Ta da!!!

What a great day in Tompkins Square Park yesterday! The sun shone, the crowds came and the dogs were cuter than cute in clever get-ups. I love seeing others' photos online because I didn’t see all the dogs in person. (Dog Draper won a prize, I heard, but I have yet to see him!)

I pulled Roonie’s pin cushion out of its bag while waiting in line to get into the dog run. First I put all the pins and needles in and right away things started going wrong. The yarn “thread” fell out and disappeared. Pin balls popped off and a couple of pin sticks broke, weren’t salvageable and had to be stashed in my backpack for later repair. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the pin cushion kept shifting to one side. Oh, dear!

And yet we were getting lots of compliments and everyone (except for the guy who thought it was bagpipes) recognized what he was supposed to be.

Our turn. We entered the ring and into the mic I said Macaroon’s name (forgot to say mine) and his history as a stick of butter and a taco. We went over to the judges, some of whom were the same and who remembered us! Oh, things were looking up as Macaroon did the same sort of schmoozing he did as a taco. He stood on his hind legs and looked deep into her eyes with the intensity his fans are familiar with. We took a turn around the ring feeling like celebs before the masses of paparazzi. So many cameras!! French TV interviewed me with Macaroon in my arms. And this morning we turned up on NY1!

There were 18 prizes for each of the three rounds of contestants numbering in the hundreds. Round one, our round. First prize...(they’re starting with first, not counting back?) The M23 bus, a corgi and his little boy as a bus stop, so cute. Very creative. They won a Jack Spade messenger bag worth hundreds of dollars. Nice. Second prize? THE PIN CUSHION!! OMG! We won!! Our prize? In my opinion, better than first, a professional photography session for Macaroon worth $600!!! Fantastic!!

Triumph!

Here are a few photos I snapped. So many clever costumes!! Do yourself a favor and set a Google alert for “Tompkins Square dog parade 2011” and see the amazing array in the photos of others not distracted by wardrobe malfunctions and able to capture the scene.

Many are of winners and favorites. Borat, Pinky the baked potato (was the Serta sheep in ’09), Sissy as Hurricane Irene (was Breakfast at Tiffany’s last year and placed 3^rd to my 4^th), Addicted to Love, the Pushme Pullyou, Slinky, Tippi Hedrin & the Birds, Lady Gaga, Nicky Minaj, the Trader Joe’s staff, the Oz monkey, Anna Wintour & Karl Lagerfeld and Princess Beatrix in that silly fascinator.

Will it be another Halloween triumph?

Months ago my plan was for Macaroon to become one of his nicknames for Halloween. I call him “the Love Sponge” for his hobby of getting close to people not to love them but for people to love him. Great idea? I know I could make him look like a giant sponge. And then I parodied the “Love Boat” theme song which my nephew was going to produce for me. But yada yada yada. He didn’t.

So weeks later when I accepted that the Love Sponge theme was not going to happen, I had to think of something new. A sudden inspiration! I would turn Macaroon into a giant pin cushion! Perfect for a quilter like me!

I designed it and acquired the materials, always fun. The pins would be shish-kebob sticks painted silver with Styrofoam balls painted bright colors. I also bought red broadcloth, paint and fiberfil. I already had green yarn and my friend and fellow-dog-costumer Lynne kindly gave me green felt and a plastic cup with two holes punched for an elastic strap. Painted silver and embellished with Sharpie dots it will make a great thimble hat.

The hard part was engineering the pin cushion. I made a red jacket base and then experimented with a muslin prototype. Six orange-like sections of fabric sewn together created the basic shape but with fiberfil it was much too heavy. It’s bad enough I’m inflicting the costume on the dog. The least thing I can do is make it wearable. Hmmm....What else to use? Papier mache over a balloon form? Messy. Maybe heavy also. I know! Packing peanuts! They are made of polystyrene and are 98% air! Bulky but light! But I didn’t want to buy a huge bag of them. Instead I kept a sharp eye for polystyrene tossed to the curb. I found a lovely, neat, clean stack and then broke it up myself. It looked like it had snowed in my apartment, but I had the stuff!

