How Pickles Make Quilting All Better

(Author's note: Okay, so yesterday on my Facebook page I asked for suggestions of topics to write about, because I had promised to write more but I could not think of anything worthy of an entire blog post. Alert reader Teri suggested, and I quote her exactly: how pickles make quilting all better. Here you go, Teri. There were some other great suggestions and you'll see more of them here soon.)

Self-care is so important, isn’t it? In the words of our greatest American citizen, RuPaul, how can you love anyone else if you don’t love yourself? And loving yourself requires taking care of yourself, and taking care of yourself requires not getting your panties in a twist over some tiny little problem that isn’t even important in the grand scheme of things anyway. 

But when you are a quilter, your entire existence can be a series of tiny little problems that, added together, become one big problem and now you have an entire row in your guild group quilt that is a WHOLE FOOT shorter than the rest because somebody keeps eyeballing her quarter inch seam and no we can’t just tack on some extra fabric at the end, Donna; we may be modern but we’re not savages.

So yes, it can be very easy to get your knickers in a wad over many things in quilting, but there is a solution. No, I mean a literal solution of vinegar and water and salt and spices and maybe sugar if you’re feeling frisky.  I’m talking about, of course, pickles.

That’s right, I said pickles. The ancient and venerable arts of pickling and quilting have seen a huge resurgence in recent years, but it is not widely known that the two together can rebalance your waveform energies and positively ionize your neuron pathways. Or something. I don’t know for sure - I fell asleep in that TED talk.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are in your sewing room, just happily quilting along, la dee da la dee da, and suddenly your machine jams up, grinds to a halt, and smoke starts curling out of the motor.  And that was the $99 special you got at Kmart because in this freaking economy that’s all you can afford and it’s not like those tax cuts everybody is all orgasmic over apply to you and now what are you supposed to do? If you’re like most quilters, you’ll just go lie facedown on the floor until the sobbing subsides, but just imagine if you had a jar of pickles next to you at your sewing table. Maybe some sweet gherkins. Then, as you watch your only link to sanity dying in front of you, you can thoughtfully munch on a nice crisp and tangy pickle, feeling your chakras triangulate into a pyramid or something, and when you’ve finished the entire jar you can hurl it at the machine, effectively venting your frustrations and putting out what might have been an actual fire inside that thing. See? Isn’t that better?

Here’s another one. Let’s say you are at a guild meeting and the guild show chair is handing out assignments but she is a perfectionist micro-managing hell-beast and your assignment—which is basically to stand at the door and hand out flyers—is specific down to the acceptable brand and color of mascara you are allowed to wear, and the chair is all like, “Is there a problem” because your face is pinched in a fit of unspoken rage and it’s not like you can say out loud what you’re really thinking so you just have to keep it all in to fester like all your unfulfilled dreams. But just imagine if you had a jar of pickles in your hand. Maybe some kosher dills. Then, when the hell-beast is ready to micro-manage your face you can go, “Hoo boy these are some sour pickles—want some?” And when her attention is deflected by the jar of tasty cukes you can run out the door and into sweet, sweet freedom. There. All better.

Really, there’s no problem that a good jar or at least a dish of pickles can’t solve. In fact, the famous Pickle Dish quilt pattern was so named because Prohibition-era quilters used to keep a small dish of pickles handy to mask the smell of homemade hooch on their breath, since in those days quilting bees were really just speak-easies. And that’s where guilds come from, but that’s another story for another day.

I hope you’ll join me in the long lost tradition of the jar of pickles in the sewing room, because when quilting threatens to get your briefs in a bunch, there’s nothing like a bread-n-butter chip to make it all better.

2017 is in the bag

It has been an odd year.

