Gripped by Gripes

A quilter's burdens never cease. Am I right about that? If you're not running out of bobbin thread, you're untangling knotty needles. Here's a case in point.

Once again, I'm behind on the Marvelous Mini Mondays (which is gripe #1, in case you're keeping a tally). It's only partly because we were gone last week. The rest is because last week's Mini was downright cruel. Feast your eyes on this block I made yesterday.

There are to be five of these. Each contains 36 squares cut to 1-1/8 inch. That means to complete all of them, I'll need to cut 180 1-1/8 inch squares. Some of my fellow quilters are doing these in strip sets, but if I did that, what would I have to gripe about? Certainly, things are going well enough here at the Three Cats Ranch that my gripe cache is in short supply. So that's gripe #2, but I'm not finished with this. Oh no...this block contains a positively unlimited plethora of possibilities for protesting. (Awesome alliteration.)

Here's the thing: The blocks are 6 x 6 of 1-1/8 inch squares. They're supposed to end up at 4 x 4 inches (unfinished). So let's just do that math, shall we? And, even though I'm too old for math, one can never be too old for math, if that makes any sense. And why would it? Huh? Don't give me one more thing to gripe about. Consider yourself warned.

Here we go:

1-1/8 = 1.125

6 x 1.125 = 6.75 inches

Now. There are five seams. So there is a loss of

5 x .5 = 2.5 inches

And I'm very good at subtraction, so let's just see...

6.75 - 2.5 = 4.25 inches

So, I don't care how accurately you cut your squares or how accurate your quarter-inch seam allowance, there ain't no way those blocks end up at 4 inches. And unless someone can point me to a miscalculation on my part, I'm just going to stand here and stamp my foot until it hurts. (End of gripe #3.) And since these are such a painus in the anus, I considered doing them in strip sets like my more sensible friends. But then, you know...there's the griping, and sometimes you just need that in your life. For my quilt, I decided to suck it up and do them one block per day until they're done. That means I have four more days to whine about this.

Also, I finished the next block (yesterday's), which, happily came to 4 x 4 inches like it was supposed to.

Also, I finished framing the two quilt labels for my entries into this year's Oregon State Fair. Usually, I just use the cut off ends of the binding strips, and that's what I did for these two.

Now they're ready to be sewn onto their respective quilts along with their hanging sleeves. (Must get those done!)

Okay, so here's my next gripe (Gripe #4). I like to use these binding clips from Dritz for sewing on my quilting bindings. I know there are other brands, but this is what I started with, and this is what I'm sticking with...for now. So, when I bought the first packet, they had an actual rivet there on the right side that held them together.

And I didn't have nearly enough with just one packet, so I bought another couple of packets. The new ones came with this stupid "spot weld" (the Resident Engineer provided the terminology for this gripe). See it there on the right? It's no longer an actual rivet, but just a place where the metal has been sort of fused together.

And this "spot weld" is wholly inadequate and the binding clips come apart with just regular usage. Over time, my supply has dwindled, and I've cursed each time one came apart. Also over time, I convinced myself that I'd probably purchased these in bulk from some off brand and that when I needed more, I'd simply return to the Dritz brand-name, and all would be well.

So, I went to my favorite shopping mall last week, Amazon.com, and I carefully checked the picture, assuring myself that the Dritz brand would contain the superior actual rivets at the business end there.

And when you look at that picture above, you can see that they do. Thank goodness. Only, they arrived yesterday, and I was mightily dismayed to discover that they too had the deficient "spot weld" as you can see in the image below.

Well, being in a griping mood, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote to Dritz, demanding an explanation for this most recent outrage. Their email complaint form allowed me to send only one image, but you know...photography. And I will not be deterred. So I simply made up a collage of the offending images and sent it on to them.

And, of course, I pulled out the "I-am-a-Blogger!" knife, stuck it in, and twisted it. I warned them of disastrous consequences should they piss off the Community of Blogging Quilters. "I have friends!" I warned.

So, I have just one more word to say about this: Hmph. I'll let you know what they say when and if they say it. Anyone keeping score? How many gripes was that? Okay, well, I'm fresh out. Which is galling, to say the least.

This morning, I took a few more stitches on the last of the Summer Holiday stitcheries.

This one will be put aside for a bit while I work on the August Bag Lady, Constance. She has just the first few stitches...a little purple on her hat, and the silver buckle and earrings.

She'll get more done on her tomorrow. Is it just me, or does her hat make her look a little like a quilting version of Dick Tracy?

Today is a CSA pick-up day. With all the griping I did yesterday, now I've fallen behind on my housework...which is just one more gripe to add to the list. I'll have to catch up a little today. For now, just take a look at my little bionic cat.

She was fresh at home from being microchipped, and now she's registered online should she ever go missing. She was a little trooper getting her chip. The vet said she didn't even flinch. I just reminded her that Smitty had a chip, and whatever Smitty does, Sadie wants to do it too.