With some experimentation I found that two muslin chambers loosely filled with my home made peanuts supplemented with a little fiberfil created the effect I sought.

Inside, under the felt and fabric I have a disc cut from the polystyrene which makes a nice, secure base for the pins.

I added a “strawberry," yarn and felt, then perfected the fit. I think this costume
is even better than last year’s stick of butter and 2009’s first-place prize winning taco!

Two dog costume contests this weekend!!

"Hi! I'm with We Are Wisconsin"

Phonebanking for “We Are Wisconsin” has proved to me why I am not and could never be a salesperson. Making cold calls is really tough. Especially when some people hang up on you. And some are clearly annoyed to be getting yet another call.

“At least I’m not a robot! I’m a real person!” I decided I am going to say next time, and there will be a next time. The cause is too important for there not to be. Even though calling strangers isn’t the most fun way to spend an afternoon.

I made dozens and dozens of calls for Jennifer Schilling who is running against Dan Kapanke to claim his Wisconsin State Senate Seat. The majority were planning to vote or had already voted absentee for Jennifer. One woman thanked me for reminding her, taking me by surprise, considering the amount of ads I imagine (from my flat in NY) are running in Wisconsin. That was very rewarding.

And despite the Midwest rep for niceness, I was hung up on a lot. Some before I could say a word. Others gave me a resounding click somewhere into my spiel. Some said “wrong number” which I mostly took as a lie. Some said the person wasn’t home, although I think a few of those were lying too.

One woman flatly but politely said she was voting for Kapanke. But she was the only one. I had some other singular voters and conversations.

One gentleman told me he was up in the air about Tuesday’s election. “Is that because you haven’t made up your mind?” I asked. Turns out he had voted for Kapanke last year. And it wasn’t that he was a big Kapanke fan. “Is it that you are not sold on the whole concept of a recall?” Yes, that was it! His feeling was that the election was the choice. And funny thing, his wife is a teacher who didn’t vote. So she and her friends who also didn’t vote are all voting for Schilling. “So she kinda balances you out,” I said.

And I remarked that Wisconsin law provided for a recall if enough voters petitioned for it. And if politicians campaign on jobs then reveal a very different agenda once they get into office, perhaps recall is a good option.

But his feeling was that only people who had bothered to vote in the election should be allowed to vote in the recall. An interesting idea. I didn’t argue.

Another voter I reached had just gotten home from her own phonebanking shift in LaCrosse. So we talked shop. She hoped people were being nicer to me than she experienced. A lot of electioneering fatigue is setting it. I hope all the people who ask to be removed from the list are not called again.

Maybe that’s the cause of the weirdest call I had. I greeted the man and launched into my short spiel which ends with a cheery “Can we count on you to vote for Jennifer Schilling on Tuesday?” Silence. We were still connected. I could hear kids in the background. “Hello?...Hello?...Mr Hickey?” No response. For several minutes. Had he set the receiver down? Was this passive aggression? And then without a word the phone was hung up with a loud click. Made me appreciate the ones who hung up right away.

I will be very shocked if Jennifer Schilling doesn’t beat Dan “Hanky” Kapanke on Tuesday.

QUILT SHOW in SOMERS, NY

If I have a home where my quilting roots go, it's Somers, New York, where my sister used to live and where I would visit. She had become a quilter and I took up counted cross-stitch which is a gateway drug to the full-blown addiction of quilting and fabric collecting. It wasn't long before I had spotted a wall hanging in one of her books and decided I wanted to make it, but in a bed size. That only took 18 months.

Years later, here I am in Manhattan, still a fabriholic, still quilting, buying fabric online. And every spring the Northern Star Quilters Guild show endures. Early on Saturday morning, my friends Lynne and I set out with our friend and nascent quilter Terri at the wheel north ready for a day of fabric and quilts.

We hit the vendors with the goal of finding certain fabrics, but always open to new ideas. I bought a pattern for a tote which I thought I could make in a larger size for myself. But when Lynne found the cutest New York-themed fabric for a tote for my niece who will be visiting me next month. So I bought the two cut yards and started looking for complementary fabrics that need to go with it. Suddenly I realized that I had to make a third bag but there was no more of the NYC fabric. Luckily my friends found another NYC fabric and so I bought that. Then I had the fun of finding the fabrics to go with it (see them above.) I'll be making three bags for the two sisters and the cousin, granddaughters of my sister. One visited New York last year, one comes this year and the third will visit next year.

