All in good time

Do you guys remember Mark B.? Marky Mark? Magic Marker? Mark B. Goode? Sparky Mark?

Perhaps this will refresh your memory:

If you recall, that right there is my magic ironing board cover, a gift from my friend Peggi.

WANT ONE?

Remember that auction thing I was gonna do to raise money that my calendar didn't make because I have been a terrible blogger this past year? (Go back and read this post if you need a refresher.) And then remember how the whole beginning of 2013 just sucked big donkey balls?

Okay, let me back up for a minute.

This blog means the world to me. I started it back when I started teaching myself how to quilt, and it has grown right along with my sewing skills. Then...a bunch of other stuff happened, semi-career-wise, and I got, let's say, distracted. I have been promising myself (and you) over and over that I would be back, that I would stop shoving this blog I love so much to the side, but it just didn't work out that way.

But that's got to change. It has to. I can't let this baby wither and die. I've been going on for a very long time knowing that my life wasn't right, but not knowing how to fix it. And now I know.

I need to sew. And I need to write—I need to write for me. Those are the things that bring me joy. And dirty ironing board covers, on occasion.

Several weeks ago, I got a call from a friend who wanted me to make a quilt for her. It was okay if I couldn't do it; she would understand. But it would be a cool thing for her and me if I could do it. (Vague, yeah, but that's all I can say about it.) I knew I had to say yes. I also knew that I had barely touched my sewing machine at all in the last 12 months, so I might have been promising more than I could deliver. So, I had to sew something. Just to see if I still could.

So, I started with these bags (which, honestly, look a hell of a lot better hanging here than they do up close. The pattern (which you can find here)involves weird twisting and pinning and folding and there are places where they're just being held together by static electricity or something.):

Then these pillows (the paper piecing pattern for the design on the left is here and a tutorial for the Somerset star on the right can be found here) :

And then I dug out some fabric I had cut for another project that didn't work out, and decided to sew them into nine patches and combine them with some Kona charcoal on point. With little slashes of color mixed in. (My "design", if you want to call it that. Or, my what-the-hell. Whichever.):

And that quilt top? I'm hand quilting it. Nope, I've never hand quilted anything, but I figure, why stop now? Might as well learn everything while I have the chance, right?

So, anyway. Yeah. I think I can still sew okay.

But can I write? Do I still have anything to say? That's harder. I didn't have my regular column in the last issue of GenQ, because I just couldn't come up with anything. It's the first time in, I don't know, ALWAYS, that I haven't turned in a writing assignment. I would sit and stare at the screen for hours and if I did manage to type something, it was dry and bland and not even remotely amusing.

I've come to a lot of realizations concerning this over the last few months, and eventually, I'll tell you more of them. But for now, I'll say this. I can't write if I don't write, and I haven't been writing at all. And that has got to change.

This blog has always been where I can write without obligation. I don't have to please anybody but myself here, and I have to remember that. Even if all my readers have gone away, then fuck it, I'll just start over. And it may not be as good as it was at first, but then again, maybe it will be like the sewing, and I'll find I'm still okay at it. But whether it's good or whether it sucks the aforementioned donkey balls, at least it won't be nothing.

So, I'm going to set a goal of two posts a week for now. Maybe Mondays and Thursdays. (Yes, this is Tuesday. Whatevs.) I think I can handle that. You up for it?

So, where was I? Oh, yeah. Mark the Shark and his Magically Appearing Wonder Wiener. Peggi sent me two Mark B.-emblazoned ironing board covers for the auction, so now I really gotta get my ass in gear and have the damn thing. But, knowing how much I have neglected the blog and how few people are still reading it, I thought I'd try my two-posts-a-week experiment for a while and see if we can get some readers back before we start. So, I'm going to say that the auction will start in the first week of May. There will be fabric and patterns and calendars and naked men—pretty much everything this blog stands for.

Wish me luck.

