Important post about copyright, especially re: The Farmer's Wife

Stitching Fun: I'm calling "shenanigans" - There are limits to an author's rights!

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along - Week 7

Hi! My name is Jennifer, and I'm a Farmer's Wife-aholic! I've done 22 blocks in 8 days (not counting the last one, which I'm going to redo), so I'm caught up & then some. Maybe it's time to ease up a bit and get back to my myriad other projects, but this is such a fun project! Anyway, here's the skinny on this week's blocks.

#7 - Birds in the Air

Paper-pieced the first quadrant (top left), then I thought I'd give the next a try using templates (bottom right). It came out OK, but a little wonky, so I did the final 2 paper-pieced as well.



Rotary cut, with help from Marti Mitchell's templates. The top & bottom rows are one rectangle with corners cut off (rather than 2 HSTs plus a square) to keep from chopping up the fabric pattern too much.

#8 - Bouquet

Used the templates for this, and it went together quite easily. I'm also happy with the fabric combo on this one.

#11 - Broken Dishes

I made the HSTs using Jean Korte's free HST PDF paper pattern, then just sewed them into rows. Worked quite nicely, and definitely quicker than templates or even making 8 individual squares' worth of HSTs. The only problem was that the colors had me craving raspberry-lime sherbet.

#12 - Broken Sugar Bowl

Rotary cut, with HSTs speed-pieced. This was kind of a PITA, and I'm not sure why. I seemed to just keep making mistakes all the way through the process. In fact, the center square is 90° off, but I only noticed it when I was done, and I just didn't have the will to take it apart & fix it. The block still looks OK, I think.

#20 - Churn Dash

I needed something quick & easy after the previous block, so I chose this one. Rotary cut, speed-pieced HSTs. Phew!

#69 - Practical Orchard

Rotary cut, speed-pieced QST. I love making QSTs this way, seems like a miracle every time one comes together. The lighter yellow is actually the reverse side of the fabric, which preserved almost all of the pattern's detail, while toning the color down a couple of notches, which made for better contrast with the other yellow.

#13 - Buckwheat

Paper-pieced, with a pattern drafted by me using Anita Grossman Solomon's technique. I wasn't sure if the 3 colors had enough value difference to make the block work, but I'm happy with the finished block.

#41 - Friendship Star

Again, I wanted something I could whip off quickly. Rotary cut, speed-pieced HSTs.

#21 - Contrary Wife

Another quickie (I'm terribly afraid that I'm going to run out of easy blocks to do, and be left with only the hard ones.) You know the drill: rotary cut, speed-pieced HSTs.

#14 - Butterfly at the Crossroads

I actually used the templates on this one, and it came out OK, but for other blocks like this, I think I'm going to paper-piece.

#68 - Postage Stamp

I've been saving up 1½" square scraps from my other blocks. I had been thinking about paper-piecing it using Terrie Sandelin's miniature technique, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and just sewed the pieces up into the block. It probably would have been more accurate if I'd paper-pieced it, but this way was definitely quicker.

#15 - Buzzard's Roost

I used the "no-waste flying geese" method for most of this block. Not 100% happy with it -- I think the points could have been better. I probably would have done just as well just going with the templates.

#17 - Cats & Mice (1st try)

I'm including this one for, I don't know, journalistic accuracy? I paper-pieced this, but I didn't draft the pattern correctly, and the points don't match well enough. Definitely going to be redoing this one. The color combo's nice, at least.

Whew!

Modern doesn't have to mean Wonky

Check out these amazing quilts by Kay Koeper Sorensen.

Quilts + Color: Quilts Radiating From The Center

"The Alot is Better Than You at Everything"

From Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything:

But there is one grammatical mistake that I particularly enjoy encountering. It has become almost fun for me to come across people who take the phrase "a lot" and condense it down into one word, because when someone says "alot," this is what I imagine:

I would say, "Seriously, go read the whole post" only the whole post is hysterically funny, so just go read it.

NPR Monkey See: Paying a Penny at Bedlam

On last night's Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, the host explained that he wasn't going to be doing any more Charlie Sheen jokes. He's done them, he acknowledged, but he's not doing them anymore. And he explained why.

This post, by the ineffable Linda Holmes, says exactly what I've been thinking for the last day or so, but she expressed it much more clearly.

Bravo to Craig Ferguson for walking away from the mess, and shame on all those other networks for exploiting a man's illness.

And no, I'm not much of a Charlie Sheen fan, but whether it's "just" drug addiction, or something more like manic-depression, he's clearly in need of help, and nothing about those interviews is going to provide it.

Are you on... The List?

Dun, dun, dun!!!

No, it's nothing bad, it's just Red Pepper Quilts' Patchwork and Quilting Blog List.

Add yourself! Make new friends! Collect them all!!

Linky-Poo

Boy howdy, do I love these black-and-white blocks! Perfect blend of modern & traditional. RETRO-Fabulous: RSVP Designs.

This too, also fabulous: i'm a ginger monkey: 80's Bat Wing Sweater (Courtesy of Modern Day Quilts)

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1600

I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to describe the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats comic strip (which is not the same thing as the LOLCats captioned photos), so I did a web search.  Whaddya know, Wikipedia comes through again:

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats is a series of cartoons created by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford that features two anthropomorphic hobo cats named Kitteh and Pip. The series consists of mostly single-panel cartoons that combine internet memes associated with LOLcats (from which the series takes its name) and other forms of internet slang and contemporary humor with a visual style that pays homage to early 20th century comic strips such as Krazy Kat.

Anyway, that long build-up was just to point you to the 1600th strip (the creator usually does something special for the big round numbers), which is super-duper awesome.  You may need to read it a couple of times to get the whole time-space continuum thing that's happening (I did, anyway).