The shadow hanging over the first half of the year was that I would be having surgery again, my third in as many years. The hernia surgery I had in 2016, which was extensive and extremely painful for a very long time, failed after only a few months, plus I developed a new one. I was lucky to find a surgeon who specializes in cases like mine, and who uses better repair techniques, and had everything gone perfectly my recovery probably would have been quicker and much less painful than the original surgery. Unfortunately, I developed a post-operative infection—most likely from when they had to remove my appendix during the procedure because the old mesh had become adhered to it—and I was sick for over a month. It all culminated with a drainage tube installed in the middle of my abdomen, which I had to flush twice a day and clean and drain, and I would rather have had the pain, quite frankly. The cocktail of antibiotics I had to take made me quite ill on top of the infection and I was a useless blob for what felt like a very long time.

In the first half of the year, before the surgery, I did manage to make one quilt, The Sea of Serpents, which I wrote about here. I also did a couple small appliqué pieces.

This one is called Flipping the Bird:

And this one is Billy Rose's Aquacade:

I did a few more in the summer and fall after I got better.  The blue and green are out of order on this one, which still just kills me, but this one is called Type It Out:

A scissors pattern I found in my old computer files inspired this, The Cutter Wheel:

And this came from the eyeglass design I developed when I made my store logo. I've been having some slightly odd vision problems, and I began to contemplate (though the problems aren't that bad) what the specter of vision loss must be like. This one is Fade from View.

So, one large quilt, and five mini quilts, not too shabby. But then the bag thing started.

Oh, the bag thing.

Last year, my sister wanted to make me a bag, something, she said, that I'd never make for myself. I didn't take that as a challenge, but it kind of sat there in my brain for a while: why wouldn't I try to make that for myself? I mean, I was thrilled to get a bag made by my sister—and I still would be—but frankly I loved the one she made so much, I wanted more and I certainly don't expect her to be my on-call bag maker. I've learned plenty of other things, I thought. Surely I can learn this.

Y'all, I have made 22 bags this year, and I'm working on number 23. There are only 17 bags in the photo above because I made four more after I took the picture. The thing is, most have something pretty wrong with them, so even though I do use many of them, the ones I don't use I don't know what the hell to do with. Every bag has been a learning experience, and I am really enjoying the process of making mistakes and stepping back to try and figure out how to prevent those mistakes the next time. I am learning the limits of my machines, the properties of different materials, as well as so many new techniques and tools. It often takes me as much time to select the fabrics as it does to make the bag, and it's wonderful to be able to move slowly and yet still have a completed project in just a few days.

These are some of the bags I do use.

I'm currently working on a bag pattern which I hope to release early next year that is geared towards beginner bag makers, employing everything I've learned in the past year to make a bag that's cute and has lots of options, but won't make a newbie cry in frustration.

So, as far as actually making things, even though it hasn't been big quilts, it's been a great year.

The blog, however...

Yes, the blog has languished this year, and that is both the result of a downward trend in post frequency that really began a few years ago, and also a reflection of my own need to just step away from things for a while. The last few years have seen a lot of endings for me, and I began to wonder whether it might be time to end The Bitchy Stitcher as well. I haven't felt engaged with it for a while, and really wondered if I wanted to keep it going at all. Sometimes I like to just do a hard reset and start completely over, see where it takes me. That's how I got out of the optical business and became a magazine editor. I put aside a freshwater fishkeeping hobby for sewing and this is where I am now. If you have the freedom and the inclination (and the temperament), giving yourself a clean slate can be a great thing, and I was thinking maybe it's time.

And then I got an email. I had been asked by Maddie Kertay of Badass Quilters Society to do a monthly humor column starting in July. If you missed them here they are:

July: Letting Go
August:Meet the Candidates
September: Things You Need to Stop (to be a better quilter)
October: A Few Words About Your Quilting By Your Dog
November: Quilt the Pounds Away
December: Quilting Reality Shows

As it happened, I had been working on a second book, so I had just enough pieces written to get through the end of the year, so I thought, why not? I might get some new readers out of it, and maybe that would reignite my passion for the Bitchy Stitcher. Well, turns out it's hard to know if you have new readers when you don't really write much, but then I got this email, shortly after my December piece posted, from someone who found me through that column:

I want to truly say thank you for writing your book!  I laughed my way through every paragraph!! Your book came to me during a very recent hard time for my family and I can honestly say this is the only thing that has been able to make me smile and laugh. Your humor is my much needed medicine! I can not thank you enough.

