Drunken Dragons Progress Report: Four Rows Assembled, Eleven More to Go!

First Four Rows of Blocks Assembled

Oh yes, in between all the baking and Christmasing and gifting and champagne drinking, I have been making slow but steady progress on Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt.  If you missed the earlier posts on this project, you can catch up by clicking here.  I'm trying to sew up one row of blocks one day, then seam that row to the adjacent row on the following day.  That's how 30 minutes a day times lots (and lots) of days eventually will result in a new quilt for Lars's bed.

Puppy Rabbits Sleeping in my Studio

Don't you just love how my one-year-old Rottweiler puppies, Otto and Lulu, crash on the floor of my studio to keep me company?  I love it when they snore.  When they pass what I've heard affectionately referred to as "Rotten Gas," well, I don't love that so much, but I keep a scented candle in my studio in case of emergencies.  ;-)

Back to the quilt!

Nested seam allowances, pinned on either side of the seams

I wanted to show you how I'm matching up and pinning my seam allowances as I assemble the blocks.  As I made each block, I pressed the curved seam allowance towards whichever fabric was darker to prevent a dark seam allowance from showing through a lighter fabric from the right side of the finished quilt.  So now as I'm sewing the blocks together, sometimes I get lucky and I have seam allowances pressed in opposite directions so I can nest them together like you see in this photo -- but other times, the seam allowances have to stack up on top of one another and there's a much greater likelihood that the seams won't match up perfectly. 

...Resulting in Perfectly Aligned Seams!

I'm trying not to be too obsessive about making everything perfect on this quilt.  I always try to do the best I can, because things worth doing are worth doing well.  Also, you get better faster when you always do your best work.  However, I know that Lars is going to chew on the top edge of the quilt when he's falling asleep, because that's just what he does.  And I know that I want to work on my free-motion quilting skills with this quilt, and if I obsess and rip out stitches and resew each seam until the quilt top can withstand the scrutiny of a magnifying glass, then it will be that much harder to get up the nerve to lower the feed dogs and subject this quilt to my free-motion learning curve.

Not Perfect, but Good Enough!

Here, see?  These seams are slightly misaligned, and I declare that they are going to stay that way because they are Good Enough!

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, with Chess Club for the boys before school and a meeting with a new client for me in the afternoon.  Then Friday is Lars's birthday sleepover party (his birthday is December 26th, but we wait until after the holidays have passed for his party with his friends).  I anticipate that no one will get any sleep at my house on Friday night, and I'm already planning to put a movie on for our boys on Saturday afternoon so we can have a nap once the guests have gone home.  Wish me luck!

First Block Sewn for Lars's Drunken Dragons Quilt

First Block of Lars's Drunken Dragons Quilt (and yes, I know these are not dragons)

Ta-da!  This is the first block of Lars's new Drunkard's Path quilt.  This is my first-ever block with a curved seam, and although I was nervous about it I am pleased to report that the finished block is 7 1/2" square on the first try, just as it should be.  Yay! 

Elsa's 7" Drunkard's Path Templates

WhileI was at the beach this summer I found these oversized Drunkard's Path acrylic templates at a quilt shop in Murrells Inlet, SC and knew right away that they would be perfect for this project.  The finished size of the blocks is 7" x 7", and I'm guessing that starting out with bigger curves is easier than starting out with smaller blocks, since smaller blocks would have tighter curves.  You'll see in a minute what the big deal is with curved patchwork.  The other reason I liked this big Drunkard's Path block is that my son picked out a couple of large-scale dragon fabrics for his quilt, and I needed to do something with big enough patches of fabric that we would still be able to tell they were dragons after we cut up the fabric.  Finally, I have been promising to make this quilt for Lars for THREE YEARS.  Large blocks consisting of only two pieces of fabric and one seam per block should sew up pretty quickly, so there is actually hope of Lars getting to sleep under his dragon quilt before he heads off to college in eight or nine years.  So yes, I know it's inappropriate for Lars's dragons to be drunken, but every quilter knows exactly what block design I'm using when I say Drunkard's Path, no matter what Crazy Curves nonsense the template maker calls them.  By the way, you can get these templates on Amazon here, and if you want to make the quilt shown in the photo on the package you have to buy both the 7" and the 3 1/2" sizes.  So far I just bought the 7" because there is a very strong possibility that I already own templates for the smaller size.  Just like there is a very strong possibility that there is actually carpeting in my sewing studio, buried deep beneath the mountain ranges of fabric.  Shhh...

