Spiralling

Two months ago, The American Folk Art Museum held the "Infinite Variety" quilt show in New York for 4 days. Sadly, I did not get a chance to see it in person, but the pictures that were popping up all over the place were inspiring. I was especially intrigued by this one - the optical illusion effect, the simplicity of the design, the whole thing! I HAD TO FIGURE IT OUT.

So when I'm still thinking about it two months later? Yeah, that's a sign that I have to make it. I got out my handy protractor and started to chart the whole thing - I planned on using this lovely pile of colors that I picked up with Kelly in January:


We got a 1/2 yard of each of those 12 Kona Solids - the idea was to make a quilt using those solids and white. I had no ideas.

But then it all started to come together! There was some tweaking, some long division, some cursing, but with much perseverance......


And then the tough part, getting it ALL together.......


It's GIGANTIC! It's about 78" or so across. The center seams are incredibly, um, unseemly - there are 48 seams all converging on one point, making for a LOT of bulk, and a bit of a mess. I appliqued a little quarter-sized circle over the whole mess, and I think it's fine. But the center circles are still all quite thick - it's 3-4 fabric thicknesses for the center foot or so. I'm sure the quilting will be a BEAST - I'll be hand quilting this, as it's just too big to think about running through a machine, and it will gain me a bit more control over the lines and colors. Hoping to begin to tackle the quilting this weekend!

ROADTRIP!!!!!

We went everywhere - and here you have it mostly in pictures:


This is bullshit on the Interstate in Cleveland. A 90 degree turn? REALLY?

We stayed with the wonderful melseyknits and her husband. It was fantastic, they were wonderful host/esses and lovely, fabulous people. Until we had to leave......


...After defeating Melinda, I revisited my Robot Army:

I am SO fascinated by the windfarms that are cropping up in Iowa, and - having not grown up there - it is wonderful to see them on the horizon and integrated in the landscape. I think they're beautiful.

We visited Inga on her farm to see these Baby Burgers:

...and all the pigs and sheeps and goats and chickens too. In fact, there was some chicken farming involved.

I can't even talk about Milwaukee - we did too much! It's such an awesome city! That will have to be a later post.

BUT! Then we went to Ann Arbor, and went to Zingerman's:


Ohmigod I can't even. It's all too much.

But then we saw Stacey in her latest handknit:


And all was awesome again! Really, this lady is spot-on. If you are in Ann Arbor, I highly recommend getting coffee or scotch with her!

We had our portraits done in Canadia:

I knit these socks on the road:

And we picked up this awesome toolbox:


And so much more! Milwaukee will have to be it's own post - it was all too much.

A lot of people have expressed interest/concern for our tolerance of one another through these road trips. Honestly, we travel REALLY well together. Dale does most of the driving because I can knit and talk (if he is a passenger, he is usually reading, which precluded conversation). We rock out a lot. We listen to a LOT of NPR, when we can get it (we have the NPR map, but there are a bunch of dead zones/shared channels/&c...) We get a little bit crazy, but it is usually mutual. We pack a lot of healthy-ish snacks, we take frequent breaks. We've done this a few times, but every time, I manage to find more awesome roadside attractions - I'm already planning where we can (potentially) stop next year.