You want to make me cry? Tell me laughing at my stuff got you through something difficult. I will cry like a little bitch. Also, you want to to make me completely rethink my decision to stop writing a blog I've been doing for almost ten years? Same deal.

So, I have a pattern to write and a humor book to finish. And while I do those I'm really going to try to get back to writing about whatever fool thing that comes into my head here on the blog. But I need your help. The only reason I keep a personal Facebook page is because you have to have one in order to have a nonpersonal page, like I do for the Bitchy Stitcher. And I keep that because it seems like the best way to keep people apprised of new posts and anything else new that might be going on. If you don't already, please like my Facebook page, which you can find here. When you go there, under the picture of typewriters at the top, you'll see three buttons: Like, Follow, and Recommend. If you click both Like and Follow, you're more likely to see when I post - and I'll always post on Facebook when I have a new piece up here or anywhere else. If you see something on Facebook any engagement at all helps more eyes see it, so likes and comments are really vital, and shares are great too but you can save that for the really good stuff. And I totally get it if you don't want your friends knowing you follow a foul-mouthed, silver-haired bag lady—but if you're cool with that your engagement helps me a lot and also lets me know that I'm not just shouting into the void.

But if, like me, you kinda hate Facebook, you can also subscribe to my posts. That's different than subscribing to the newsletter—subscribing to posts means that every time I post something new here, the entire post goes right to your email inbox. Look at the sidebar on the right side of this page and go to the last item at the bottom where it says "Subscribe to my blog posts via email." Just put your email address in that box and click Subscribe and follow the subsequent instructions. That list is used for absolutely NOTHING else other than getting my posts in your inbox. JUST REMEMBER: I curse n' stuff and if that bothers you I don't want to hear about it and why are you even here? (Yes, after 9+ years I still have to say this.)

If you want to see pics of my stitchy stuff in progress and pretty much the second I complete anything, as well as the occasional pic of my absurdly precocious children, you can follow me on Instagram (@thebitchystitcher). I sometimes link to posts there, but it's not the best place for that, so I don't do it consistently.

I have some ideas for the year ahead, and we'll discuss those later, and maybe maybe maybe, I might consider reviving THE CALENDAR. Maybe it has been gone too long to bring back, but as I say, we'll talk.

So, here's the part where I thank you: for reading this long-ass post to the end. For sticking with me for almost 10 years. For sticking with me through some rough years. I am determined to make 2018 my bitch and I hope to see you along the way.

A Handmade Holiday

‘Tis the season, as they say, and no matter what holiday you celebrate this time of year, it probably involves people expecting you to buy them stuff. Holiday commercialism has gotten so out of hand that even the acolytes of the demon Sa’avu are putting aside their usual blood-letting rituals in favor of Secret Sa’avu gift exchanges. And now that the Gaudiest People Who Ever Lived are in power, gift exchanges have gone from “$10 or less” to “$10 or whatever obscene amount you think will most impress people you barely know.” Lord only knows what the white supremacists are exchanging this year.

But we are makers, dammit, committed to the principle that if you have to give a gift to That Woman In Accounting Who Keeps An Unusual Amount of Empty Diet Coke Cans In Her Cubicle or to That One Person In Book Club Who Never Reads The Book But Has Lots Of Opinions About It Anyway, then it should be handmade. Here’s a handy guide to all the things you could potentially whip out with some fabric and thread that will fulfill all your social obligations and your hard-won sense of identity.