Stop all the clocks

You know that Auden poem, Funeral Blues? It's the one that John Hannah recites at his lover's funeral in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. I kept thinking of those first four words: Stop all the clocks. Because when someone you love dies, your world stops, but nothing else does. Kids still demand to be fed and entertained, work still has to be done, you still have to get out of bed and get dressed and present yourself as though nothing is wrong but everything is wrong. It feels as though nothing will be right ever again and the fact that nothing else in the world is reflecting this fact back at you makes you feel so resentful of everything that isn't stopping.

When my sister called to tell me Jon was gone, I was in bed. It was a Tuesday afternoon, but I was in bed because I had been up all night barfing my intestines out, after having nursed the girls through the same stomach bug for the three days prior. The previous day, I had gotten a phone call from Jon's wife. She said a friend of hers had given her some money to use for Jon in some way, and she decided that the best thing she could do with it was to fly me down so I could see him. She thought that would mean more to him than anything else she could do with it. "He sleeps most of the time now," she said, "but I just tell him I'm there and sit with him while he sleeps and he seems to like that." I didn't have a chance to start looking up flights before I started to feel ill. The next day, he was gone.

His memorial service was that Saturday, so I had to frantically finish the next issue of the magazine and cross my fingers that I did everything ok so I could fly out Friday morning. I stayed with my sister, and we stayed up that night trying to write something to say at the service the next day. We both knew we'd never get through anything without breaking down, and we toyed with the idea of getting someone to read it for us, but ultimately I decided I would get through it somehow and made Kelly promise to stand next to me while I read it.

His memorial service was packed, and it was evident how much Jon was loved. He had that ability to relate to anyone and that, combined with a sense of humor that was both sweet and wicked, endeared him to everyone he met. His wife's cousin gave the eulogy, and it was the most eloquent and moving and perfect tribute to my brother anyone could have given. Jon was a member of the U.S. Military Vets, TN 2 Motorcycle Club, and his brothers in the club were a major part of the service. They were all dressed in jeans and leather vests or jackets, looking every bit like what you would expect a bunch of bikers to look like, except they were at a funeral and not a dive bar. They sent Jon off (after playing Taps and presenting his wife with a flag, as though at an actual military funeral) by going out to the parking lot and revving the engines on their bikes. Jon would have loved that, even though the rest of us were giving all the bikers the stink eye at that point.

I started grieving the moment I knew what kind of cancer Jon had almost three years ago. I've been able to let go of that grief for fairly long periods as he thrived and beat all the odds, but I always knew what was coming. It was when he had his surgery last summer, and could no longer use his left side and would never be able to, and thus came the decision to stop treatment, that the worst of the grief began to work its way through me. I went back to see him one more time, and I have not written about that visit because it ripped my heart to shreds. It was, in many ways, a wonderful visit, because we laughed together so much, just like we always have, and because there was a moment when Jon reached out and took my hand and looked me in the eyes and though I probably won't write about what he said specifically, I knew that no matter what happened after that, my brother knew just how much I loved him and would never be in doubt of it.

Jon once told me, just a few months after he was diagnosed, that he would not have traded the experience of having cancer for anything, because he got to see so much love and goodness and care come out of people. And I know that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to tell him what he meant to me—what he still means to me now and will forever—but I also feel such despair because the cost of that was losing him.

I will grieve for my brother forever. Grief doesn't really end, but it does get better, and I know it will get better for all of us. I have thoughts all the time about little things I want to do, just for myself, to keep his memory alive and to pay tribute. Perhaps it's the writer in me that loves the symbolism in little gestures like that.  But no matter what I do to memorialize him for myself, I know that I will always feel him near when I hear a song I know he loved because he shared it with me, when I hear the growl of a Harley's engine, and when I look up at the night sky at the stars swirling above me.

Rest in peace, big brother. I love you.

1971

2004

2010

Where I am

I realized this evening after getting a "where are you?" comment, that many of you may not be on Facebook and so do not know that my brother passed away on Tuesday. I am currently in Tennessee at my sister's house, having attended his memorial service this morning.

I hope to write something here soon. There is so much I need to say. But I will be here with my family for another couple of days, and it will take me some time to write after I come home.

Thank you, everyone. For everything.

Going once, going twice...hey! Where are you going?

