Sewing on Sunday

The plan for today was to whack back the overgrown culinary herb garden, but the weather was drizzly and cold.  I decided to wait for some nicer weather, although I could have done it today.  If I'm going to be working outside however, I'd just as soon do it when it's warm rather than having to bundle up in July.  Sheesh.

Instead, I started on the July block for the Promises and Borders quilt.

I procrastinated tracing this design onto the fabric because this is a strip 7 x 34 inches (I think).  I've made long embroidered strips before.  It's kind of a hassle to get everything straight and pinned down so that it doesn't shift while you're tracing it.  As is usually the case, it wasn't nearly as dreadful a task as all the dread I'd put into it would indicate.  It was a perfectly awful waste of dread if you ask me.  (Did you ask me?)  I only allot myself a certain amount of dread each month, and now I've almost used it up with a whole week and a few days to go.  What will I do?

Also, I finished the top-stitching for the July Hello Sun BOM.  These blocks are so much fun to work on.

I like how the fish turned out.  Here are all the blocks I have completed so far.  I'm curious to see how we'll be instructed to sew these together.

Then I started on a NewFO.  My Doors of Ireland quilt was also a NewFO, but this White Birches quilt is the one I had planned to start at the beginning of the NewFO Challenge.  This pattern was featured in a previous issue of Quilter's World magazine.

These are the fabrics I'm using.

I decided to use the same gray polka dot fabric for the gray trees and the inner border because my stash is light on grays, I'm realizing.  What a great excuse to go on a fabric-buying spree . . . because I need lots of grays, don't you think?

Tomorrow I need to trek to the grocery store.  I have my menu planned and my list made, which is half the battle in my book.  If I get out of here early enough, I can go to the Golden Arches and have my beloved Egg McMuffin.  If I have to go grocery shopping, I figure I deserve a treat.

Now here's something:  Did you know that in 1995 a marketing firm called Sponsorship Research International conducted a survey of 7,000 people in the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, India, and Japan.  Their survey found that of those 7,000 people surveyed, 88% could identify the Golden Arches, while just 54% could identify the Christian cross.  This was in a note in the appendix of the book, Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser.  It's a very good book, by the way.  In the way that some books can cause you to laugh out loud, this one can cause you to say "Ewww" out loud.  I know because I said it out loud in a crowded waiting room while reading the book once.


But here's something else you should know about the Golden Arches.  I read this somewhere once (I think in the same book), and then just now found it again on the BBC World Service website:

The M stands for McDonald’s, but the rounded m represents mummy’s mammaries, acccording the design consultant and psychologist Louis Cheskin. In the 1960's McDonald's was prepared to abandon this logo, but Cheskin successfully urged the company to maintain this branding with its Freudian symbolism of a pair of nourishing breasts. 

You can put that in the "useless information I learned at Cat Patches" category.


Okay, now I've gotten completely far afield from my post about sewing, but that's how my mind works.  Yes, one mention of something unrelated and I go off on all sorts of tangents.  That should give you some idea how confusing it is to talk to me in person.  One minute I'm talking about sewing, the next I'm talking about mammary glands.  It can be embarrassing.  I think I'll just stop right here before I go saying something I'll regret.


I'll be linking this post to: