I had an interesting experience today, one that I'm     sure most of us have had. And the "interesting" I’m talking about wasn't of the "Wow, what an enlightening phenomenon that was!" sort. Rather, it was more in the realm of "Why don't you just shoot me now?" I went back to finish the blarticle I had started 3 weeks ago and couldn't find it in my computer. Did I not save it? When I put everything onto a zip drive did it not transfer? If so, what else didn't transfer? Is it in a different file? If you don't know the feeling I'm talking about, I promise that at some point in the future you will.

One would think that I would be able to recreate at least some of what I had written. Unfortunately one would be incorrect: I not only have no recollection of anything that I wrote, I can't even remember the general topic. And I think that, rather than attribute this blank in my memory to age and/or general obliviousness, I will blame it on the fact that a lot has been happening lately. Or perhaps the shortness of my memory is directly proportional to the quality of the lost blarticle fragment. Whatever—it's gone now.

And now that I think about it, maybe (meaning "I hope") I can blame the same spate of activity for the fact that I am feeling totally uncreative. Can't design, can't sew, can't anything, despite the fact that I have many, many, MANY projects that need work. And as you may already have noted, have nothing to say either, but I am determined to get something, (almost) anything, written before the end of the month. Which is tomorrow. And now that I think about it, many of my readers will be leaving for Quilt Festival in Houston just about the time this comes out. In this case, that might actually be a good thing!

What do we do when we can't create? I don't know what you do, but I usually go back to my formula of trying to get a few things off my UFO list. At this moment I have several quilt tops + backing + binding that are unquilted. (This count ignores the numerous tops without backing or binding—they're not even on the list.) Also fabric for 2 quilts for a pattern I've been working on. Also fabric cut and partially sewn for a quilt for my daughter's long-time boyfriend, which I will also use (the quilt, not the boyfriend) as a teaching tool for a class that's coming up. Oh, and I also need to rip out some quilting that I changed my mind about on a hand-appliquéd piece that I started quilting in April. Okay, so my usual practice is to finish stuff with a deadline first; after that I pick the one that's closest to being finished and just try to work my way through the pile. And in a fortuitous turn of events, the boyfriend/teaching top is actually a twofer—I need it pretty soon and it's also the easiest to finish ("finished" meaning the top only, which of course will add to the list of UFO's). But somehow this decision isn't doing it for me—I still have an overwhelming feeling of oppression. I hate to say it, but I think I just have too many tops + backs hanging in the shower stall of my second bathroom (meaning "waiting to be quilted.") (This might also explain why I have so few visitors, but that's another story. And really, when one lives alone in a house with very few closets, it's hard not to spread out to occupy all the available space.)

I guess drastic measures are called for here. I need to get quilting and I need to get sewing too, so what if I pinned one quilt for quilting and kept sewing on the other one too? The problem is that, unless one has a longarm machine, once the machine is set up for sewing, a lot has to be changed to switch to quilting. And vice versa. Hmm, I do have a backup sewing machine. And I have an extra table which will already be up if I pin. Do I really want the mental chaos of having a second machine set up in my living room? It's not as if I have a lot of company—it's mostly just my kids and they're kind of used to quilt-related chaos. Will it be a constant reminder of what's not done? If so, will that make me even crazier or will it spur me on to finish a few things? For sure the former, possibly the latter.  Is it worth a try? Maybe. Do I have enough extension cords? I guess that means I'm going to try. And I guess what I learned today is that sometimes the best cure for inaction is action. Who'd a thought?

© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller

   Ever have one of those days where nothing is going right? Sure you have—we all have. But it's kind of scary when one is having serious doubts about the day and it's only 4:30 a.m. On the other hand, maybe it's okay because I've been trying for days to write a blarticle, started several times, saved those starts for maybe later, but now here I am, at least writing something. But if you want to read about quilting, you'd better just skip this one and come back next month.

