It is easy to make promises - it is hard work to keep them (quote Boris Johnson)

Brenda Sanders asked me for some information to add to her blog when she's ready to post my quilt on her blog (DaisyQuiltsForYou). She's interested in "the quilt makers journey when making the quilt and her quilting story." It's exactly what I like to read in other quilters blogs, so what could I do, but promise to deliver. So here I am, working my way down memory lane.

To write about the "CoutchPeanut" quilt is quite easy. I started this English part of my blog writing about that when I brought it back to live in February this year. The posts from February 23rd to April 28th are all about my thoughts and choices around that quilt. So that part is already done, but to write a long quilt life down in a short text seems like a mission impossible.

The hardest thing is to try to gather hundreds if not thousands of memories into one consistent narrative. Maybe a list is a way to start?

• How it all started: The course "Women's pictures. Sew, weave and crochet your life". 1985-1987
  New couse in 1987- 1992: Quilting, a Mental Health Craft.
  My first quilt (and how it later was saved - and still not finished)
  Course taught by Lis Ahrenkiel (my Hawaii quilt - which is finished)
  Publikums prisen 1988: The Fat Grey (quote: Charlotte Yde, who I admire immensely. Both as a teacher and as an artist)
• Techniq skills and the social aspect was the most important aspects
  More UFO's than finished quilts
• Nordborg gruppen:
  Teaching (material)
  Danmarkstæppet, Nordisk Quilte Træf , Oslo 1994 (article in Kludemagasinet 2010/2, by Lisbeth Borggren: "Focus på Danmark)
  Diary
  Editing Kludemagasinet (Grete Lindgaard, Bitten Carl and me)
  Nordborg træffet (block bingo)
  Quilt for Town Hall, Nordborg kommune
  Weekends in summer cottages
• QuiltCon's (foreign teachers: Michael James, Jinny Beier (signed book), Mary Coyne Penders, Dorle Stern-Straeter, .....)
• Lectures with Charlotte Yde: Tradition og fornyelse. (slide show with traditional quilts and modern quilts)
• Photo collection
• Books

My ironing board

When posting about my quilt being posted, I posted a picture of the package placed on my ironing board.



It's heavy, not adjustable (height), rather wobbly and has it's very own special sound when used. But it's a very special to me. I belonged to my late mother and I remember it's sound from my early childhood. I know I could have a far better lightweight, adjustable and wider one, but I can't bear to replace it. This summer, I stripped it from all the strange layers of old towels that had been covering it and making it "soft" under the final metallic cover.


I'm sure it's made by a woodworker in the town, where my mother lived when she married. It's clearly handmade. I know my attachment to it is sentimental and in now way rational, but I find i so beautiful. I even considered to keep it naked as decoration, but decided against it and dressed it up again and am using it for it's original purpose.
....... someone seems to have forgotten an iron on it. Auch!

Cool PostNord tracking!

I usually swear at the slow speed when waiting for a letter to arrive, but a recommended packet has definitely a quite different speed. The quilt to be delivered within 24 hours!! What a pleasant surprise that it didn't have to lie folded within a box for long!
And cool to have the tracking app. Love it.

Off to quilting

The quilt is ready for quilting. As I mentioned before, I decided to send it out to a longarm quilter to have it quilted. Quilting is a slow process done by hand and the size of the quilt would mean that I had to quilt for months. Honestly. I don't like quilting that much! So the decision to send it out for quilting was easy. It's in safe hands at Brenda Sanders who's a very talented and skilled longarm quilter.
So....



here we go....... looking forward to see you again baby.

What did you learn i school today...?

I learned that it's better to cut the tips of the triangles as you go than cutting all of the at the end!!
Hmm.... don't feel like just throwing the cuttings out, must be possible to use them for something....?

Necessity is the mother of invention

I've got a bias strip folder, but it was too big for this job, so I had to come up with a fast solution :)


But I think I'll buy an 18 mm folder next time I shop.........

The sun's shining today

Yay!! Not only had Gitte Andreassen from Gittea Patchkwork just enough of the fabric I wanted for the background, I just received a mail from Brenda Sanders, who my quilting friends tells me is a brilliant "longarm'er". I was afraid she was so busy that she didn't have time for more customers, but I got a positive answer from her. I feel sooo lucky. Unfortunately I can't meet with her at her studio, but I'm sure, we'll find a way to communicate. I feel pretty safe in her hands.

I also got an advice from Lisbeth Borggreen today on the border. She suggested, that I not only added a narrow reddish brown border after the row of beige squares as I planned, but also before the beige squares. I think it's a really good suggestion, that will add the classic look to the quilt, that my daughter wished for, when I began to plan the quilt.

Now I'm only waiting for the mailman to bring the fabric. Luckily I have other project on my design wall :)

CouchPeanut top

The top is almost finished now. I only need to add the border of small squares the size of the 4 corner squares in the block. The 2 borders on the illustration only placed beside the top, not yet stitched. They will be more narrow when stitched (because of the seam allowance). NB. The blue is a sheet that holds the styrofoam plates that make up my temporary "design-wall" together. It's not part of the quilt.


My daughter (aka CouchPeanut) and I discussed the border: should it be just a narrow binding or should there be a row of small squares the size of the squares in the block before a narrow binding of a darker color?

We would have skipped the border if the half blocks along the edges had been from one fabric, but since they are half stars we feel a border will be best. So now that's all I need to do to finish the top. Piece of cake. Will do tomorrow.

We also decided which fabric - chosen among the scraps - should be used as background and I've emailed a photo of it to Gitte Andreasen (Gittea Patchwork) where I bought the fat quarter of it, that was used in some stars at the top. I hope she can identify it from the photo and that she has more of it!! Unfortunately Gitte has moved her nearby shop in Rødekro to Odense. But anyway - in these corona times, the best is online ordering, I guess.

I also have to contact a longarm quilter. Good friends have recommended a highly skilled "longarmer", Brenda Sanders. I hope she has time for more customers. Because she is so accomplished, the demand for her work is high. I really hope to squeeze in.
I read about her in Kludemagasinet some time ago and I have followed her on social media's: her blog, Instagram and Flickr, but the recommendation from my friends made me sure, my baby will be in safe hands with her.

2 hope. Let's see if luck is on my side.....

Think about the quilting

While producing the 85 block, 24 half blocks and 4 corner blocks


 I've begun to think about the quilting. Should I send it to a long arm quilter to have her do it? Or do it myself on machine, which I have absolutely no practice doing or shall I hand quilt it, which will take eternity? And shall the quilting be one big design or repeated block designs?

Evening Star or Eight- pointed Star

NB. Revised post (March 18, 2020)
In the original post, I wrote: "I've been researching the name of the block. Like it's often the case with blocks, it has several different names, but it looks like the most common is Ohio Star."


I was wrong. A good friend of mine - who's a gold mine of knowledge on patchwork and quilts - tells me, that this is NOT an Ohio Star block, but an Evening Star or Eight-pointed Star block.


The photo (and my quilt) is an Evening Star/four patch block that is: 4 by 4 squares (see right outline) while Ohio Star is a  nine patch block: 3 by 3 squares (left outline) and the difference from the two is quite obvious. I stand corrected.

If you're interested in the subject, there are several online articles on block names and of course millions of pages with blocks. One of the better articles are written by Laurette Carroll, a quilt maker and collector from California: "Quilt Pattern Names" At the end of the article you'll find several references to books on block names and designs.


Now it's production time:

Couchpeanut's Throw Quilt

My current project is a throw quilt for  my daughter (aka Couchpeanut). She wants a classic quilt made from patchwork blocks. We went through my quilt book library and ended up with a design inspired by the cover of one of my old, favorite quilt booklets:
"Calico and Beyond: The Use of Patterned Fabric in Quilts" by Roberta Horton.
I bought the book back in the 1980ies and it taught me valuable lessons on the use of patterned fabric. Lessons that I still draw on in each and everyone of of my current works.


The book is still on sale at Amazon and I can highly recommend it. There might be newer books on the subject, but this one covers all the basics. If you know of newer book, that you can recommend, I will be grateful if you post them as a comment to this post. Thanks.

I'm sooo happy that she chose a scrap quilt, I would have been bored to death if she had wanted me to make that many blocks had they all been identical. Now there is a little creative period when choosing the fabrics for each block. Not two blocks are alike and the center squares are all unique. There's a few (2 or 3) fabric I cut more than one squares from, but they are from the category, Roberta Horton calls "wonder prints", prints where you can't identify the print rapport.

Block chosen and fabric color palette too: beige, sand, grey, brown, deep red, dust blue, we had to decide the overall design of the blocks: straight or on point?



I made a small "mock up", so we could discuss overall design, color palette and especially a strategy for the background colors for the stars.

Quilts, quilts, quilts...