After we visited every vendor, some twice, we went into the gym to see the quilts. Was it just us or was it smaller than last year's show? Some of them on display were truly beautiful. Some were interesting. Some remarkable for technique. Waiting to see them was smart as the crowds had subsided and we were free to gawk and take photos of the ones that caught my eye. Most amusing were the two security guards overheard discussing which quilts they liked.

Terri emailed me with a link to show in New Jersey later in the spring. We're going!

MAYBE THE SHELLACKING WAS A GOOD THING. A PERVERSE LOOK AT THE BAD NEWS.

I’ve been arguing with some otherwise like-minded people in the Twitterverse lately and find myself defending talkers like Ed Schultz and Norman Goldman who are, in my opinion, rightly critical of the White House and most Democrats in the Congress. These members of the so-called “Professional Left” are blamed by some for the shellacking endured by Democrats last November.

But I ask you. Who’s the blame for a box office bomb? The producers, director, writer and actors who created “Ishtar” or the reviewers who panned it?

I blame the demoralization of the base on the demoralizers, not the people – including me on twitter – who are the demoralized and who pointed it out. The responsibible parties are the White House which has taken the base for granted and the majority of weenie Democrats in the Congress who haven’t stood up to the Republicans. Democrats took a huge advantage and squandered it with bad moves that got a lot of notice and with good moves that they didn’t publicize.

And I have to contrast that with the sociopaths on the right who called being appointed by the radical right wingers on the Supreme Court “a mandate” and then just plowed ahead despite its lack. It’s beyond frustrating to have larger numbers and yet not having our good ideas and policies implemented while the Republicans shoved through their horrors with smaller majorities. How is that possible?

Polls told the Democrats that support was there for single-payer but it wasn’t even on the table! And the fall-back, the public option, was wildly popular but the Democrats stabbed it in the back. Still we’re expected to be as enthusiastic as we were in 2008? And if we are not, the fault is ours, not the people in power?

It’s not enough to be “better than Bush.” That’s such a low standard and not sufficient to inspire the kind of turnout we saw in 2008. I blame the Democrats in power for spending all their capital on a very flawed health care reform bill which the Right Wing was able to demonize with their oversized megaphone. It’s no wonder the weenies on the Left ran away from it.

But it’s really stupid. If you’re going to be called a “Socialist” or even “Communist” anyway, why not go for the most you can get and the hell with the bozos on the Right? They just make up crap anyway!

So who is to blame? The Democrats with their flawed laws or those who are publicly rooting for them to do better?

Look beyond the finger pointing (just a lot of navel gazing, and water over the damn, if you ask me). There’s an enormous silver lining to the shellacking. Look at the energy in the streets! It’s more than a galvanized base.

If November hadn’t happened as it did I don’t think the Republicans would have become emboldened to grab for power in such a naked and startling way. It’s perverse, but their overreach has done something remarkable and positive: it woke us up, in the way that the slow erosion of our democracy did not. The sudden, obvious, cynical handover of power to the corporations by the venal GOP was like a bucket of cold water in our passive faces.

And when I say “our” I shouldn’t really include myself. I was emailing, phoning, tweeting my tiny little heart out for months. No, when I say “our” I mean the American public. A group even larger and wider than the Democratic base.

What we saw in Egypt inspired the brave people in Wisconsin to stand up to their anti-democratic governor. And Madison has in turn inspired people in other states to stand up to their fascist dictator Republican governors.