Which brings me to another topic (I promise this will all be related eventually): I don't consider this column a blog. In fact, I don't even like blogs. I know people write them, I know people read them, I'm happy that they enjoy doing so, but I don't get it. A few years ago, someone told me I was too old to understand, a comment that still rankles. (I will tactfully avoid mentioning the fact that the last entry in that person's own blog was in March. Of 2010.) But maybe she was right because, as noted before, I just don't get it. I understand that a blog can be helpful, educational, even instructive, but as for the personal stuff: really, who cares?

That said, here comes the personal stuff, also the reason I'm having doubts about the day. It is 3:40 a.m. and I am sleeping unusually peacefully in my bed when I am woken by an odd noise. As I wake further, I realized it is the sound of some creature apparently running laps up and down the length of my deck, which extends across the width of the house. I wonder if it is a human creature and decide not, as the noise is not THUNK THUNK THUNK, but THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA—more than 2 feet. I wonder if it is the fox that I have seen there before. I wonder what the attraction is on my deck. I hope it will just go away and let me go back to sleep. But no, not only does it not go away, the thunka thunka gets louder and is eventually accompanied by a squeaking/squealing sound. Is there more than one of whatever it is? Are they fighting? Now I am definitely awake. It is a moonlit night, so I sneak into the living room where there is a better view and no curtains. Nothing. I sneak back into the bedroom and carefully pull back the edge of the drapes. Still nothing. I sneak back into the living room and wait. Two blobs walk into view on my deck railing where they stop, apparently to discuss their next move. I don't want these raccoons—for that is what they are—to get into the habit of coming by to chat every night, so I turn on the deck light and knock on the window. One raccoon runs to the deck steps and looks my way—good. The other just stares. I knock more forcefully and finally they both leave.

By now there is no way that I am going back to sleep. In addition, the cat, who was herself sleeping peacefully in another part of the house, is now acting as if I am the cause of this commotion, which has apparently terrified her (it doesn't take much). She wants no part of me, even though she eventually goes to the back window to see if there is anything out there. (Little chicken! Where was she when I needed backup?)

Since I am up I will try—again—to write the blarticle. No go. I do a few other computer things. The cat comes to lie nearby, a good sign. She stays about 20 minutes and leaves. I do more computer things. I hear the cat throwing up in the other room (5:30 a.m.) I think about the tile guys who are coming back today to install tile after having failed on the first 2 attempts, and about how that will mean that I won't have access to the computer. That's when I start to have the serious doubts about the rest of the day. I think about the deadlines that are coming up and wonder if I will get anything at all done today. I decide to write about that.

So voila, here is the blarticle, not about quilting, not even very interesting, but at least it's writing, and at least it's here. At the moment, that's good enough for me.

© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller

Sometimes quilting reminds me of painting a room—there's a lot of preliminary work before you get to anything interesting and when you get done you don't always like the result. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. I know several teachers who prefer to learn what they're teaching on the day before the class, and sometimes I think that's not such a bad idea. Everything they learned by making the project is fresh in their minds and they're able to warn—and help—the students accordingly. But that's not me. I'm the one who makes 3 samples just to make sure that I find all the pitfalls. I want to know about any problems I might encounter ahead of time. I must admit, however, that this technique doesn't always work, as I do draw the line at intentionally sewing as imprecisely as some of my students!

I often wonder why I'm so enamored of quilting when there are so many individual aspects of it that I don't love, or even like. From step one: I love fabric and combining it, which could be why I have so much extra fabric—but that was last month's blarticle. Also like figuring yardage—don't ask; I've just always loved math. Don't like washing fabric, don't like ironing it. Kind of neutral on cutting—don't love it, but don't hate it either. Like sewing anything and love sewing the preliminary pieces into a block or column. Love seeing the finished top. Don't love the quilting, hate the binding and usually skip a label altogether. Love seeing a finished product. So by my count I love or like 6 out of 12 aspects of quilting and 2 of those are just looking at something. (This proportion of positive to negative might also explain the 1-quilt phenomenon—individuals who make one quilt, then never touch a sewing machine again except to hem their kids' jeans. Of course, most of us are unable to relate to this experience since we know we'll never live long enough to make all the quilts that exist in our imaginations.)