1. Zipper Pouch. At best, this is merely 4 pieces of fabric and a zipper, and if you’ve never sewn a zipper before, what better time to learn than at 11:48 pm on the night before your kid has to bring in a teacher gift or she will JUST DIE. In fact, you know what? Who needs zippers anyway? Zippers are stupid, and frankly, are just the excessive trappings of bourgeois consumerism and so you get a sack. A sack with no way to hold it shut except your own hands BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE NEVER GET ANY CLOSURE, SHEILA.

2. Infinity scarf. Because we are all at the age now where we have to make important, daily neck decisions. Instead of wearing itchy turtlenecks that just make your face look fat, you can don a graceful drape of gauzy fabric that will not actually keep you warm but will at least hide the skin you now realize is starting to resemble the skin on a ballsack.

3. Mug rug. No, Kathy. I will not make you a quilt. You are, quite literally, the most annoying person I have ever met and you make every single meeting a living hell simply by breathing near me. (It’s phlegmy, Kathy. So phlegmy.) I’m not going to make you a table runner or a wall hanging—no, I’m going to make you a glorified coaster. Because maybe, just maybe, after you set down the mug of “herbal tea” (Diet Snapple and vodka) you are constantly sipping from, you will then place the wadded up tissue into which you hork up gobs of death slime during staff meetings onto the coaster next to it and not directly on the conference table like some sort of savage. It’s a gift for us all, really.

4. Pillow. Okay, so, I had plans for this, I really did. I found this paper piecing pattern that was George Clooney’s face. Like, Out of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven, O Brother Where Art Thou Clooney. Peak Clooney, in other words. And I thought hey, who wouldn’t want to have a fabric representation of an older but wiser Doug Ross to embrace and/or throw at the dog? But then there were all these tiny, tiny parts (charming laugh lines are super difficult to paper piece—who knew?) and it was all so hard to line up, George ended up looking more like Matt Damon and that is just eight million kinds of oh hell no, so I had to burn it and then I ran out of time so I made you this instead. It’s purple. Yes, just 2 squares of solid purple sewn together with some stuffing. Shut up—it’s your favorite color and you can still throw it at the dog.

5. Pot holders. For all your acquaintances in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

6. Vibrator cozy. Currently, there are no patterns for this in existence (that I know of) other than knitted or crocheted ones (and you know how we feel about that), so perhaps some enterprising soul could come up with a design. It would really only need to be four pieces of fabric and a drawstring. In fact, you know what? Who needs drawstrings anyway? Drawstrings are just a symbol of how we are tied down by the patriarchy and so you just get a sack, a sack that you have to hold together with your own hands because we are women and we have to give ourselves our own orgasms SO WE CAN HOLD OUR OWN GODDAMN SACKS TOGETHER TOO I GUESS, SHEILA.

7. Gift cards. It counts if you draw on the envelope.

 ********** 

 Peace and joy and love to you all, my friends. And Hail Sa’avu.

Humor posts are happening!

My new humor column at BadAss Quilter's Society is not quite so new anymore, as my second one just went live today!

It's guild election time. Click here to read all about the candidates!

And just in case you missed last month's column:

This workshop will definitely help get your free motion quilting, um, going. Click here to learn the secret!


If you like these, please leave a comment at BAQS!

The Bitchy Stitcher Goes BadAss!

YOU GUYS! I am thrilled, pleased, excited, and all around chuffed to announce that starting on July 13, and every second Thursday of the month thereafter, I will be publishing a brand new humor column at BadAss Quilters Society! Head BadAss Maddie Kertay is working to bring lots of new content from some amazing contributors to the free portion of her massively popular website, and when she asked me to be the humor columnist I jumped at the chance.

Now, you know me. I don’t get in bed with just anybody. But I can’t imagine anyone better in this industry for me to partner with. Maddie is a champion of free expression, and y’all know I tend to express myself pretty fucking freely. She’s a southern quilter with a wicked sense of humor so we’re practically sisters (she’s the pretty one). I met Maddie back in 2014 at Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh, and after a very, very rough day, I got a text from her inviting me to a nice quiet introvert-soothing dinner in her hotel room. She had no way to know just how bad the day had been or just how much I had fallen apart, but she said she had a feeling I needed a little quiet support and she was exactly right. So, I’m pretty sure she is also psychic as well. And when a psychic southern quilter extraordinaire who makes routine vibrator jokes and encourages everyone to just quilt the way they damn well please says, “Come work with me,” I listen. My mama raised me right.