OK. With Flickr accessed and working, I'll proceed to what was my intentions: to focus this blog on my "retirement project": quilting :)
Back in the 19th century, I quilted a lot, but when I got a full time job at UC Syd, I put all my fabric and threads aside and stopped cutting up fabric into small pieces and stitch them together to large pieces of fabric. Lolz

I stored my fabric in the basement when I moved to Haderslev and when I decided to take up quilting again and carried my boxes with fabric up from the basement I found out that storing fabric in basements was not a good idea: they all smelled musty. Bwadr!
I washed, dried and ironed it all. It took several hour a day for a full month. My husband and daughter took pity on me and did a lot of ironing. Bless them!

Then out to buy storage chests with basket drawers, so I could store the fabric so I could easily overview them and so that they didn't get smelly again. To be completely sure, I distributed small bags of lavender in the baskets.



My walk-in closet got converted to a storeroom with a wardrobe and my height adjustable computer table got converted to a quilters workbench.


After some month, I was ready to go..............

New name on the block

Yay!! I got access to my Flickr account today. It's actually amazing that Flickr support (aka Carol) took so much time and effort to bridge the gap between securing users from being "hacked" and supporting a maiden in distress. Lolz
Thanks bunches, Carol from Flickr support!!

Now I'll better get my account cleaned up. There are a lot of duplicates and pictures, that I actually don't see the point in keeping. It'll be a fun job, there are a lot of memories hidden there....

Some really funny like this with the title: Mammarazzi(!!) marking how proud I was of my new Sony Ericsson phone with camera :)

I've also - after long considerations - decided to write in English from now on. I started posting in English as part of the process of getting my Flickr account back/proving my identity, but I've decided to continue in English. There's 2 reasons (hopes) for that decision: I may have a better chance for getting a couple of readers and I may become better writing English.

That decision created a  problem: the original title of the blog was "faurholt's fumleri", which is completely untranslatable: "faurholt's fumblery" doesn't have the same punch. After long considerations I decided for "BlockHead" and to change my profile pic to an old treasured blockhead that I own. It belonged to an 80+ year old lady, who rented a flat in my house in Copenhagen back in the 1970ies. She never married, but lived in her parents house and worked as a millner all her life. The blockhead has traces of the numerous needle stitches she has done. I always think of the now deceased little old lady with the blood red nail polish and the thin lady cigar when I see the blockhead in my windowsill. She may not have kids and grand children to remember her, but the blockhead and I do.

Flickr and forgotten login

I joined Flickr way back in 2005 and for several years I used it intensely for my digital photos. I have 838 photos there. That's not a lot today, but please remember, the first-generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007! Before that, you had to have a special camera to be able to take digital photos.

As my blog "Du er, hvad du tagger" shows, I was teaching Web 2.0 technologies for years and introduced hundreds of students and teachers to Blog, Flick, del.i.cious (social bookmarking and a lot of other social medias. That was a great time of great enthusiasm, that I remember with great pleasure.

Now that I'm retired, I want to use Flickr again but quelle horreur!! I can't access it because the email I used was a corporate email that has been discarded by my (now former) employer, UC Syd.  I contacted Flick and hoped they could help. I remembered Flickr as always helpful, but it has been owned by several different companies during it's lifetime. I contacted Flickr with my fingers crossed.

A few days after the usual auto-we-have-received-your-mail-response, I was contacted by Carol, who asked me for verification of my identity as the Lis Faurholt, who owns Liz@rt's Flickr photos. It's not an easy process, but Carol is extremely helpful at the same time as she is fulfilling the corporate rules on securing their customers materials. I find it hard to convince Carol, but do respect her reasons for trustworthy verification.

I'm still hoping.....

Test på iPad

Dette er en test, skrevet på min iPad.

Test fra iPad'en

Øv! Der er ikke en iPad app, kun en iPhone app, der virker på iPad'en.
Det kan da få en til at overveje Wordpress :/

Gode links til begrebet Gamification

Harddisken d. 23. feb. 2011 om gamification: det bedste, der er sket siden skiveskåret brød.
- værd at bemærke: SAPS (Status, Access, Power and Stuff in that order).



Gabe Zichermann's blog: the gamification blog


Mine eksempler fra det ældgamle interessefællesskab: tv dot com:
AprilFox (aktiv siden 2005)
CouchPeanut (aktiv siden 2010)

3 Casual games på Facebook

Jesper Juels "A Casual Revolution" er en af de bøger, der kom præcist lige netop, da jeg var parat til at læse den. Jeg havde jævnligt lavet søgninger på "Passive Games", som fænomenet også betegnes som ("Casual Games" synes at have vundet "kampen om retten til at definere begrebet" nu), og JJ's bog kom som en gave sendt fra.... well, forlaget :)

Hidtil har jeg læst og tænkt over mine erfaringer og opdagelser, men nu er tiden kommet til at forsøge at få orden på tankerne, så jeg ikke igen om et par år igen sidder og ærgrer mig over, at jeg ikke fik fastholdt det, jeg tænkte undervejs.

