New Yarn, New Blocks

Well yesterday I didn't really do my block. Oops! Well first of all it was a stupid, paper-pieced Teacup. I don't do paper-piecing, I don't like tea, and I don't do teacups. So there. What I did do yesterday, was spend the day spinning the rest of the Spiderman Meets Obama yarn. I am really happy with the turnout and I have it up for sale in my Etsy shop. I have 7 Obama yarns up, and I am offering free shipping on them until midnight on Inauguration Day.

So today I made a block to make up for yesterday. These are the LOWER setting triangles for the Monochromatic quilt top I am making (the operative color being ORANGE). So the top setting triangles were brights, like a sunrise, and the lower ones are darker orange to orangey-browns, like earth.

Today's block was stupid too. It was a lil' bitty Diamond In A Square that finished to 3". I mean really. Like what am I going to do with that? And if I make it finish to 9" like the rest of the Chicken blocks I have been doing, it would look just dumb. So I made it a 9-patch Diamond Square. Nothing like complicating things for myself. Here is a pic of the block, and below I will give you directions, just in case you are a quilter or piecer and want to try one on your own. And below that, I will give the math, so if you don't care about that part, you can glaze your eyes over and skip a paragraph.

Cut 2, 5.5" squaresof a rather dark fabric. Halve them diagonally. If your print is directional, halve one upper right to lower left and one upper left to lower right. These are your outer setting triangles. Cut 2 squares of a light or medium tone fabric to 4 3/16". I know this is an odd measure but just trust me. 3/16" is just shy of 1/4" on your ruler, so measure to 4 1/4" and back the ruler off a hair and you will do fine. Halve them diagonally as you did the 5.5" squares. Then cut 5 dark and 4 light, 2" squares.

Assemble the 2" squares into a 9-patch. Press and square it up to 5" exactly. Next take the triangles that were 4 3/16" squares and sew one to each side of the 9-patch, letting a *leetle* corner of each one extend evenly past the edge of the 9-patch. Press and square this up to 6 7/8" exactly. Then sew the larger, dark triangles to the sides as you just did the light triangles. Press and square up to 9.5". Tada!

The Math: The Total square will finish to 9" plus seams. So half that, for the outer triangles, is 4.5". You add an inch in order to compensate for having to halve the squares diagonally and make a seam. So the outer squares are cut to 5.5". The next square will be the hypoteneuse of 4.5" (4.5" x 1.414) which is 6.36". The nearest common measure we would use is 6.375" (or 6 3/8"). Half that is 3 3/16" inches. You add an inch for making it into triangles and adding a seam, 4 3/16". The hypoteneuse of 3 3/16" (3.187" x 1.414) is 4.5" which gives you your finished size of the 9-patch. 4.5" divides evenly into 1.5" finished components. After adding seam allowances, the pieces must be cut to 2" square. Easy as 1, 2, 3, 5. LoL

Richie was off today so he got some stuff moved in the back porch and otherwise we goofed off, went to the post office and the store for trash bags, wheat bread and sugar. Tonight we are going to watch the new CSI (I can't stand that Grissom is leaving) and a movie, I will read to him and call it a night. Goodnight!

Does It Have To Be Everyday?

So last evening, after I had already written in my blog for the evening, Richard goes in to put the handles on our shower faucets. You know the shower he has been working on putting in, for 8 months. This week he finally cut the hole big enough to patch the drywall, and last night he had just cut the piece of drywall, so I can get to tiling the bathroom. I am supposed to return the borrowed tile saw on Saturday. Sure.

He goes in there, and I hear him yell, Help! Help! and he says, "Tell Artemas to go out to the street and turn the water off to the house!"

OY.

I go in there and he is standing in the tub, drenched from head to foot. And there is a DELUGE of water pouring out of the HOT water pipe where the handle should be, and he is trying to stop it up with a towel, which is soaked and pouring water down into the wall.

I took over for him, so he could go out and see if Artemas was turning it off right. mind, it was 28 degrees outside. I figured the towel was just complicating things, so I threw it in the tub and deflected the water down into the tub with the palm of my hand until it stopped running. He was only out for a minute, but he was chilled already when he came in. and I was soaked too, because when I first went in the bathroom and the water was spraying and he was trying to stop it up with the towel, it was spraying EVERYWHERE.

Only place he didn't get was on the far side of the door where I have a primitive ladder for towels (same wall as the pipes only about 10 feet away) and the back wall behind the toilet, which is 12 feet away.

The handle had just BLOWN apart. So he spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out the schematic for putting it back together, and we spent the night with the water turned off to the house. Which made a grocery-shopping expedition this morning look welcome, even if I did have to take 3 of the kids with me.

We put a heater/blower in there this morning and it is dry, so he can drywall it. I am so glad, because I am totally allergic to mold since I lost one of the babies (the loss damaged my immune system so badly) and I told him, no way can we seal that wall up if there is any moisture in it.

Before sealing the wall up, he gets the big idea to fill all the wall-holes he has made with Great Stuff to help insulate the walls, because that is one COLD bathroom. I mean with the holes in the walls and the outside temps lately, I am really reluctant to sit down in there. So he starts to use the stuff, and the end blows right off one of the cans (and down into the wall, of course). He tries another can. It is supposed to come out looking like a fat maggoty worm, then swell up greatly. No. It came out and stayed, just like that. Fat maggoty worms of Great Stuff in the wall.

What the heck? I mean, can't some of these things happen to somebody else? Does it have to be something EVERY day? My life is so WEIRD.

Ok, on a maybe just slightly
less weird note, Marvel Comics is going to feature Mr. Obama in a Spiderman episode. News story here: Spiderman Meets Obama. So in honor of just such a momentous occasion, I am making a handspun yarn by that same name. I am so proud of myself, I have only been spinning about 3 months, and this is SOCK weight yarn, and very even, about 15 WPI. I am going to make it available in my Etsy shop for purchase.

And, there really wasn't a block for today on our quilting calendars. But the quilt pictured is only over the next two days. It is a 2-block quilt that is a Snowball and 9-patch. So I made a couple random 9-patches. Never hurts to have some of them lying around anyway. And, here is a picture of one. It is UGLY. Today must have been Make Ugly Quilt Pieces Day, because my oldest daughter made an Ugly quilt top too.

A Sad, Sad Day

I am not a racist. I don't care whether a person is black, white, red or brown. The reasons I dreaded the very thought that Mr. Nobama would become president had not one thing to do with his race, but rather with the thought that he is a socialist. He wants to disarm our country, our protective forces, tax us at a 40% rate so that everyone can be "equal." Socialism has not only failed everywhere it has been applied, it has been the ruin of great countries and societies.

So it is with a heavy heart that I write today. I have felt sick to my stomach since the Victory speech last night. What is up with that? The time the Victory Speech was given, the polls hadn't even closed on the West coast. So now we elect a president on speculation? Will they even bother to finish counting the votes?

Samuel was very upset with their request and went to the LORD for advice. "Do as they say," the LORD replied, "for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don't want me to be their king any longer... Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about how a king will treat them." So Samuel passed on the LORD's warning to the people... When that day comes, you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but the LORD will not help you." But the people refused to listen to Samuel's warning. "Even so, we still want a king," they said. ... So Samuel told the LORD what the people had said, and the LORD replied, "Do as they say, and give them a king."

1 Samuel 8:6-7, 9-10, 18-19, 21-22a

May God protect those of us who had no hand in this.