The Drunkard's Path block pattern can form several different overall quilt designs depending on how you lay out the individual blocks before sewing them together into the quilt block.  My quilt probably won't be much like the photo on the template package.  Maybe I'll add some circle appliques, or maybe I'll arrange my blocks completely differently. 

Drunkard's Path variation by Kate Sharaf of Needle and Spatula

I just stumbled upon Kate Sharaf's blog a moment ago and was delighted to see that she just did a post showing different layout possibilities with these blocks, so instead of hunting for images to show you, I'm just going to send you on over to Drunkard's Path Block Design Ideas at Needle and Spatula.  Go ahead - click away and check out the lovely possibilities.  I'll be waiting right here when you're finished.

So, I probably won't be doing any kind of layout that ends up looking like big happy flowers for Lars, but some of the others could be interesting.  Maybe I'll even let Lars help lay out the finished blocks, if he's interested.

I know someone is going to ask about size.  This quilt is going on a twin bed with a ridiculously thick mattress, but there is storage built into the platform of the bed and I don't want the quilt to hang down too far.  I decided I want the finished quilt to be about 70" wide by 105" long, or 10 blocks by 15 blocks, and I actually measured the bed to come up with this.  I was generous with my measurements because quilts shrink a little when they are quilted, even if the fabrics are prewashed and/or preshrunk (mine are). 

In my studio, every quilt starts with a mess!  I've strewn all of the fabrics from my stash that I might possibly want to use for this quilt all over my cutting table.  Here's what that looks like:

I ordered some more fabric from eQuilter that hasn't come in yet.  A good fabric stash is like the biggest, bestest box of crayons.  There's no way I'm going to use ALL of them in the same quilt, but I like having lots of options to choose from.  Lars's bedroom has sort of a chambray blue wall color, and he has vivid, shocking ORANGE wallpaper in his bathroom.  You can see Lars's bedroom here.  So I want his quilt to be predominantly blues and oranges to tie these two spaces together, with some purples and other colors mixed in to keep it interesting.  Lars is excited about the dragons, but my goal is for the dragons to be something he can appreciate up close, not something we see from the hallway before entering his room.

"tatsu" dragon fabric from Alexander Henry Fabrics

This is the fabric that inspired the whole dragon thing.  I love the colors: that bold orange against cool purples and blues, and because they are sort of Asian dragons instead of childish cartoon dragons, I don't think Lars will outgrow this fabric.  Another plus is that, once I cut this up, the large scale dragons are going to be less obvious on the finished quilt.

Here you can see that I've started cutting fabric (and the other, smaller scale dragon fabric at bottom left).  I'm using a 45 mm rotary cutter for the straight edges, and a 28 mm rotary cutter on the curves.  This is another first for me, cutting curves instead of straight lines with my rotary cutters -- it feels really weird but I'm starting to get the hang of it.  I'm "fussy cutting" my dragon fabrics as well as some scraps of a lizard print fabric that I used in Anders' last quilt.  "Fussy cutting" means I'm cutting through one layer of fabric at a time so I can center exactly the part of the pattern that I want beneath my clear acrylic templates.  For the other fabrics I'm going to cut through four layers at once to save time.

Before we start sewing, a word about machine setup.  Before I start a new quilt, I clean every speck of lint out of my sewbaby and give her a drop of oil.  I put in a new size 70 Schmetz quilting needle and switch to my 1/4" patchwork footsie, which is Footsie 37 on a Bernina.  This foot gives me a perfect scant 1/4" seam allowance just by lining the cut edge of my fabric up with the edge of the presser foot.  I also switch to my straight stitch throat plate, because its smaller needle hole gives better support for straight stitching and greatly reduces the annoying problem of your sewing machine trying to eat the little patchwork pieces you're working with.  I use 50 weight 100% cotton thread, usually Mettler or Gutermann, and a stitch length of 2.0.  I engage the needle stop down function on my machine, and yes, damnit -- I sew over pins (slowly!) despite the dire warnings from the owner's manual telling me not to.