Jeg har koncentreret mig om 3 spil på Facebook: MouseHunt, Fish Wrangler og Ghost trapper. Det har været en belastning, men også en fordel. En belastning, fordi der hører daglige sociale forpligtelser med, men en fordel, da de 3 spil fra at være ret ens i begyndelsen (Fish Wrangler og Ghost Trapper utvivlsomt ripoffs af Ghost Trapper) over tid har udviklet sig meget forskelligt, hvilket stiller hvert af spillene/spilelementerne i et tydeligt relief.

MouseHunt har over tid lagt mere og mere distance til de to øvrige. HitGrab (firmaet bag MouseHunt) er tydeligvis langt mere professionelt end de to øvrige. MoueHunt er også det oprindelige, mens såvel Fish Wrangler og Ghost Trapper utvivlsomt er rip-off af MouseHunt.

Først de hårde data:

MouseHunt (2008)
MouseHunt produceres af HitGrab Inc, et canadisk game firma. I skrivende stund arbejder følgende på MouseHunt (HitGrab har flere spil):

• Bryan Freeman (executive producer)
• Joel Auge (designer and interface engineer)
• Giorgio Sintichakis (coder and system operator)
• Dave Vanderburg (coder and designer)
• Jacob Johnson (illustrator)
• Jeremy Mandel (coder)
• Franco D'Auria (coder)
• Mike Paterson (coder)

Fish Wrangler (2008)
Fish Wrangler produceres af en enkelt, amerikansk programmør, Joe Faron (med en tegner, Daniel Roper ansat) samt hans kæreste (Jillian Young) til at tage sig af det sociale.
Om Joe Faron (Facebook profile): Suit up.
I'm an entrepreneur from Chicago, IL. I started my first "business" at 13 from my parents basement - a p2p file sharing site later turned to a free web hosting company (kyd.net) with tons of free space and little security! From that point on, I've dedicated most of my time to the interweb. I absolutely love working with technology. Recently, I've been working on the Facebook application Fish Wrangler - check it out mate!

Ghost Trapper (2.2.2009 Official release of Ghost Trappers)
Ghost Trapper (findes ikke som Wikipedia opslag - hvilket noget er sigende) produceres af Diviad GmbH ejet af Andy Huller (CEO og Founder of Diviad GmbH, creator of Ghost Trappers and Chronicles of Blood) og Reiko Groß, Munich, Germany.
Jeg husker ikke, hvor jeg har det fra, men det er mit indtryk, at Andi og Reiko er studerende.

Denne oversigt er iøvrigt i sig selv en bekræftelse på min påstand om, at MouseHunt er langt mere professionel end de to øvrige spil. :)

MBTI

Myers & Briggs kan bruges i analysen af forskellige spillertyper!!

Feeds

Det, jeg især har skullet lære, er, at forholde mig til begrebet feeds. Jeg har i mange år været vant til at anvende feeds fra blogs i en nyhedslæser og er på den måde vant til, at feeds ikke er nyheder som sådan, men "fiskekroge" man kan bide på eller ignorere. Facebooks feeds ligner dog langt mere nyhedsstrømmen i Twitter end mine feeds i min nyhedslæser.

Her har det dog nok en betydning, at jeg er en del af et meget stort gamer community (weak ties) og ikke kun bruger Facebook til at interagere med familie og venner (strong ties). Ifølge undersøgelser er det især vedligeholdelse af kontakten til "strong ties", de fleste bruger Facebook til, mens jeg i mit netværk overvejende har "weak ties" kontakter.

Der er således to interessante teoriområder "informationsstrømme" og "weak ties and strong ties" på banen her. Mens det første ikke er særligt velbeskrevet, men sikkert bliver det, når Twitter bliver et forskningsobjekt, er "weak ties and strong ties" et særdeles velbeskrevet sociologisk begreb.

For at tage det sidste først, så har der længe været en diskussion af relevansen af Wengers begreb "praksisfællesskaber" i elæringskredse. Her taler man godtnok "legitim perifer deltagelse", mens man i sociologien generelt og i netværksteorier specielt taler om "weak ties and strong ties". Begrebet "community" har i flere år været under kritik og foreslået erstattet af "netværk", ikke mindst begrundet i Internettet:

"It is an interesting research question whether the Internet will help foster more densely knit communities or whether it will encourage sparser, loose-knit formations."
Jones et al. 2006, p. 45)

Der er noget at gå i gang med at læse her.....