Hi all! Well, it has been another week of some activity, more healing, and more waiting. Early in the week, Joshua was able to get up and about, walking 30 feet to the nurse’s desk (from his room) and back. Of course, that wiped him out for hours, but he did it! Then he graduated to a few steps with crutches, too!!!!

He also asked me to bring his guitar; I told him once he got out of bed for the first time, I would, so I did. Here he is enjoying making music again. He was THRILLED when the guys form Northern Kingdom Music in Rockport (next town, where Joshua bought his guitar and takes lessons) actually came to visit him and brought him an awesome big hardback book about electric guitars! We are truly blessed to be in this giving, friendly community!

Then Joshua has skin graft surgery on Weds. to close the fasciotomies. I will NOT share pictures of that… if any of you went to the fasciotomy link on Wikipedia, well, his skin graft bandages look WAY worse. BUT, it means he is one step closer to leaving. BUT, he must stay in bed, with leg elevated for five full days (otherwise the graft can “float” off and not take, and we have to do it all over again. Once those five days are over, then he starts up with rehab all over again. FINALLY, when he can get to the bathroom on his own and get around, will he at long last be able to come home. We are all really looking forward to that! But, during the Weds. surgery, they removed the staples from his thigh (which just had a “regular”, not compound, fracture) which is healing quite well and seems to give him little trouble, and the also took the one staple for the scrape on his head (isn’t he lucky they didn’t have to shave a patch of his head with all that hair!

Will let you all know when he’s home. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL who have sent blocks! Here is a picture of the art piece Rosemary Claus-Gray sent (a kid with a broken leg, in traction, complete with real screw and pin in shin!), photos of the pets,which have now been joined by many of the blocks. I’m taking up some Pigma pens today to write each maker’s name on their block, then will take pics!

The Frayed Edges Show at the Camden Public Library (Maine) is up and open for public viewing! And, thanks to sending out press releases, we have coverage in print and online from The Village Soup (Knox County edition) and The Camden Herald, which has a picture, too! The show is in the Jean Picker Room, on the lower level. If you enter from Atlantic street, pass the check-out desk and bear left past the “new books” and card catalog computers to the room. Here’s the view as you walk into the Picker Room, which holds a new show of various art media every month; the director for these programs popped in as we were hanging, and said again that his favorites are the quilt shows…yeah!

On Thursday morning, which was sunny, warm and sticky, Kate Cutko brought up her pieces and Hannah’s from the Bowdoinham area. Deborah has shipped hers from Dallas, and Kathy–who lives in China Village–had dropped hers off at my house earlier in the week since she had to work that day. Thank heavens Kate was there, as I was all butterfingers from so many nights and days at the hospital…I think she hung two pieces for every one I managed to get up! AND, we got all but one piece displayed! Then we trotted over to Rockport Blueprint, because she realized we ought to have a guest book, and bought one!

The day began with a wondrous gathering…the first time we were able to assemble our “grid” pieces! This was an idea I had to have each of us provide a photo, then all five of us interpret the photo in something small…the pieces are all 7 inches tall. The verticals are 5″ wide by 7″ tall, the horizontals are 10″ wide by 7″ tall (size was dicated by the space available between the chair rail and maximum upper viewing level!). They are arranged so that each artist has a row for their work, and each column is five variations of one photo. Then Kathy made a great poster (and labels for all our pieces) with the five original photos from which we drew our inspiration. Here’s Kate setting them out:

As you walk into the Picker room, you can see the grid on the center of the left wall:

This shot is from the grid, around the corner to the far wall (with all our junk on the table…the room looks better when we’re not in the middle of setting up…grin!), with my Koi quilt:

Then, turn the corner to the right wall, which has a collage of various works by four of us, Deborah’s “Anthony Avenue” piece anchoring that wall, two cool pieces (Kate’s nest on top, Deborah’s Encrusted Cairn on the bottom), Kathy’s pink flowers/trees/wonderfulness, then Hannah’s two pieces, and my Flying Toast about Gramma’s kitchen.

Here’s the corner next to the doors, with Flying Toast again and a small piece which I forgot to tell Kathy about (actually forgot I had it!) called Essence of Summer Rose, a mixed media…quilt on painted canvas.

Just to the left of the doors is a large display case with our group round-robin books, some of Deborah’s small pieces (we’re going to work on the display of those!), will add some of Kate’s Adoption Day cards (her website is here), and a few more items. Our binder with information about the show, a picture of all of us,the Winter 2006 Quilting Arts article about us, and artists’ statements is on to, along with the guest book and our cards. Above the case is Kathy’s birches and my Autumn on the Village Green.

MANY of these pieces are for sale…if you are interested in any of them, just drop me a line and I’ll get back to you! Because Joshua is still in the hospital, it may take a couple of days, but I promise I’ll return e-mails as soon as I can.  More about Joshua soon.

We hope you’ll be able to come visit, and if you do please leave us a note in the guestbook on the display case.  AND if you’d like to be on our mailing list, or on my newsletter, please leave an e-mail address!