First of all, I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased this year's QSMASB calendar. A lot of sales were made during Lulu.com's big promo and that has helped a great deal, but, sadly, this year's total sales are still far, far below last year's. Now I know much of that is my fault. I haven't been able to push and promote and ask people to spread the word as much as I could last year, so I'd like to try one more thing and maybe get your feedback on some of the details.

The S.O. of one of the models tried to order seven calendars to show off her nekkid man to all their friends, but oops, she ordered 2012 instead of 2013. Lulu.com was awesome and replaced the calendars for her, but didn't want her to return the 2012s, so she sent them to me in the hopes that I could do something with them. I thought about auctioning them off and asked my Facebook hive what I could include with them to sweeten the pot. So, based on their suggestions and my own ideas and a generous donation from the always awesome Sam Hunter, here's what I have to offer:

Each 2012 calendar will be autographed by me (yeah, I know - big whoop, but people kept suggesting it so there it is). One calendar will be offered with this:

And one with this:

And another with these:

One calendar will be paired with this set of 21 buttons from the incomparable Sam Hunter (my favorites are "sewinatrix" and "rhymes with stitch!"):

The amazing, intrepid, and always fan-fucking-tastic Sam has also donated EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HER PATTERN COLLECTION. EVERY. ONE. Including Blanket Statement, her incredible paper-pieced alphabet that also includes a CD of all the letters. See why I always talk about Sam in superlatives?

But that makes 5 and I have seven calendars. So, for the last two, I will add this: I will embroider a curse word of the winner's choosing on a 10X10 square of white Moda fabric. Of course, that would have a lot more impact if I had a finished example to show you but, just work with this for now:

I'll even add flowers and shit to make it pretty! Now, these will take a while, so you have to be willing to wait a month or two to get it, but I'll do my best to make it worth it.


So, here's what I'm thinking: I'll put each item up as a separate post, but I'll put them all up on one day. I'll leave the auction open for several days, and in that time you can bid on what you want by leaving a comment with the amount of your bid. I'll have comment moderation turned on, so I'll see your comments but no one else will. A couple times each day, I'll update the item's post with the current highest bid so you can bid again if you want. Once bidding has closed, I'll announce the winners for each.

Does that sound reasonable? I'd like to do this here rather than on eBay, so this seemed like a good way to go about it. Leaving it up for several days gives lots of people a chance to bid whenever and maybe no one will yell at me. And I also won't have to give a bunch of the proceeds to eBay in fees.

And second question: before or after Christmas? I know this is a rough time of year financially for lots of people so maybe this is the kind of thing you'd want to do after Christmas. I mean it is a 2012 calendar, so it's not like you HAVE to get it before January.

So, please let me know what you think and I'll let you know in a day or two how I've decided to go forward.

Love,

Douchy McAsshat

Sewn Hats: A Review

Note: Back a long, long time ago, way before I started working on GenQ, I had a whole bunch of plans for this blog, one of which was to occasionally do book and product reviews. But, you know, good ones, not just rah, rah cheery ones so that people will advertise and send me free stuff. I am trying to renew my commitment to keeping this blog alive and in that spirit, I give you my first book review.

I've pretty much decided that all patterns for all things should be written by people who have advanced degrees in some scientific field. I am fairly sure that this is the key to me not wanting to take the author of any particular pattern and smack him or her around for a while for writing such incomprehensible gobbledygook. When I was a new quilter, I stumbled and cursed my way through a lot of bad patterns, and the difficulty in interpreting poorly worded instructions kept me from attempting more complicated things, even when I was probably ready to do so. Fortunately, this is often what I wrote about and managed to turn that into a minor career as a quilting humorist, so THANK YOU, CRAPPY PATTERN WRITERS.

I had also avoided attempting to make clothing, except for the odd skirt that required only straight lines and some elastic in a tube. But sleeves? Hell, no. Zippers? There was no way anybody could possibly explain—with, you know, words and stuff—how to sew in a zipper. People who made things with zippers were clearly giving it to their moms to do for them and then lying about it on their blogs.

And then I discovered Carla.