So do I actually survive on so little positive reinforcement? Or is the payoff from the parts I do like so big that it makes up for the others? Apparently yes to both, because I keep quilting, and we're not talking just now and then. Maybe it's better to ask the questions than to answer them—if I really consider how many aspectss of quilting I don't like, I'm not sure I'd still want to do it! Or maybe it's just me—maybe everyone else loves the ironing, or at least the cutting. Either way, it's evident that in quilting there's a lot of preparation before you get to the good stuff.

But as important as preparation is, it's also easy to over organize. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized how much time I was blowing by doing things too far ahead of time. Prime example: the very first quilt class I decided to teach, in the mid-1980's. I spent weeks making samples, writing a handout, thinking about how I would teach the class. Well, no one signed up, so the results of that effort were never used. The time I had spent in preparation was gone forever. Except maybe I did recover some of that time, because I learned a lot about how to prepare for teaching a class even though I never taught that particular class. All that time turned out to be part of the advance preparation for every other class I've taught, though I did learn not to start quite so far ahead of time!

Similarly, a friend was recently lamenting that she had spent a day unraveling a design problem, only to have a much simpler solution occur to her while she was lying in bed. She was annoyed at the time she had wasted, but maybe her "wasted" time was all part of a process—a necessary step along the often-rocky road to finding that simpler solution. I will admit the possibility that individuals exist who can easily omit the interim steps to pounce upon that best  resolution first, but I'm convinced that most of us go through this same sorting process of trial and error, including many blind alleys and dead ends, before we find the best way of doing almost anything. But I no longer think of that procedure as wasted time—it's just another part of the preparation.

So as much as I envy the person who can make the project on Tuesday and teach the class on Wednesday, I don't think I want to become that person. I've finally realized that I actually like preparing ahead of time—doing so gives me time to find flaws in the process and makes me less nervous about telling others to follow my example. I guess it's the quilting equivalent of removing the wall plates and cutting in the edges before you paint the room.

 © 2011 Jane Hardy Miller 

I have been quilting since 1968; I worked regularly in one quilt shop for over 20 years and still work in another occasionally. In that entire time, after meeting thousands of quilters, I have met 2 who bought fabric for the quilt they were constructing at that time, made the quilt, then bought more fabric for the next project. No casual purchasing because they might eventually need that color, no buying of novelty fabric for the nephew who's an expert at archery. Just one quilt at a time. Well. Needless to say, I find this practice astonishing, not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can't imagine how it's possible. I buy fabric even when I'm trying not to; like a true addict, I can only avoid purchasing by not exposing myself to the temptation of a quilt shop.

Conversely, I sometimes hear a customer say, "Oh, just give me the whole yard; I'm trying to build up a stash." And while I am often grateful for the convenience of being able to work, at least partially, from a fabric stash that has been amassed over 40+ years, I always have to restrain my urge to run over and say, "No, no, don't do it! Save yourself while you can!" Because we all know that while a stash can be a wonderful resource, it can also get out of hand as fast as a pair of opposite sex rabbits. It's like a scientific experiment whose aim is to help mankind, but which then goes horribly awry and wreaks havoc on the universe or, in this case, one's studio.

Recently I was told of a quilter who said that her entire stash was contained in a Walmart bag, a tale that is met by peals of laughter every time it's repeated. The laughter is followed by incredulous questions: Was she serious? Did she laugh when she said it? Obviously this is not a true stash to most quilters. But how does one's fabric collection attain the status of "stash"? At exactly what point does it morph from random scraps that are too big to throw away into a stash? And how did it get so BIG?

The main culprits in stash generation seem to be leftovers and sales. Every quilter knows that you need a bit extra of each fabric that you purchase for a quilt, because the only time you make a serious cutting error is when you have just enough. (If on the other hand you have yards and yards of extra, you will be cutting with great precision and efficiency.) So there are a few leftovers from every quilt, usually too large to toss. And if you are of the give-me-more-than it-says-I-need school of fabric purchasing, you will have even larger leftovers. Either way, it's not really a problem because we all know that we can use those leftovers later in scrap quilts. If we don't make scrap quilts, we think we will in the future, and this belief seems to extend even to quilters who dislike scrap quilts.

