, Stanford has changed its criteria for donation quilts so the guild will no longer be giving them quilts. For now, my guild has nowhere to donate quilts. The Charity girls are looking for a new place. It makes me sad, though Stanford is trying to minimize infection, which I can understand.

Tips, Tricks, Projects & Tutorials

Judy Martin has a Block of the Moment up on her site. Did you see it?

I found a definitive name for the regular graph paper we all use for various things. It is called Cartesian graph paper. How did I never know that? I found the definition in the very comprehensive and fabulous All Points Patchwork by Diane Gilleland. It is a good day when I learn something new.

The Splendid Sampler 2 has started. Alex Veronelli designed the first block, which is available and people have already been showing their versions. Rebecca Bryan designed the second block, which is available. Pat Sloan has a discount for Oliso irons on Rebecca Bryan’s post as well.

Quilt Bias Binding Tips

Quilt World News and Events

One of my librarian friends sent me a link to an article about the Centennial Quilt Guild’s program at the King Bruwaert House.

HollyAnne, over at String & Story, is doing a Summer Stash Busting Project. The first post has videos and lays out the plan for the whole summer.

Edgestitch had an article about the Cotton & Steel designers leaving. As mentioned, it “sounds as though RJR was having difficulty with technology, and deliveries weren’t being made to quilt shops in a timely manner, record-keeping and accounting was faulty, with a lack of training and many other issues that make or break businesses.” As soon as I hear what happened, I’ll report here. Who knows if we will ever hear the whole story, though?

Have you listened to Frances’ new podcast? It is a serialized version of a new book (??) called Friendship Quilt, 1933. I have listened to the first two episodes and am about to start the third. I download it from Google Music, which seems to take a bit to download each episode (yes, I have settings configured correctly), but eventually does it. Find out more on the QuiltFiction.com site.

Inspiration

I saw an article in the Paris Review on a lowly desk calendar turned work of art. If you have a desk calendar (rather than just Outlook or Google Calendar), you, too, can add a little art into your work schedule.

Need some color inspiration (in addition from my periodic ColorPlay posts, of course!)? Take a look at the tropical fish webcam.

I got this straight from ResearchBuzz: “File this one under given-value-of-useful, but it’s pretty neat. Hyperallergic: Create Your Own Art Catalogue from LACMA’s Collection. “Ever wander through a museum and fantasize about organizing your own exhibition, rearranging a gallery, or putting together all the artworks you love most into one room? A new tool developed by the Hyundai Project at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) allows you to imagine what this might look like. With Collator, you can compile and publish your own book (or catalogue, if you will) of artworks from the museum’s permanent collection.”

Fabric & Supplies

For those of you who have been to PIQF, I am sure you have seen the Heartway booth. They have interesting Japanese fabrics, buttons and unique patterns. They now have a new website and online shopping site. There are lots of cute animal prints.

If you need to know how to dispose of your craft supplies, the National Library of Medicine has a database of household products called the Household Products database. You can look at safety data sheets, information on how to dispose of the product and other information. There is an arts & crafts section so you can get right to the relevant types of products.

NQR

“For a long, long time it seemed to me that I was about to begin real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

– Alfred Souza