Well, to be more specific, I discovered Sis Boom Patterns, which are created by both Jennifer Paganelli and Carla Hegeman Crim. (Carla also has her own line of patterns under the name The Scientific Seamstress.) I made the Patricia Tunic for me and the Marissa dress for each of my girls. Sleeves! ZIPPERS! And the instructions were so incredibly good, I kind of fell in love. Carla has a degree in molecular biology, and I have become convinced that the rigors of scientific research and writing (and the aptitude for such things) have helped make Carla into the incredible pattern writer she is today.

See, I love clarity, and I have a great deal of respect for anyone who can speak, write, or otherwise convey information in a way that is easy to understand without being overly simplistic. With the Sis Boom patterns, I felt like I had a teacher with me, helping me along and making sure I didn't sew my hand to my face while also letting me know that the techniques I was about to attempt were perfectly doable by anyone who was not completely (or partially, for that matter) drunk. AND I learned to sew zippers. Myself. No mom anywhere.

I have since purchased a bunch of Carla's patterns and more Sis Boom patterns, and when I heard on Facebook that Carla was publishing a book on hats I was SO excited, both for Carla because, yay—book!, but also for me. See, I love hats, but I never buy them because I have a gigantic melon head. Seriously. Hats do not fit me. They sit perched on top of my skull like something Princess Eugenie would wear to the gym. I turn every hat into a sad fascinator.

Sewn Hats has patterns for babies, kids, and adults, and the adult hats fit all the way up to Gigantic Melon. I know this, because she has a very easy-to-read chart that shows where your head circumference fits in the range of sizes that are given for each pattern. (And yes, I measured my head, and it is, apparently, freakishly huge, but is at least actually on the chart. Unlike some of my other parts.) And instead of an envelope crammed with tissue paper pattern pieces, which I despise, you  download a PDF of the project and print them yourself. If the pattern has different sizes, the first page will tell you which pages to print for the size you want. Then, if you want to make the hat again in a different size, you just print out what you need—no more trying to salvage those damn tissues you already cut up. This is pure genius, and is the same way all Carla's individual patterns have been done, but the first time I have ever seen it in a publication. I suppose it's possible that other books have been done this way, but if they have, I'm totally going to ignore it and give Carla all the credit.

The first chapter has a ton of great information about tools and techniques, so don't skip it. I tend to gloss over this kind of section in most books, because it's usually all "I'm going to teach you to sew in 4 pages" and doesn't tell you anything worthwhile, but Carla isn't doing that. This gives you specific info on the stuff you will be using to make these hats (think interfacings, glues, and starch), techniques you might not be familiar with, and tips on reading the patterns themselves.

The patterns are exactly what you would expect, considering the high praise I've already given. This is a curated book, meaning that Carla has her own patterns here but has also gathered patterns from many other people such as Melissa Stramel, Bari J., Betz White, Shelly Figueroa, and many more—but the patterns have all been written and edited and illustrated to be consistent with Carla's style. And that makes me confident about every pattern in the book.

And, oh, the hats are so stinking cute! I apologize for the crappy photography, but the book won't fit on my scanner.

There's every kind of hat you can imagine and several you probably can't. There's cute, pretty, silly, fussy, simple—even a good old do-rag. If you can't find a hat in here you like, well then you are clearly just a soulless hat-hater and no good can come from any association with you.

Just so you know, Carla did give me this book, but I have determined that I will never praise a book on this blog that I don't actually love, so if it had turned out that I hated it, you would never have heard about it at all. I don't give praise lightly, so when I do give it, you know I mean it.

By the way, your ass looks fabulous in that hat.

For lack of anything else to post about...

...I am going to share more of my Market pictures, ones that weren't used on GenQ. Enjoy!

Cool stuff from Tula Pink:

This is going to be sold as a kit with pre-cut hexies!

Can you see the quilted rope around the anchor?

Retro chic is still a thing.

Brights were big at Michael Miller:

See? Retro again. Bet you ten bucks somebody makes an 8-track tape quilt pattern soon.

I really liked these updated Dresden Plate patterns at EZ Quilting:

As usual, Amy Butler's booth was big and beautiful, and usually jammed packed with people. (I scared 'em away for the shots:

And David Butler's booth right next door was tiny (but awesome) and I never saw anyone in it. Except David:

And this was Melody Miller's booth. All that retro chic? Pretty much her doing. But she does it really well.