I am so excited to have the opportunity to bring my twisted sensibilities to a wider audience, and I’m even happier to know that they will all be available to everyone. Be sure to follow me and BadAss Quilters Society on Facebook and Instagram so that you can get notifications each month when a new piece is posted. See you over at BAQS on July 13!

Life Update

We have a new addition to our family!

Meet Roscoe:

Roscoe is a butt-ugly La-Z-Boy recliner with a freaking motor because this is what my life has become. I have completely destroyed the delicate feng shui of my studio in order to accommodate this beast and have it situated directly in front of the television. But, no, not because I have given up on life, but because I am having surgery. Again.

If you recall, two years ago I had part of my colon removed for diverticular disease, and though it was technically done laparoscopically, there was still a 5-inch incision in my lower abdomen. Unfortunately, the incision site herniated a few months later and in May of 2016 I had hernia repair surgery. Which was awful. Recovery was far more painful than I had ever anticipated and took a whole lot longer, too. Unfortunately, the surgery didn't work and I now have to have it re-done this Friday.

So Mama's new boyfriend is this insanely comfortable chair which for the next 2-4 weeks I will only leave in order to pee and if I can find a way around that I will. I distinctly remember the first day after the last surgery, having my husband help me out of bed so I could get to the bathroom, and I thought the pain might make me pass out, and when I finally got to the bathroom, all of that hurt so much I basically just sat there and cried. SO FUN!

Besides watching a metric shit-ton of TV (I have been saving a whole bunch of good stuff to watch), I hope to get some writing done since I now have an iPad/keyboard writing system that works. Details are still to be worked out, but if all goes well, I may have a new venue for some of that writing! Plus, I have another surprise in store, which I will hint at here:

Remember, if you subscribe to my newsletter, you will be the first to know about it and get special pricing. (And if you are worried about junk mail, if you sign up for my newsletter, I don't do ANYTHING with your email address other than send you my newsletter, and I do not send out tons of them.) And Instagram is where you will see any quilty/stitchy projects in progress, and there should be one that gets finished from my sick bed, so come find me over there: @thebitchystitcher!

Wish me luck and I'll see you in July!

Quilters Unite!

Oh, dear.

Yesterday Facebook was all up in arms because it had been discovered that some people had started a secret Facebook group just for quilters who identify with one end of the political spectrum and wanted to have a place to talk smack about the people on the other.

Except, they didn't just talk smack, apparently. They also in at least two cases, tried to get people fired. And, as though they wanted to offer up a gift to comedy writers everywhere, in one case they tried to write to a particular quilter's boss but because he is self-employed they were actually writing to the quilter himself! You cannot make this shit up.

More than enough attention has been given to these people already, but I just have to say one thing. And I know you all know this already—I mean, you are my readers, so you're pretty much the smartest, savviest internet users out there—but all of this political rage, this need to talk about The Other Side as though it is comprised of mostly pedophiles and serial killers, is being fueled, at least in part, by Facebook itself because it makes you stay on Facebook longer and see more ad stuff! Every time you scroll through your feed and you see some link to some article that's probably not even straight up reporting from a major news outlet, but is some off-brand site, your heart rate goes up just that tiny bit because the headline was written in a very particular way in order to make that happen, in order to make you feel aggrieved and insulted. Because when you feel aggrieved and insulted you start looking to your peers to bolster you, to shore you up in the face of so much travesty, and because they are also aggrieved and insulted, they do! On Facebook! And now you've all been on Facebook far longer than you would have been if you were just looking at pictures of people's chickens and you've been exposed to 20 ads instead of 2.