I was out on the streets in Manhattan starting in February, one of a hundred at first, then a thousand, then many thousands. But I was also out there in 2009 in the fruitless campaign to get the Democrats to get us the public option at the very least. So the presence of a political junky like me is unremarkable. But the crowds these days contain those who are among the unlikely--- formerly apathetic and lots of converts from the right. A growing number who see that the corporate takeover of the GOP is a fact and the Tea Party a mere Astroturf fig leaf. They also see it partially true of the Democratic party, and that these Fascists are now consolidating their power for a complete overthrow of democracy. Government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. Corporations which are “persons” thanks to a clerical error and the Supreme Court which has lost all credibility and legitimacy thanks to Bush v. Gore and “Citizens United” (which has to be the most ironically named legal case ever. But that’s what the Right Wing has always been great at, like gutting environmental protection and calling it “The Clean Air Act” for just one example.)

At long, long last, the wider public may finally be clued in. These monsters on the right don’t give a shit about the country. They care only for themselves and profit and if they have to step on their grandmother to pick up a nickel, get the hell out of their way!

The only question’s is it too late? On their side, they have unlimited money to achieve their goal of totally unfettered corporate power.

All we have is an aroused populace motivated to save our democracy from a threat as great as any we have ever faced, including the Soviet empire and the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan.

We can do it. We’ve done it before. But the irony is, had there been no November and no consequent Republican overrreach, the American public would still be quietly dozing.

I'M SORRY, YOUNG MAN.

I think I may owe an apology to one of the demonstrators at the Planned Parenthood rally in NYC.

Here’s what happened: Thousands of us assembled peaceably in Foley Square. Many, like me, came over from City Hall Park where we had rallied in support of workers’ rights, in particular in Wisconsin, but everywhere the GOP is assaulting the rights of Americans.

We were feeling great to be together, thousands of us liberals, progressives, Democrats, Socialists, whatever we call ourselves, battered by years of Right Wing lies and stratagems, angry and taking a stand against the corporate take-over of the country.

You came through the crowd carrying a sign. It had a drawing of two eggs and the line: THESE ARE NOT CHICKENS. What? What does that mean? So some people asked. And you said rather imperiously, “I’m not taking questions at this time.”

WTF? Are you kidding? I went berserk. How arrogant! I thought. And I was sure you were an agent provocateur from the right wing. I took your sign to be a “right-to-life” sign. I called you a coward. I got the crowd to chant, like the Wisconsin Democratic assembly members, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” And basically drove you away. There were no threats, there was no violence, just a lot of yelling and anger.

I got high-fives from some of the other rally-goers. It took several minutes for the adrenalin to subside. I’m sure my cheeks were flushed. A few young women standing behind me told me that the young sign-holder was, in fact, pro-choice. What? They got the distinct message that he had been misunderstood. Then why not answer our queries? Why the arrogance? I asked.

I don’t know the answer. But later, as I thought about it, it occurred to me that those young women were right. “THESE ARE NOT CHICKENS” one of the most abstruse and ridiculous signs ever, was a pro-choice sign. Given a lot of time to think about it: I got it. That’s not the best sort of sign for a rally where short, direct, punchy and clear are generally the way to go.

Had he appended some pro-choice sentence, logo, something, it wouldn’t have been misunderstood. Had he just not refused “to take questions,” had he said anything to show he was pro-choice, he wouldn’t have been verbally assaulted by me.

But as it was, he was. And I was the one who led the attack. And while I don’t feel entirely responsible, I do feel sorry. And I hope that the young man sees this and accepts my apology. But also learns a lesson: don’t create such an abstruse, hard-to-understand sign. But if you do, and people ask you about it, TELL THEM, for the love of God.

And if you recognize this young man, would you please see that he reads this? Thanks!

DESIGNING A MEDALLION

This medallion quilt top can be counted as a great success, if I do say so myself. It was created at the behest of a friend who started out years ago intending to make a very ambitious first quilt out of those octagons of Japanese prints. She got as far as adding borders of blue but there she faltered for years, not knowing what to do next. She had taken on more than she was able to do but she wanted to somehow make a quilt out of this jumble.

So she did white Sashiko stitching on nine of the octagons and I appliqued them onto pieces of the blue with white chrysanthemum print. But what then? She thought perhaps sewn together somehow they would work, and I thought that the nine in a square would make the start of an interesting medallion. Agreed. And then she gave me the rest of her octagons, some blue fabric and the bright cherry print plus a Japanese woven print she was eager to use and a little more of the chrysanthemum print to work with, and carte blanche to design a large quilt top.