Well….. medicine in the US can do many wonderful things, but taking into consideration the patient as a feeling, sentient single entity, and his family, is not one of them. Yesterday the doc said if all goes well he could have surgery Weds. and go home Thursday. Today he actually LOOKED at the incisions and said they would have to do skin grafts, meaning MORE days in the hospital and not home Thursday. Sigh. I’m sick of the ortho guys not taking to the plastics guys not talking to trauma not talking to rehab … or if they ARE communicating to each other, failing to communicate that to us.

Anyway, I’m tired, and that is part of my grumpiness! I hope to have time to blog about Maine Quilts, this past weekend (I got a 90 minute window of opportunity to visit! YEAH!), and Kate and I hang the Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library…. if you put Frayed Edges into the search box, it will bring up posts about our mini-group; the most recent is your invite to come to the show! Gotta run….chores to do before heading back up to Bangor, Cheers, Sarah

The double-fold bias binding with a mitered corner is probably the most familiar edge finish for contemporary quilts. In the set of mini-quilts I made for my forthcoming article on bindings in Quilting Arts magazine (August 2008), I created an outside edge that includes corners, a point, and inside and outside curved edges which covers most of the challenges you will face.

I hope you’ll check the forthcoming issue (due on stands and in mailboxes near you at the very end of July and early August) for more details. Because there is only so much space available, they didn’t have room to include instructions for “any-width” bias binding, only 1/4″ bias binding. I actually prefer this technique to the one described in the article, so you have my permission to make ONE copy of this blogpost, for you personal use ONLY (since I make a living, albeit modest, teaching and selling quilts, thank you in advance for respecting my copyright!).

As soon as the article is out, I’ll insert a picture of the mini-quilt here. In the meantime, the close-up above of a good mitered binding will have to do! Thanks for understanding!Cut your binding strips SIX times the width of the desired binding, plus ¼” (or up to ½” extra if you’d like a little more wiggle room). For a binding that finishes at 3/8” that is [(6 x 3/8) + 3/8 = 18/8 + 2/8 = 20/8 or] 2 ½ inch wide strips. Sew your binding strips together with a ¼” seam allowance until you have the length of your quilt perimeter plus several inches. The seams are on the straight grain, so when folded they run at an angle to the side of the quilt (making them less noticeable). Fold the strip in half lengthwise, finger-pressing or lightly pressing with an iron.

Think Boomerang: first the binding goes away, then it comes back:

1. Sew binding strip to the quilt edge, beginning at least four to six inches from a corner, and leaving a tail of about four to six inches (on large quilts, 12 inches or more is better), figure 1. In North and South America, Europe, and Africa, since we read from left to right and top to bottom, I like to start the binding on the lower left side, where the join is relatively unnoticed as the eye travels in its accustomed path across a quilt. Loosely run the binding strip around the quilt to make sure a seam doesn’t land on a corner (too much bulk); if it does, adjust your starting point slighly.

2. When stitching is about 2 inches from corner, fold the binding strip back on itself exactly on the edge of the quilt and finger press. You may wish to mark with a pin or chalk to see the line better. Diagrams 2

3. Fold the binding strip UP so that the marked line is now exactly even with the top edge of the quilt; finger press a crease at the 45 degree line. Mark with chalk on the inside of the binding if you need to improve visibility. Diagram 3

4. Continue to sew the seam until you reach the 45 degree chalk line. Backstitch 3 or four stitches. Diagram 4.

5. Pull the quilt out from under presser foot and (this is the boomerang part) : first fold the binding away on the marked lines, then back down so that the binding turns the corner and goes down the next side. Diagram 5.

6. Stitch from the very outside edge of the quilt down the next side. Diagram 6.

7. Repeat at the other corners.

8. Stop stitching about 4-6 inches from where you began.

After you have used this method enough, you will be able to fingerpress and eyeball the corner turns instead of marking.

Joshua is making slow but steady progress. On Wednesday, he got out of bed for the first time in 9 days and into a wheelchair for a 20 minute “tour” of the Pediatric floor. It took 45 minutes to get from bed to chair. On Thursday, it only took 15 minutes to make the transfer, and he sat up (too long!) three hours…about 90 minutes playing video games, then two friends came and he was up nearly another 90 minutes. That had him wiped out for the day, but he did it, and with much less pain. Hoooray! The peds ward has some totally cool murals. Here is Joshua in the SUNNY (and on this day warm…it was 90+ degrees outside and not a cloud in sight except on the walls) atrium and look at the cool clouds and the critters in the clouds:

That was Joshua’s IV pole, nurses, and Joshua in the wheelchair under the clouds mural in the photo above. Here is the other cloud mural and several of the smaller pictures scattered around the floor:

Here’s the doorway to Joshua’s room, each doorway has a different “something” painted above or next to it:

The last one, of course, is because we are in Boston Celtics territory, The Eastern Maine Medical Center is in Bangor, Maine, where Stephen King lives (well, he has a couple of houses but he’s a Mainer forever, and now owner of the Red Sox). Anyway, we root for the Sea Dogs (the Red Sox minor league team out of Portland) and the Boston teams and, as the saying goes, whoever beats the Yankees.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a quilty post with some good news!