Quilter's Math

Does it seem to you that the days go by faster and faster all the time? Honestly, I feel as if I've just gotten up, but then I look at the clock, and it's time to make dinner. It makes me think of something one of my social work professors said once. Before moving into academia, she'd worked with the "frail elderly." She told our class that she'd asked one of her clients if time just kept going faster and faster as they got older. They said it did. Oy. I suppose it's like sand through the hour glass. If you've ever watched the last granules as they flow through, they do seem to move faster than when they started. So, while I hope I haven't entered the category of "frail," I'm getting used to the idea of being "elderly." It's this time-moving-so-fast part that chaps my hide. And, I suppose focusing on this gives me something else to think about aside from the election. But let's not go there, okay?

Instead, let's just talk about sewing. I finished up the ninth block for the Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs block. This one didn't have a lot of embroidery, and so it was pretty quick:

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Next, I'll get back to the hand quilting for Mulligan Stew. I swear I'm going to finish this quilt if it kills me. When I last worked on it, the areas inside the pink line were finished. I've been quilting around the edges, and so I'll choose one of the two remaining sides for this go-round. There are a few blocks that are still unquilted, and so I'll work on those as I come to them.

And speaking of killing me, let's just talk about my visit from Sue yesterday. Sue isn't the one trying to kill me, though. You might recall I had a couple of skin biopsies recently. One on my shoulder turned out to be nothing. Sadly, one on my nose turned out to be something...a small basal cell. I've had so many I've lost count, and so I don't get real worked up about these. I just sigh and submit to whatever torture my doctor wishes to administer. This one, being on my nose, means a rather painful Mohs procedure. It'll be the fourth I've had done on my poor nose. Aside from the numbing injection, the procedure itself isn't painful, but the recovery is. That is scheduled for the 10th. Sue kindly brought me my drug of choice, candy corn...

She offered to bring wine, but I suggested this particular procedure requires something stronger. She brought me a bottle of tequila. Perfect.

And one needs a receptacle to pour it into...although I'm not above drinking it straight from the bottle. So, Sue, smarty pants that she is, also brought a lime and a shot glass decorated with a picture of my nose. Here's the bottom of the glass.

What are friends for, right? We stood outside and chatted for a little while...COVID precautions, you know. As usual, there was a lot of laughing. We haven't seen one another in months, and so it was nice to get together, however briefly.

Since then, I've been breaking my brain trying to figure out this Appalachian Memories quilt. (And I feel I should point out here that I have not yet cracked the bottle of tequila. I broke my brain even though I was stone cold sober.) So here's my dilemma. Let's just take a look once again at how the quilt looks on the pattern cover.

And I like that setting, although I have different ideas about fabrics. Recall that I'm going to fussy cut these little quilt blocks for the cornerstones. I can cut them to 2-1/2 inches to leave room for seam allowances.

Only, here's the problem with the pattern instructions. The center cornerstones are pieced, not whole. Here's how the blocks are set according to the pattern instructions:

When they're sewn together, there are two seams running through the centers of the cornerstones.

Smitty and I had a long conversation about this.

Oh, meow...that is purrplexing.

So, first I was thinking I needed to make these like a square-in-a-square block, or an "economy block," which I've only just learned is another name for the same block. Only, that didn't seem right. So then I told myself it was actually just a block set on point. So I selected this fabric for the setting triangles.

The rest of the block setting can just be sashed, and so I selected this branding iron fabric as the darker of the sashing strips.

And this barbed wire fabric for the lighter of the strips. Also, I don't need a seam for this part of the block. I can make it from just one strip, omitting the center seam. (If this is all very confusing, don't feel badly. I'll demonstrate eventually when I show you a finished block.)

But then I woke up early this morning (4:30 a.m.) thinking about the quilter's math, and that was when I broke my brain. I had to get up and figure this out. I was thinking the cornerstones came out to 4-1/2 inches (unfinished). Actually, they need to be 8-1/2 inches to accommodate the width of the sashing. So then, I was really confused, and I started looking at tutorials both for figuring setting triangles and for figuring "economy blocks." Without going into all of that, I'll just end the suspense by saying I found a tutorial that addressed all my questions. Thank goodness. Rather than bore you with the rest of my broken brain and sleep deprived thinking, I'll just make a block today and show you how it works.

Also, I settled on this pretty fabric for the outer border. I'll probably need to add a narrow stop border too. I love this fabric. It has the prettiest flecks of metallic gold in it, which is hard to see in a photograph.

I remember purchasing it when we traveled across the Montana High Line back in 2014. It came from a quilt shop called "Quilt with Class," in Shelby, Montana, which is one of the friendlier shops I've visited in our travels. You can read my blog post about it right here. And looking at that post, you'll see that the branding iron fabric and the barbed wire fabric came from the same store.

Also, you might remember when I purchased this fabric for the back when we visited Cortez Quilt Company in Cortez, Colorado, last year. I have six yards...plenty to make a back for this rather large quilt.

Okay, so now that I have my brain squared away about the cornerstones, I'll probably be adding one more fabric to this mix, but I'll have to take a look at the ones I've pulled again. Decisions, decisions. 

Today is a grocery shopping day, but there should be plenty of time for sewing. Now I'm kind of curious to see if I've got my quilter's math straight. Nothing is certain until the piecing is done.