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Friday, October 4, 2013

Free-Motion Distraction

Right now the only thing capable of commanding my focus is the Free-Motion work on the queen-size Piñata Pizzazz quilt that I'm finishing up for a Colorado flood relief donation. I'll be linking up to Fabric Tuesday and  Leah's Free Motion Friday


 
 
I've finished the last piñata arm this morning. I'm aiming for a fiesta feel with the quilting. Hopefully that will translate to other people!

In the center I've got some scrollwork I drew in with a water-soluble pen, framed with double lines.




Then I surrounded that with some rose FMQ that's popular with Mexican styles. You can see that I treated the multi-row shape blocks as singular units.

I keep thinking how spectacular heavy silver thread would look on the whole piñata area, but I have to stick with what I have, and that would be pricy thread to order. I'm using smoke Invisifil with a gray 50wt Aurifil on the back. Working great.




On the piñata arms I went with the most open quilting I like to have on this batting (80/20 Hobbs cotton/poly). These I treated differently to help them stand out from the center and the backgrounds' future quilting. I ditched between each row to emphasize them and ran a single line of quilting down the middles, alternating strung circles and crow's feet lines. Those rows are probably 3.25 inches wide, each.




I didn't like what I'd originally marked for the tips (which I can't remember right now - they just ended up looking Masonic rather that Latin-festive), so I tossed on another Mexican rosette.


 


I'm about to put on a short show while I pin up the next round - the first background sections around the arms.  I'm going to put in a scrolly fill that I've wanted to try for a while, aiming for the spacing to be about equal to the width of my ring finger.   I'm hoping that will be a good width to let the more open quilting on the piñata arms pop up a bit above it, and leave enough room to move a little tighter (but not actually dense) for some meandering at maybe pencil-width in the outer background areas.  I'll go back to treating the color blocks as whole units rather than individual rows.

Wish me luck! I've not used the scolling motif before, so I'm a little nervous about the quality my work will show on a gifting quilt. . .
 
~*~*~

Some thoughts on being a U.S. citizen right now:

I'm sure I'm not the only one studiously blocking out the political insanity we're all beleaguered with here in the U.S. 



We're currently on no pay, and since Scott is Active Duty Air Force labeled "Essential Personnel," he has to work with no pay and they've all had pre-authorized leave yanked from them. His nurse is losing many hundreds of dollars this weekend as their family was supposed to go on a special trip planned months ago.  For that matter, the 15 or so German exchange students our little town is hosting (Sophie is living with us for the month) is faced with losing several thousand dollars starting next week because they're supposed to go on a super-cool trip of many gorgeous Western national park areas, and almost all their lodging reservations are on park lands.

Their parents must be furious, and frankly - worried about their teens! 


 

Did you know they've gone to great effort to block off places like the Erie Canal - going so far as to remove the handles from water sources??  They've expended the time and money to take down Internet sites that require no effort to maintain, blocked national weather service, and even refuse to send response teams to horrific interstate traffic accidents.

How insane, expensive, and spiteful is that? I'm waiting for gas to skyrocket - seems like the perfect excuse for that industry to gouge us again. If I let it come to mind, I'm deeply, DEEPLY angered by this betrayal from our own government and the degree to which they are holding us hostage as pawns in their political warfare. Many of our friends are indefinitely furloughed and some face the possibility of not even being able to go back to their jobs whenever Congress and POTUS get their act together.

I am impressed with several Congressmembers who have all pledged their shutdown paychecks to charity or refuse to collect them. Our Colorado Senators are both donating to disaster relief. And lest you think only Democrats are being cool this way, our area's Representative is Republican, and he's refusing his check.

Unlike many other politicians.  I'm so tempted to send a sarcastic letter to Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina saying that while she can't refuse her paycheck because the bottom line is that she needs its, isn't it a good thing that our family doesn't need Scott's pay or that any of our furloughed friends don't need theirs? Our three Florida Members (Scott is still a resident there since he's active duty) are staying silent on the matter, which I interpret to mean they're all keeping their pay. You can track the individuals here: Senators and Representatives. And if you don't know who your Representative is, you can find out here: Who Is My U.S. Representative?

