An Excuse To Be Fussy

Barbara taught me a new term: “Fussy Cut”

Definition: To fussy cut is to target and cut a specific motif that’s printed on fabric, rather than randomly cutting yardage as we normally do.

I Spy quilts are made by cutting and sewing together all sorts of novelty and pictorial objects.

Attic Windows and Kaleidoscope quilts are other places you’ll find fussy cut fabrics, but the cuts can be used for any purpose:
* Center a specific print within individual patches or alternate blocks of a quilt
* Cut directly on printed lines when motifs do not follow the fabric grain

Some quilters like to construct a window template to help them visualize the print that will be seen when they cut a specific area of cloth. Make a simple preview window by cutting a chunk that’s equal to the finished size of your patch from the center of a piece of letter or legal sized cardstock — tape cardstock together for larger shapes. Mark around the shape you like, and then use your rotary ruler to add a 1/4″ seam allowance around its edges. Cut with scissors or a rotary cutter.

The Case for Exercise – of sorts

In a non-work discussion about how exposing yourself (and babies) to germs just helps build the immune system, my distance-colleague Eric shared that he has the same attitude about the health of his liver: you have to work it out to keep it fit.

Who knew?  Have one for me.  And another one for Eric.

Carry On for Carrion!

This was an awful lesson.

I have learned that if a huge bird crashes into your picture window of your beach house, dying on your front porch chair, and you want to move it for Other Creatures to dispose of it for you and return it to nature from whence it came, then you must move it FAR!

Like get a shovel and bring it to the beach!

Because otherwise those Other Creatures will do their work, surely enough, within hours, but they will leave ALL the feathers right there in front of the porch !!

Ickkkkkkkkkk.

Feedback Rocks

Over the course of the year, I have learned that this blog is MUCH more fun when people post comments.

So for those of you who have been commenting, keep ’em coming!  It fuels me!

And for those of you quietly reading, we would all love to hear from you!!

Also please email me things you learn.  I am frantically trying to catch up way before the end of the year.

Love

Jane

Not So Sharp

In our twenties, my friend Debbie and I went on a multi-month quest to find an elusive item: a graphite pen.  This thing wrote like a pen and produced “pencil” writing that was erasable.  (What can I say? We were nerds.)  We never really found one, although we heard they existed.

Now Sharpie has come out with just this thing.  I was so excited!  (hey some things never change)  Staples didn’t have them so I decided to order on Amazon.  

Good thing I read the reviews -these things are terrible!

http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Liquid-Mechanical-Pencils-1770244/dp/B003VQHQ8E

The quest continues!

Stop, Hey What’s That Sound?

I learned how to download and re-install SoundMax, the audio driver that recently mysteriously disappeared from my laptop.

HP.com > support and drivers > enter device and operating system > audio drivers

That kept bombing out until I realized the secret: Do NOT do this from Google Chrome!  Worked like a charm with my antique browser: IE 6!