Now you can see why curved seams are scary!  You have to match up a concave curve to a convex curve, and ease it in so that hopefully you get a nice, smooth curve without nasty pleats when you press the seam open.  I consulted several different books in my personal library, and each one gave different advice about sewing this type of block.  One book said Drunkard's Path blocks should be hand sewn.  Another suggested clipping the curves, but I didn't want to weaken the seam if I didn't have to, since this quilt is going to see a lot of wear and washing.  I went with the advice in The Quilter's Ultimate Visual Guide: From A to Z -- Hundreds of Tips and Techniques for Successful Quiltmaking. 

Okay, here we go -- let's start sewing!  Because I know I'm more likely to have a severe oops on the first try, I deliberately did NOT select one of Lars's favorite dragon pieces for the first block.  Instead, I'm using a leftover fabric from a previous quilt for Anders.  I remembered that Lars was very wistful about these lizards at the time, and I like working fabrics from past quilts into current projects whenever I can. 

I'm sewing very slowly, and despite all of my pins, these opposite curved edges still try to creep away from one another. 

See how easy it is to line the cut edge of the fabric up with the edge of Foot 37 to maintain a perfect seam allowance?  By the way, I'm using a medium brownish-beige thread for all of my piecing on this quilt.  It would be way too inconvenient to have to stop and change thread color constantly, so I've chosen a neutral thread color that will disappear into my bold, bright fabrics.

This is the finished block.  I pressed the seam allowance toward the lizard fabric, since it's the darker of the two in this case.  Not bad, for all my fear and hesitation, huh?  My block measures exactly 7 1/2" square, just as it should, and I got a nice, smooth curve and a flat finished block on the first try.  I had my seam ripper handy, but I didn't even need it (this time).  Wahoo!  I only have about 149 more blocks to go...

By the way, I deliberately did NOT cut out all the pieces for 150 blocks before I started sewing.  I want to be able to lay things out and adjust my fabric choices mid-stream.  I cut out about 15 of each shape so far, just enough to get me started.  Once my additional fabrics come in from eQuilter, I can make semi-final decisions about which fabrics are in, which ones are out, and sort them by value to ensure I get the balance I want for my mix.  Stay tuned! 

Nitpicking: Because Design is In the Details

Somewhere in my computer, there is a much better picture of this island backsplash in which you can see that this backsplash on the left was cut about 1/8" shorter than the adjacent backsplash on the right.  Those who know me will understand that, once I discovered this, I was driven to distraction by it.  It looked like a dark line between the backsplash and the raised bar countertop, and it stared me in the face and mocked me while I made my morning lattes.  If I could find the picture I was looking for, perhaps you would understand why this was so unacceptable to me.  Perhaps not -- but sweating the details is what I do for a living, and I spent too much money on the new countertops to be disappointed every time I look at that seam.

Bernie remembers that, during installation of the countertops, an adjustment was made to lower the island countertop slightly for the sink installation, and he thinks they may have already cut the left backsplash when the counter was sitting higher because the backsplash on the right was cut second and it fits perfectly.  In the end, however, too short is too short.  Tile Collection sent a repair technician out to change the caulk from translucent to white in hopes that the gap would be less noticeable, but no dice.  I asked for that backsplash to be replaced with a new one cut from the leftover pieces of my granite slab, and Tile Collection obliged.

The tricky thing about this is that initially, backsplashes are cut from adjacent parts of the stone so that the movement or pattern in the stone flows as uninterrupted as possible from one piece to the next.  Since the countertops adjacent to the backsplash were already installed in my home, the fabricator wouldn't have them in his shop as a reference when cutting the new piece.

My solution: Crayons to the Rescue!

I have a roll of heavy white butcher's paper in my sewing room that I use for making patterns, and I used it to make templates of my countertops indicating where the major veining patterns were located.  While I was doing this, my husband was looking at me like I was a wild-eyed crazy woman. 

I took pictures too, naturally, and those were invaluable for showing which colors I needed to have in various places.  I took my pictures to the granite fabrication shop along with my paper patterns, which I laid out right on the leftover piece of granite and found a place where the veining lined up even better than on the original backsplash.