What shocks me when I go back and look at my pictures is how much I didn't shoot. I still feel shy about it, for some reason, like somebody is gonna go, "Hey, you can't photograph that!" And that is not necessarily an unlikely thing. As I have discovered, Quilt Market is a place where you can easily get a lot of, "Hey, you can't!" We were trying to pick up schedules for Schoolhouse, and the woman handing them out was desperately trying to weed out the undesireables by being as intimidating as possible. I'm surprised we weren't asked to show our papers.

I'm going to try to get a review of Sewn Hats up on Wednesday, and then be sure to come back Friday because I have some begging to do then and you know you don't want to miss that!

I hear Ty Pennington is hosting Extreme Introvert Makeover

I'm just going to say it. I'm going to just say it flat out and damn the consequences. I may be shunned and become a social pariah for the rest of my - OH, WAIT.

I really hate going to Quilt Market.

"But, Megan," you say. "How can you possibly hate meeting your quilting idols, being surrounded by so much eye candy, and receiving the love of GenQ/Bitchy Stitcher fans every day? Have you no soul?"

Yeah, I know. For a lot of people, all of those things are wonderful, and the networking opportunities are endless. I do enjoy looking at the fabrics and patterns and I did meet some really great people. But for the love of all that is good and holy in this world I was just never meant to be put in such close proximity to so many people for so many days in a row. By the end of the first day, I was so done, and I was actually praying for a major gastrointestinal event so that I would have an excuse to lock myself in a room and be alone for more than a minute and a half. I simply do not have the gene/gland/section of medulla oblongata that causes other people to walk into a room that is stuffed wall-to-wall with total and near strangers and go "WHASSUP, MAH BITCHEZ? IT'S PARTY TIME—WHO'S GOT THE EASY CHEESE?" Instead, I just feel a constant sense of dread and unease, and the stress makes me feel constantly ill. Yes, I know it's pathological and weird, but this is what events such as this are like for extreme introverts. (NEXT TIME, ON EXTREME INTROVERTS, MEGAN RESORTS TO HIDING HER HEAD INSIDE HER OWN SHIRT)

This is not to say that I don't like the people I went to Market with. On the contrary, I like them all very much. And I did have some great times with them over the course of the weekend. My roomie Bev must absolutely be my roomie on all future Market trips. I want to be her when I grow up, she is that awesome. She is friends with our editor-in-chief, Melissa, and comes to Markets to help us out in the booth, which she is excellent at. Woman can charm. She used to be a color commentator for car racing for ESPN back when women did NOT do that sort of thing, and I would pretty much give my left nut to see some footage of her work. And Tracy Mooney is just a pure pleasure to be around, despite the fact that she is tall, gorgeous, and built like the proverbial brick shithouse. There are few other people I'd do this with/for:

Nor are there many other people I'd go to a sex-n-hookah shop with when I'm already so tired I can barely see straight. This was directly across the street from our hotel:

A 24-hour smoke and porn shop. Naturally, we had to go. And naturally, when we walked in, another group of quilters was walking out. NO ONE CAN RESIST THE ALLURE OF GIANT DILDOS AND SEX SWINGS AFTER DRINKING ROBERT KAUFMAN'S FREE ALCOHOL.

And I know what your next question is: did I buy anything? Sadly, no. For one thing, I was truly exhausted, and one simply cannot purchase filth without a clear head. Also, the TSA has suddenly started rifling through my checked baggage. When did this start? I've never had my suitcase lock taken off before, never seen one of those "TSA was here" notes tucked into my stuff. I certainly don't need some bored government inspector getting his dirty mitts all over my brand new leather restraints. And, as usual, I just couldn't really afford anything. I mean, I suppose I could have bought some Dick Tarts or something, but yawn—been to that sex shop, bought that.

So, let's see. What were some of the other highlights?