Then there is the sale. We all love it, we all go, we all say we will only buy things we actually need. But what is it that makes fabric we hated look more attractive as the price decreases? It's no less ugly, nor any more likely to work well with other fabrics, than it was at full price yesterday. And knowing this, am I immune from the purchasing bug? Of course not. This is the quilting equivalent of that country/western song about all the girls looking better near closing time in the bar.

But aside from leftovers and sales, I'm convinced that our stashes grow in other, more mysterious ways. I'm sure there's some spontaneous generation going on somewhere, because every now and then I pull something from my stash that I've never ever seen. I'm present when anyone else might touch my stash, so it's not as if my quilting buddies (or elves) are sneaking extra fabric in. It has apparently just popped up, like Venus rising from the sea fully grown.

And what about sexual reproduction of fabric? There are tons of articles and books about color theory, but maybe that's all just a conspiracy to conceal the way we really get secondary colors. Need more orange fabric? Just put your reds and yellows together in a dark corner and 12 days later, viola!—more orange. So all this time when I've been carefully keeping my stash in a closed cupboard to avoid fading, I've really been encouraging to mate! No wonder it never seems to get any smaller!

Every now and then I try to reconfigure ("reconfigure" in this case being a euphemism for "increase") my stash space. The stash immediately fills it. It's not that I buy more to fill all the empty space; it's that the stash I ALREADY HAVE fills the new space. Of course, I can now get a finger or two between the pieces of fabric, an unaccustomed luxury, but that never lasts long. I do know of people who take over or add entire rooms for stash storage. One of my customers used to keep whole bolts of fabric in her second (unused) shower, which really only seems practical if you plan to never have guests.

Maybe the only way to keep control of one's stash is to NOT increase one's space. By refusing to enlarge it, perhaps one would be forced to get rid of some fabric before adding more. Maybe I need to actually decrease the space. Hmm…maybe the woman with the Walmart bag was right.

© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller

Every quilter has had the experience of being in the anti-zone, working on a project where everything goes wrong, and that's exactly where I've been for the past month. I know you've been there too: every cut is wrong—too small, never too big—every seam has to be ripped, every appliqué has to be repositioned. Everything that could possibly go wrong does, and always in the way that's most difficult to fix. And having said that, I will admit that, of course, it is an exaggeration: only one thing was cut too small, only some seams had to be ripped and some of the many problems had easy fixes. But adding to my distress was the fact that the project in question was a commission, which meant that I couldn't just put it aside for a few weeks. Or months. (I like to think of this technique as the quilting equivalent of sending one's child to his or her room for a time-out: when it comes back out again, all parties are much better behaved.)

This is actually a project that I've been working on for years, though when I started in 2006 I had no idea that there would be further additions to the initial assignment. I was originally hired to make 7 Torah covers for aMiamisynagogue. For those of you who don't know, a Torah is a Jewish holy book in the form of a scroll, hand-lettered on specially treated parchment, which usually takes more than a year to make. If the transcriber makes a mistake on any of the 300,000+ letters, he starts over. In short it is one of the more valuable possessions, both spiritually and financially, of any synagogue, hence the need for a cover when not in use. In addition, many synagogues own several Torahs and the covers are decorative as well as functional. Oh, and there are everyday Torah covers and another set for the High Holidays, so over the years I have fulfilled several contracts for Torah covers.

A Torah cover consists of an elliptical solid plate that rests on the top of the scroll, with 2 holes that fit over the top handles of it. The plate is covered with fabric and, in the type that I've made, the rest of the cover is attached to the top somewhat like a wraparound skirt. It was scary enough working on a religious item that I knew was going to be very important and visible to a large congregation. When I added the fact that I'm not Jewish, and therefore constantly worried about making a religious faux pas that would not only entail remaking a cover but also result in total humiliation, I was terrified. (Interestingly, every Jew to whom I confide this fear waves it off as if it were nothing. I assume they are correct, but it's not nothing to me!) So when I finished the first 7 covers, and everyone was thrilled, I felt, first, relieved because I thought I'd finished the project without screwing it up; and also honored to have been allowed to work on this task that I could see touched the hearts of so many people.