And I wonder how our politicians can be so incredibly removed from the real world - in a time of increased school, workplace, and public shootings - that they seem to think they can squeeze a population that's been stressed for many years now, and not have all kinds of stuff hit the fan. We've seen one shoot-out incident in D.C. reported so far (breaking out in the news just as I was thinking that the Secret Service must be *mighty* busy and wondering who protects Congressmembers), and a Congressmember has been accosted - I've seen whack-out militia types in the store stocking up on ammo and survival goods. . . I sure hope we don't get wide-spread rioting if this isn't resolved immediately. It's all ludicrous and scary at the same time, and all I can personally do after a year of financial stress because of constant pay issues due to political posturing is to give my mortgage and car loan holders the numbers of my Congressmembers and tell them: "Good luck!" 

16 comments:

  1. I love the combination of swirly curvy shapes with the straight lines in the quilting. Lovely!

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  2. Well said, Linda! I can't imagine why people who are considered "essential" would get no pay. That is eight ways of wrong! Of course, this entire mess is wrong on so many levels. I love the story of the Honor Vets storming the WWII monument in D.C.. If they can storm Normandy, they can storm Washington!!!

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  3. I'm angry too... not directly affected but still angry that elected "leaders" work in this fashion. So disenchanted with politics in our country. Your quilt is a beauty... keep quilting!

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  4. Beautiful quilting. You have made every section very festive.

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  5. Hello Lyn,

    The quilt is completely fabulous, you have put so much work and imagination into it. It will brighten the life of the person who receives it.

    I can't quite grasp the enormity and bizarreness of the shutdown. If it's any consolation I've come to the conclusion that about 99% of the planet is ruled by the barking mad. I haven't worked out where the 1% is, otherwise I would have moved there already.

    Love from England,
    Muv

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  6. Absolutely beautiful quilting. I love how you incorporated so many different FMQ patterns without it looking overdone. It adds so much to the beauty of the piecing and colors.

    I'm sorry to hear your story about the shutdown. I haven't been effected personally yet, but it's just a matter of time. These things ripple out to effect everyone.

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  7. Lovely work! I really like the poke-ball like pattern (line, circle, line).

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  8. This whole thing with our government is so unjust! I am not directly affected by it, but I am ashamed by all the people whose trips are being ruined by the shut down of the parks, not to mention the amounts of money wasted because of it. And to make people who are working for the government either go without their jobs and therefore pay, or work their regular jobs with no pay is ridiculous! Pay those people and let the Congress and Senate donate their pay to fund them! Okay. I will step down off my soap box now...Sorry!
    On a much brighter note, your quilt is beautiful. I am sure it will bring much happiness to it's recipient.

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  9. Your quilting is really enhancing the blocks, great work!

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  10. first of all i want to say that your quilting on this piece is WONDERFUL~!
    perfectly chosen patterns and beautifully executed.

    as for the shutdown . . . i'm very sorry to hear how it is effecting you and your family personally. i'm also very disappointed in our dysfunctional government. i feel that this shutdown is right up there with a three year old holding it's breath until it passes out in regards to behavior. also feeling a bit scared of just exactly what we may discover as repercussions from it all before it's run it's course . . .
    your post is well written and i completely agree with you.

    :-)
    libbyQ

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  11. Your quilting is amazing. I really enjoyed seeing all the different designs and I'm looking forward to seeing it finished and finding out what the back looks like. This would be an amazing wholecloth :)

    And I was shocked to hear about your shutdown. It's an outrage! I hope your family is managing ok and that some solution is worked out soon. Hugs x

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  12. That quilt is even more beautiful now that you're adding the special touches, it's going to be a wonderful gift for whoever receives it.
    I'm starting to believe that our Congress really does want to bring down the US and I keep thinking about the Omen movies.

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  13. Our political situation is disturbing. I'm so sorry your family is directly impacted...it makes me furious that our military are continually put in this position...probably because most politicians never served in the military and cannot appreciate their situation. I agree there is a "spitefulness," in the shutting down of the parks. You have inspired me to take the time to contact my senators and congressman...I have very little faith they will take note but it is supposed to be the way the system works!

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  14. Loving the quilting you are doing on Pinata Pizzazz! I'm afraid our national crisis is going to get worse before it gets better. :-/

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  15. I am so glad that you wrote about this situation. I mentioned it on my blog but didn't get deeper than the surface. I live in an area of one of our national parks where the entire economy is based on tourism. It's not only bad for everyone here... but all the weddings that were planned to take place in the park, the people who came from all over the world to see our park are also effected. My son is a Hotshot firefighter (Dept of Forestry) and is out fighting fires... with no pay. Congress? Can we fire them all? The oxymoron: "con"gress... is really the opposite of "pro"gress!

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  16. The quilting on your quilt is fabulous.

    I don't understand US politics at all -- it all seems so very unnecessarily complicated!

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