In Which Rowenta Loses Bladder Control, and Pees All Over My Ironing Board

How Can I Potty Train My Leaky Steam Iron?!

Good Monday Morning, and Happy 5th Day of Christmas!  As you can see above, the offending Rowenta is not a family member (thankfully!), but rather the latest in a string of household irons to have failed and disappointed me.  She was expensive, but she was German-engineered, she came highly recommended, and she was supposed to be worth it.  I followed her instruction manual to a T, emptying her tank between uses and filling her only with fresh water from the tap.  I have never dropped her.  I have never abused her for Craftsy DIY purposes for which she was never intended, and I haven't had her for even a full year.  And yet she has started intermittently peeing on my ironing board, and worse, all over my projects -- currently paper piecing.  Now, paper is pretty strong when it is dry, but not when it is wet!  Today, this caused a tear in my paper foundation that was fortunately near enough to the edge of an almost completed block, so it didn't result in ruined work.  Next time, I may not be so lucky.  I keep making excuses for Rowenta, like "I should have let her heat up before I refilled her tank," or "I must have tipped her sideways when the cord got caught on the ironing board," but deep down, I know her days are numbered.  Considering that her little sister, the Rowenta travel iron, nearly started an electrical fire a couple of months ago, I am no longer feeling the warm fuzzies about this brand!  If anyone has a recommendation for a reliable, potty-trained steam iron for quilters, please share that with me in the comments.

But it's Design Wall Monday, isn't it?  So enough about leaky irons -- let's check out that design wall:


Design Wall on Monday, December 29th, 2014: Pineapple Log Cabin

The biggest change to the wall since the last photo I posted is that I have taken down all of the bear paw blocks and the applique block so I can focus on just this one pineapple log cabin project until it is finished.  Now that I have 12 finished blocks I am officially a third of the way finished, if I stick with the original plan to make a California King sized quilt (6 x 6 layout of 17 3/4" finished blocks, about 106" before quilting and laundering shrinkage).  However, currently we have a Queen bed and my 6'8" husband is not 100% on board with the idea of getting a bigger bed, even though his feet stick out at the bottom of our bed like that Ned dude in the Dr. Seuss books:

Unlike Bernie, Ned Does NOT Like His Little Bed

A California King bed is 12" wider than a Queen, as well as 4" longer to accommodate those feet that have been sticking out from the end of the bed all these years!  Bernie's objection to the King bed is that "he likes to snuggle," but snuggling is not nearly as nice when one of the snugglers has a raging, sweaty fever and is a swarming flu hatchery.  I know I promised to be there "in sickness and in health," but scooting 12" away from a sick person gives you a fighting chance to stay healthy enough to take care of Mr. Sickie.  Plenty of couples who are smaller than we are manage to share a King sized bed without growing estranged from long distance!  Have you ever heard the saying, "If you build it, they will come?"  That's my philosophy with this quilt.  I'm making it California King sized, and once I've spent a thousand hours or so piecing and quilting it, I'm pretty sure the California King bed will come.  ;-)

Back to the main topic of this post, which was supposed to be the design process: I read somewhere online recently where a quilter said she "didn't like scrappy quilts."  I don't understand that at all.  I have certainly seen a lot of scrappy quilts that I did not like, but what I didn't like about them was the color or value choices (light/medium/dark, not morals!) made by the quilt maker, or something about the overall design of the quilt that didn't appeal to me.  I admire many quilts with more limited palettes than what I typically use, but I can't imagine making a whole bed sized quilt using only a few fabrics.  I would get so bored without the constant design decisions that happen throughout the entire piecing process with a "scrappy" quilt.  With my pineapple log cabin blocks, the paper piecing process is so smooth and easy that I can carry on conversations with my family, supervise homework, or listen to cartoons on television (Anders' favorites are the old Tom & Jerry cartoons) while I'm piecing without worrying about making mistakes.  What keeps the process interesting for me is the challenge of combining all of these different fabrics in a way that creates a unified look for the quilt as a whole even though every single block is unique. 


12th Block Completed

Each of these pineapple log cabin blocks contains 97 patches cut from 37 different fabric strips, and I have used a total of over 150 different fabrics so far for the twelve blocks that I have completed.  I have other fabrics waiting "in the wings" to be sliced into strips if needed.  ("Need" is when I look at the strips I have already cut and none of them look exciting, not when I run out of strips that have already been cut).  I select each fabric strip individually as I add it to the block, checking my design wall to make sure my new block doesn't look too much like any of the ones I've already finished.  The process of making the quilt is much more enjoyable for me when I'm using many different fabrics, and I love that the blocks make a dramatic impact from a distance, but there so many details to notice up close due to the interplay of so many different fabrics.  Anyway, that's enough blogging for today -- on to Block 13 of 36!

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Esther's WOW: WIPs on Wednesday.  Have a wonderful week, everyone!