Fast forward to November, 2010, when I received a call from someone at the synagogue asking if I would make more Torah covers. By then there had been enough other Torah covers that I felt confident in my ability to design and construct them, though I was still terrified. As usual, I said yes anyway. This contract was for 3 covers, to be delivered by September, 2011. Because of my schedule, I wanted to finish by mid-June. This was all fine—I had plenty of time.

I start on the covers in early May and the first thing I discover is that the fabric I had planned to use won't work. It isn't substantial enough and it doesn't drape well; I return to my standby, Ultrasuede, which is elegant, but also both washable and dry cleanable. This means ordering from a store inWisconsin(I am inFlorida) and all that online ordering entails, especially the 3- to 5-day wait and the inability to judge colors accurately. The latter is particularly true of Ultrasuede, which has a nap; thus the on-screen color can change with the position of the swatch when photographed. It also means that I have to pay close attention to the direction of the nap, so that all 3 covers appear to be the same color, and to the sewing, as Ultrasuede is not as forgiving as woven cotton.

I won't bore you by enumerating every mistake that was made on this project—if I did, this column would be at least twice as long as it already is. I'll just skip straight to the highlight, which is sort of the point here. I finish the covers; you can see that I used calligraphy on them. I have checked the lettering many times. When I deliver the covers I ask that someone check them, since to me the Hebrew letters are just interesting shapes. (Since then I have wondered if I did that because I subconsciously knew that there was a mistake, but second-guessing the subconscious is like trying to catch a hurricane in your hand.) Suffice it to say that there is in fact an error. Two of the letters are transposed. So although this spelling error is not quite as awful as the religious one that haunted me, it is pretty bad. It is so bad that I don't even call the friend whom I always tell about my mistakes immediately because it makes her so happy. I am in no mood to make her happy. (For the record, she's not happy that I make the mistake; she's happy because she thinks I never err and is reassured when I do.)

I leave 2 of the covers there, because the deliverees are thrilled, and apparently nothing good can happen to them at my house. I take the other one home and manage to remove the 2 offending letters, which have been both fused and sewn. Unfortunately, the 2 letters haven't covered equal areas, so although the larger letter covers the evidence of the smaller, the smaller one doesn't cover a larger area of color residue, which has likely been drilled into the fabric with the needle, then heat set by the fusing. After several attempts at spot-cleaning, culminating in triple-strength oxy-clean carpet cleaner, I admit that the cover has won and that I will have to start over, which means ordering more Ultrasuede. In the spirit of trying to look on the bright side, I think about how lucky I am that the store has such great customer service.*

While I am waiting for the new Ultrasuede, I manage to remove the top and bottom bands and the main book motif to reuse. I recut all the letters, which reminds me how lucky I am that this happened on one of the 2 covers with fewer letters. I finish a quilt I am making for my son's graduation from theFireAcademy. I try to get into the mode of going with the flow and accepting what happens, always a problem for me. I get an email from someone who points out that one usually learns a lot from those projects that fight you. Who cares? The new Ultrasuede comes, I remake the cover and everything goes very smoothly. I am back in the zone; in fact, I even improve the design slightly. I deliver it to the temple and it's hard to tell who is happier.

A couple of weeks have passed now, and I realize that I did learn something. Or rather, I remembered a few things that I know from past experience, but tend to forget. I remembered that trying to hurry usually takes longer than taking your time. I remembered that no matter how good you are at what you do, you can still mess it up. And I remembered that one's worst fears can happen and one can still survive. In fact, I have to admit that the person who emailed me to remind me that I would learn from this, was in fact correct. But I'm thinking that I could have waited a little longer to remember all this stuff.

 © 2011 Jane Hardy Miller

 *(www.fieldsfabricsonline.com–they have quilting fabric too.)
If you are a member of CONNECTEDthreadz, a social network for sewers, and want to see more Torah covers go to https://www.connectedthreadz.com/albums/view/34. If you are not a member of CONNECTEDthreadz and want to check it out, go to http://www.connectedthreadz.com.