I designed this as I went along, using graph paper and the limitation of the amount of available fabric which was a bit of a challenge and the reason I'm so proud of how this turned out.

The first thing I did was to trim the chrysanthemum fabric under the Sashiko octagons very carefully and then stitch them together to form my center square. I added a border of the bright cherry print and triangles of blue so that it could be set on point which always adds a lot of interest to medallions, I think. It also adds size which was important. A narrow border of chrysanthemum print was added using scraps I trimmed off. I wanted a repeat of that fabric and it's the sort of print that can be pieced and you can't tell, a quality that came in handy with this project!

My friend wanted me to use the extra octagons if possible and I found a way to use a dozen of them. First I added strips of the blue Japanese woven fabric and then triangles of chrysanthemum print. Many of the triangles had to be pieced and I was really glad that I had made the border out of the scraps because I needed every square inch! I set the octagons on point like mini medallions which echo the center.

Then I added strips of a blue print so that these octagons would appear to float in the blue. But I ran out of the one blue print and had to supplement with the blue print from the large triangles, which I had the most of. And then I alternated the mini-medallions with rectangles of blue, finishing with a final border of cherry print. Total size: 84" square.

My friend was surprised by what I chose to do with this assignment and definitely delighted.

QUILTS IN THE WORKS

Can I say that I have a really good excuse for not blogging much lately? I’ve actually been stitching. A lot. With a lot to show for it.

First, -- drum roll, please! – I finished the last of 274 black/white/red fan blocks needed for my niece’s quilt. Of course that meant that I had to be ready with new foundation squares to start appliquéing and accumulating more fan blocks for the second one.

After trimming and stitching the edges, I separated the white blocks from the black ones. And because I began with 6” squares, I was able to create consistently sized blocks—so important to piecing together.

Then I set up my felt easel. This is a device I created and am rather chuffed about. It’s just two really large pieces of cardboard rescued from the street after a treadmill was unpacked in my neighborhood (I’d been on the lookout for some big clean cardboard after I got the idea) and taped together. There’s a bit of sway to it and I wish it had less give, but it will do. I set it up across a chair (or I stand it up for a vertical look) and cover it with white felt. That gives me a wonderful surface on which to lay out quilt blocks. If they don’t stay up on their own, pins!

On paper I laid out the four sections of quilt to be assembled, giving me a road map. This quilt requires close attention to detail if you are as anal about it as I am. First, to have the blocks alternate black and white. And second, to be sewn in the proper order to create the desired pattern. To save time and ripping and resewing, my least favorite activities, I relied on the road map.

I also choose one special block to seed in each section. There are four special blocks: one with dog prints, one with polka dots, one with heart prints and the first one I made which has only four fan pieces and they don’t alternate. My plan is to tell my niece of their existence and hope she has fun finding them.

Assembling the second section was easier because I organized the blocks better. This time I sorted them by the red pieces and piled them up according to the number of times each print was used. They ranged from singletons to some used as many as seven times. The joy of randomness! But what I most wanted to avoid was to be left with a second half of blocks with too many duplicates. This organizational step made choosing much smoother.

I also made use of very clever plastic squares that can be marked and pinned to fabric to keep it all straight—up, down, left, right, trying to keep from sewing the wrong ones together. These are tremendously helpful and prevented mistakes.

Now that I have two sections stitched together, my next step is to sandwich layers of backing, white flannel and the top sections & machine quilt them before I then sew them together. My niece’s quilt is close to the half way mark and I can’t wait to see it done and gifted!

Meanwhile I’ve also been working on two other quilts that will be gifts. The green and tan boxing clever quilt will also be done in four sections and given to the daughter of my other sister. This one is 15 x 16 blocks, 240 total. Her taste is muted and more traditional, so I think she will like this quilt.

The third quilt in the works is for a dear friend who loves blue and white. I started collecting blue and white fabrics last spring with some fabrics purchased at the quilt show in Somers, NY.

All the other fabrics added to these quilts I am proud to say I bought on clearance. I really love these prints and I am sure that I will enjoy making more quilts from them--- I have plenty of fabric!