1. Stuff. I know most people come home from Market with way more stuff than I had. For one thing, I couldn't go to Sample Spree (and frankly, Sample Spree is a total mystery to me. Everybody says that they only let certain people in, like the buyers for quilt shops, and then everybody and their grandmother shows up the next day and says how much they bought.). And for another, people just don't give me things. Again, other people? They go to a booth and say, "Hi, I'm from Generation Q Magazine," and suddenly they're all "Oh, my god, here, take some fabric and some books and some patterns and wait lemme look in my purse I might have some mints or an unexpired condom!" But if I go to a booth and say, "Hi, I'm the Creative Director of Generation Q Magazine," I get The Look.  The look that goes, "Uh huh. And I care about this because...?" And I'm lucky to get a post-it note with a website scribbled on it.

Still, I managed to come home with some cool shit. For one thing, I won a collection of Aurifil embroidery thread from Bari J at Schoolhouse, and then I won a set of Christmas embroidery threads from Presencia.

The swag bag from the Fabric 2.0 party was pretty sweet, and also included some magazines (ours included) which I cannot seem to find at the moment:

But the absolute best thing - and right now, for me, there is not much better than embroidery stuff - was this:

Carla Crim is truly one of my idols because her patterns are Just. So. Good. We became acquainted when I reviewed one of her patterns for GenQ and found out that we lived in relative proximity. Sadly, before we could actually meet and hang out, she and her family moved to upstate New York, but in the meantime, she had promised me a copy of her book, and she had one for me at Market! And even without the book, it was a blast to meet her and find out that she really is as cool as you would imagine somebody who is Just. That. Good. would be. She is definitely someone I will look forward to seeing again. (And I'm going to be reviewing this book more in-depth in the next few weeks.)

2. People. I amy not be a people person, but I did have some great moments with actual human beings. I got to meet these two ladies:

Those would be Kelly Biscopink on the right and Andie Johnson on the left, and they have written a new book called Modern Designs for Classic Quilts. I saw their Schoohouse presentation, and then was able to chat with them a bit in our booth later, and they were just very easygoing and funny, and I really hope we get to work with them in the future.

Of course, I saw this freakazoid:

That damn woman spotted me in the hallway during Schoolhouse and actually tackled me. TACKLED. As in ran to me at full speed, jumped on me, and threw us both to the fucking floor. I seriously love her.

And I got to meet the great Sam Hunter live and in the flesh:

Sam has become one of those great friends I've never met (until now, obvs.)—somebody I truly adore and respect whom I have only known through email, facebook, texts, and phone calls. She's also a kick-ass quilt designer. Go buy her stuff.

And there were a few people—not many, mind you, but a few—who stopped by the booth to meet me, and that was just so, so wonderful. I'm sure the reality of meeting me is something of a disappointment, since, you know, the introvert thing, and I just feel so tongue-tied and awkward and I think people expect me to be just the way I write and I can be, but only after I've known you for a long time, not at first, and especially not when I'm tired and overwhelmed and missing my family so much. So if you stopped by, and weren't particularly impressed, blame my faulty genes/glands/medulla oblongata. And if you stopped by—thank you. You made me feel really good.

3. And of course there were the booths and all the fabrics and just the way booths were decorated. Sadly, almost all of my pics were taken for GenQ and I can't use any of them until they have been picked through for the GenQ Market posts this week. And there was so much that I didn't manage to get pictures of, because I was truly overwhelmed by it all.

Still, I came away with even more excitement about my newest obsession: embroidery. I worked on two special projects before I left, so that I could literally display my new obsession on my person at all times:

A cameo! Out of french knots!

This is a cuff bracelet made from wool felt. I drew the vine freehand with a water soluble marker and used a quarter to mark the outline for the flowers/buttholes. These are both projects I hope to perfect and possibly share with you in the future if anybody might be interested. Sadly, no one noticed them, but it's not like they were easy to see. Still, I'm proud of them and I feel like embroidery is going to be a big part of my life for a while.

I'm sure there's a million things I've forgotten, LIKE THE FREAKIN' HURRICANE, but it is way past my bedtime. Plus, my eyeballs are totally sore and bloodshot from the embroidery I did all afternoon. You guys, it's like I'm cheating on quilting with embroidery. It's awesome.