Isn't that fabulous?  SO much prettier than before.  Scroll up and look at the original backsplash again.  I wasn't wild about the Big Black Blob on the original piece, and this one matches perfectly with all the beautiful golds and greens in exactly the right places.  I should tell you that in order to get this perfect piece of backsplash, they had to cut my little strip of stone right in the center of the remnant at about a 45 degree angle, which pretty much ruined a large remnant that they could have sold to another customer for a sink vanity or table top -- and to their credit, no one batted an eye.  I love these guys!  Everyone has great customer service before you sign the deal and stroke the check.  It's really important to me to know that my workrooms and suppliers are willing to go the extra mile for me at the end of the job, making adjustments and corrections until everyone is satisfied with the installation.  I highly recommend Tile Collection to anyone in the Charlotte, North Carolina area for stone countertops or tile work.

The same day that the backsplash was replaced, they also installed my red laundry room sink with its little granite counter.  Bernie and the installers were joking around that my sink is so big, all I'm left with is a granite sink frame instead of a countertop.  Whatever.

This little countertop was also cut from the remnants of the CD Volcano slab we chose for our kitchen.  After I butchered one of the two remnants for my Backsplash of Dreams, this was the only piece left that was big enough for the laundry counter and splashes.  It would have been nice if there was a smattering of the red and green in this piece, but the red ties in with the leftover kitchen fabric that will eventually be used for a little valance on the window in this toom to tie everything together and cheer up my laundry room.  The red enameled cast iron sink was special-ordered from Kohler, and it's the exact shade of red in my fabric (Monado in Havana colorway from Vervain).

The faucet is going to be the Venetian Bronze Delta faucet that I bought for my kitchen about a year ago, but the plumbing isn't connected yet.  Also, there is a nasty fluorescent tube light fixture in the laundry room that is going to have to go.  It casts a horrible sickly light and makes my colors look gross.

Hood Classic Globe from Rejuvenation Hardware

I really like the new Hood pendant with caged glass from Rejuvenation Hardware, so I think I might get that one for the laundry room.  It's based on industrial styles that were common from 1910-1920, and the wire cage served the useful purpose of containing broken glass if the globe should shatter.  It comes in 12", 14", or 18" diameter and uses a single 300 watt bulb.  I just think it would add a nice splash of personality and character, complement the dark bronze and opal glass fixtures in the kitchen beyond, yet it's a simpler, more functional style that's better suited to a workspace like a laundry room. 

-- Ooh, wouldn't it be fun to rip out the perfectly serviceable tile floor in the laundry room, and replace it with vintage-style 2" hexagonal mosaic tile like this?



Merola Tile Old World Hex with Dot from Home Depot



I'm not even going to suggest that to Bernie; I can't risk a mutiny.  Still, IF I was going to do it...  I like the way this particular background tile ties into my granite, but not so much the black dots.  The dots would need to be a more subtle contrast for me, maybe more of a golden/rust/brownish color on the same spectrum as the golds in the drapery fabric and the tones of the cabinetry.  So it would probably have to be custom-ordered instead of conveniently purchased from the local Home Depot. 

At some point, you just have to say that enough is enough and call it "done."  For now...  ;-)

Sliding Down the Slippery Slope: The Espresso Obsession Continues!

I ordered a new espresso machine.  Yes, I ordered a new one AGAIN, even though I just got a new one a couple of weeks ago...  In case you missed my earlier posts on the exciting topic of Latte Love, click here and here and then come on back to this post for my latest adventures in coffee obsession. 

So for the first week or so with my Expobar Office Pulser espresso machine, I was pulling consistently good espresso shots with a layer of crema on top.  The shots were running a little fast (ideally, it should take 20-25 seconds from the time I press the "go" button until the espresso is up to the little lines on the shot glasses.  If it takes longer for the shot glasses to fill, the shots taste bitter.  If they fill up faster, the espresso tastes weak and you don't get that caramelly crema on top).  The way you correct this problem is to adjust how finely the coffee is ground and/or how much pressure you're using to tamp (pack it down into the portofilter thing).  Not owning a coffee grinder, I always bought Starbucks' Espresso Roast a pound at a time and asked the store to grind it on #3 for my espresso machines.  But lately they keep screwing it up.  I wish I took pictures for you of what the espresso shots look like when you use coffee that is ground on #6 (particles the size of Folgers in a supermarket can for an automatic drip machine), but I was way too upset to think about getting the camera.  Anyway, after two separate Starbucks stores managed to screw up grinding my coffee beans three times in a row, I decided I'd had it with Starbucks and I needed to take the grind into my own hands! 