I also don't have to tell you that treating half the country like they are all pedophiles and serial killers doesn't actually change anything because IT'S HALF THE COUNTRY. If you get all mad and call me and all my friends stupid doo-doo heads, it doesn't make us all go, "Huh! Why yes. We ARE stupid doo-doo heads! Thank you for pointing that out! We will now completely change." No, if you call us stupid doo-doo heads, we are just going to hunker down and become more firmly rooted in whatever it is we are doing that is making you call us doo-doo heads. We can always find oh, roughly 159,000,000 other doo-doo heads to hunker down with.

And also—and again, I know you know all this but I just can't help myself—it's basically common knowledge that the best way to encourage and maintain group cohesion is to have a common enemy. So, the fact that we are all human beings who want to be safe and free and happy and want a better world for our children doesn't mean shit if we can divide up into teams and hate each other over how best to accomplish that instead of, I don't know, debating the finer points like intelligent adults or something. You are more likely to get up off your butt and vote if your vote is not just for something but also against something—or someone—else, like stupid serial killer doo-doo heads.

But I get it. I do. Hating people is fun and there seems to be a deep, primal need for it. So if we do need a common enemy to fight, we need to keep sight of what's truly important here: quilting. Are we really willing to let the entire quilting world go to war against itself and tear apart over politics? I mean, the slime alone could ruin your stash, and then where would you be? Alone and sad, with a slimy stash, that's where.

I say that we are at a crossroads. We are witnessing a threat to the very fiber of our quilty existence, but we can't exactly unite against politics itself. (See above, re: slime) But we can unite, as quilters—whether conservative, liberal, libertarian, green, socialist, Marxist, or serial killer doo-doo headian—against the real enemy: A Different Crafter Group. Which one? Doesn't matter! Let's just pick one and start a campaign to trash talk them into oblivion! It'll be fun and cathartic and we can go back to appreciating each other for our beautiful quilts and stop hating each other for manufactured bullshit that has nothing to do with quilting and everything to do with lining someone else's pockets. Here are some options:

• Knitters. So, what the hell is the deal with knitters, right? All they're doing is knotting up a bunch of string with pointy sticks like that actually accomplishes something. I mean all that string doesn't even have any animal motifs on it! You can't exactly slap a deer head on a pile of twine, can you? And do you know what they call it when they screw up and have to unknot a whole bunch of knots? Frogging. So, you know, they're probably all French too. Assholes. 
• Polymer Clay artists. Oh, so you basically fart around with Play-Doh and ruin perfectly good pasta machines, and we're supposed to be impressed? Can your stupid beads keep someone warm? Can you wrap someone in love with your dumb animal figurines? No. No you cannot. Shitheads. 
• Woodworkers. One word, just one: sawdust. Asshats. 
• Hand letterers. Goddamn calligraphers with their fancy pens and and their swirly words that nobody can even read. Since when is that loopy monstrosity an "R", for fuck's sake? Look, just because you can write a Gandhi quote that probably was actually said by Mussolini or somebody in pink princess cake lettering with glitter accents doesn't mean you should. Losers. 
• Cross stitchers. Oooh, look at me, I'm cross stitching: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I would do some more, but I just bored myself into a coma. Dipshits. 

SEE? ISN'T THAT FUN? Just think of the possibilities here. We could start our own not-so-secret Facebook group where we could freely insult our chosen enemy. We could come up with a super cool name, like Several Quilters United Against Bullshit (SQUAB for short) and print up t-shirts and buttons and when we wear them and people ask us about it we can be all, "Oh, it's because I'm against bullying or bake sales or something" but really it's all about hating on the stupid knitters or potters or cake decorators or whatever it is we all finally decide on.

And if we're really lucky, we'll get them to form their own group to hate on US! Because what's the point of coming up with really clever, funny insults if your target isn't going to cleverly insult you back?

I'm telling you, this could usher in a new era of peace and understanding. Among quilters anyway. And isn't that what really matters?