I headed back to my favorite online coffee store, Whole Latte Love, and read through numerous tutorials and reviews before selecting my grinder, the Mazzer Mini.  When I get my grinder, I will be able to grind just enough beans at a time to make one latte.  This means much better freshness, and it also means that I can make small adjustments to fine-tune the grind from one latte to the next until I get it exactly the way I want it.  I'm also not going to be limited to only Starbucks coffees anymore.  There are so many other beans out there, waiting to be discovered!  One key feature of this machine that appealed to me is that it's so quiet -- supposedly, when it's grinding beans, it's no louder than the interior sound level of a running BMW.  Since I have cathedral ceilings in my kitchen, sound ricochets off the walls and ceilings and amplifies considerably, so the last thing I wanted was a grinder that sounded like a jet plane taking off in my kitchen at 6 AM.

But wait, that's a grinder -- didn't I say I bought another espresso machine? 

Okay, so it turns out that when I was reading the manual for the Expobar Office Pulser machine and read the part about how the machine could be plumbed for a continuous water supply, I was reading about a different model, the Expobar Office Lever Plus.  It only costs $200 more than the machine I purchased, and when I made this discovery I was still within the return/exchange period.  Although I really enjoy the Office Pulser, the things I dislike about it are having to fill that water tank every day (which I can only manage with a funnel or else water splashes all over the place) and the fact that there's no way to tell how much water is left in the tank without removing the top of the machine.  There's a fabulous instant hot water dispenser on the machine that would be great for making hot tea or hot chocolate, except that it drains too much water out of the tank.  Plus, there's a little water softening filter thingy attached to the hose inside the water tank that I'm supposed to change every 300 lattes or so.  Who wants to remember to do that?  We're planning to change out the kitchen backsplash one of these days anyway, and Bernie wants to add a pot filler behind the stove, so adding a plumbing line for the espresso machine at the same time should not be a big huge deal.

This is the new EspressoBaby that's on its way, on some UPS truck somewhere between New York and North Carolina, carefully packaged and nestled in foam.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love how it's open at the top of the machine, too, for better visibility as well as aesthetics.  Plumbing the machine is optional, not required, so I can continue to fill the water tank with my funnel until we get around to replacing the backsplash tile.  I want to find some distressed terra cotta subway tiles, I think...  That will be another quest for another day.

...So, Perfectionism: Is it a Good Thing?

You may be wondering why I felt compelled to extoll the virtues of perfectionism earlier.  Even if you weren't wondering, I'm going to tell you anyway.  Remember my post about our stay at The Sanctuary resort on Kiawah Island a couple of weeks ago?  Well, what I didn't tell you is that I made them move us to another room after the first night because I noticed splatter marks on the walls around the toilet in the first room.  Gross, right?  Vomit, or... I don't even want to think about what else it could have been!  Soon after moving into the second hotel room, I was grossed out by the discovery of black mold between the marble tiles of the shower stall, and we asked the front desk to have it cleaned.  The black mold remained throughout our stay, as did a dirty tissue from a previous guest out on the balcony.  Now, does this tell you more about the hotel, or more about me?  Are my standards just too high?

One thing I can assure you of is that perfectionism comes in handy in the field of high-end design.  As I was reminded on my vacation, it does not feel good to be paying a lot of money for something and then have to complain about everything in order to get things done right.  That's why I finally looked the other way where the mold and dirty Kleenex were concerned -- I resigned myself to the fact that, no matter how much money I paid, no matter which room they put me in, the room would probably not be cleaned to my standards, and it's not like there was another 5-star hotel on the island that I could move to.  I had to make the best of things, but my memories of the trip are soured by the fact that I paid through the nose to stay in a dirty hotel room.  In my work, I obsess about the details in hopes that my clients will love everything the first time, without having to point out flaws and without having to feel bad about complaining in order to get what they want.

Remember the discontinued embroidered silk fabric that I'm having recreated by a custom embroiderer for my client who was the victim of a house fire?  I got a sample of the custom embroidery today, and I spent the better part of an hour agonizing over every little detail.  There it is, on the left in this photo, with a sample of the original fabric on the right.  Isn't it gorgeous?  The thread color definitely needs to be a darker shade of brown, but as I examined the samples side-by-side, and viewed the embroidery file in my computer software program, I found several nit-picky, minute revisions to request.  This fabric is going to be used for ceiling mounted swags that are going to be seen from across the room; no one is going to get this close to the embroidery once the window treatments are installed anyway.  Yet my client is investing a lot of money in these draperies, trusting me to deliver a couture quality product that begs to be admired up close.  There's no such thing as a perfect design, a perfect drapery, or even a perfect fabric, but the goal is always to leave as little room for improvement as possible. 

I have a feeling that my very talented digitizer, who does beautiful work that I am absolutely awestruck by, is probably whipping up a little Rebecca voodoo doll right about now after receiving my feedback on his design work.  Soon I am going to be experiencing mysterious, sharp pains inflicted by stick pins far, far away...  Still, I'd rather spend more time and energy getting the design right at this stage than have 16 yards of silk custom-embroidered and sewn into window treatments, only for my client to be disappointed by the quality on installation day.  Perfectionism: It's A Good Thing!

Perfectionism in Love and War: Martha Stewart Just Works Harder Than You Do

Once upon a time, Americans were known for having a "strong work ethic" that was a legacy from the pilgrims who invaded founded our nation.  I know this because I learned it in American history class, and if you read it in a textbook then either it's actually true, or else it's so widely believed to be true (like George Washington's cherry tree chopping) that it's a fiction with more power than fact.  But in modern American culture, those who work hard and strive to be the best that they can be are ridiculed and ripped to shreds for the sin of "perfectionism" while lazy, ineffective people are held up to be "normal" and well-adjusted members of society.  Oh, yes they are -- everyone hates Martha Stewart for not only being better at a lot of things than everyone else, but for turning homemaking into a lucrative career.  Career women hate Martha for baking cookies from scratch and ironing bed sheets.  Women who don't work outside the home hate Martha for making so much money baking cookies and ironing sheets, and for looking glamorous while she does it.  She wouldn't be making so much money if there weren't tons of people furtively reading her books and magazines, watching her on television, and listening to her radio shows, but it's not cool to admit that you like Martha Stewart.  It's much more socially acceptable to have a Cathy mug (that is, Cathy Guisewite's Cathy cartoon character) on your desk than a Martha Stewart mug that says "It's A Good Thing."

How pathetic is that?  So, no; I'm not to be counted among those who will be mourning the end of the Cathy strip once Guisewite lays it to rest next month.  I'm one of those who is wondering whatever happened to the myth of the American work ethic?  When did high standards, hard work, and success become shameful in our society?  Was it a backlash against 1980s films like Mr. Mom and Baby Boom that claimed women could "have it all," glossing over the tough choices women have to make in real life and making them feel guilty if they failed to handle everything as seamlessly as the working moms of the screen?

Maybe that's the real reason for the national pastime of Martha-bashing.  Maybe we don't hate her because she does things better than we do, but because she makes it look so EASY when we know that it's really, really HARD.  We hate her for having a full staff running each of her households and doing all of her housekeeping for her while she's on television showing us how to properly clean the silverware that we don't own in the first place, for having assistants and creative teams coming up with fabulous ideas for which she seems to take the credit.  We hate her for the perceived dishonesty, and for the unfair advantage.  But, once upon a time, Martha Stewart was a young single woman from a blue-collar background who worked hard and started her own catering company with a friend.  She was good at something, she worked really hard at it, and she turned her domestic interests and aptitude into a multi-million dollar lifestyle brand -- while a lot of other women were lying on the couch eating chocolate while obsessing about their weight, and trying to solve their problems with shopping instead of with good old-fashioned hard work.