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!

Here’s a press release I sent out for our group show this August. Thought I’d insert a little quilty content into the medical reports. Joshua continues to improve, albeit slowly. He had another unit of blood today to combat the anemia, but he is getting stronger every day. Today he ate more than he has, tho not enough. One day at a time. And thanks again for ALL the many good wishes.

The Frayed Edges will have a show of textile and mixed media art at the Jean Picker Room of the Camden Public Library from August 2 through 29, located at Main Street and Atlantic Avenue in downtown Camden, Maine. Meet the artists at a reception on Saturday, August 11th, from 1 to 4 pm, in the Picker Room. For library hours and directions, visit the library website here .

The show will feature a selection of works on the theme of “Home,” a collaborative piece entitled “Five Artists-Five Views”, and selected other works. For the collaborative piece, each artist contributed a photo, then all five artists made a small piece based on that photograph. The resulting twenty-five small works are displayed in a unified grid. This piece illustrates for the viewer how each artist’s style reveals itself through five different interpretations, and how differently each person can “see” a single photo. Here’s the poster Deborah did up for us:

The Frayed Edges are a group of five women who live (or lived) in Maine and met through Art Quilts Maine, a part of the statewide Pine Tree Quilt Guild (www.mainequilts.org): Hannah Beattie of Brunswick, Deborah Boschert of Dallas, Texas (formerly of Topsham), Kate Cutko of Bowdoinham, Kathy Daniels of China Village, and Sarah Ann Smith of Camden. They are professional artists who sell their work from their websites, have won awards and been juried into national level shows, have been published as a group in the top art quilting magazine, Quilting Arts, and have projects in the forthcoming Quilting with Beads by Lark Books.

Some of the work in this show is available for purchase; please contact the artists directly. For questions, please contact Sarah at sarah@sarahannsmith.com .

The quilty portion of today’s blog is that I finally began the introduction (which often gets written after the rest of book, as in this case since most of it is in first or second draft) to my book on thread on the drive home from the hospital (it is 60 miles each way, and instead of pouring it was glorious summer in Maine) and it is coming clear in my mind! So when I can finally re-focus on work, I will have a bit of a head start. Believe it or not, the quotes I plan to use are from Twyla Tharp and Stephen King…how’s that for eclectic?

Joshua is making progress; as usual, it is several steps forward, one back, repeat process. Yesterday he ended up having to have the blood transfusion. His hematocrit and hemoglobin levels were SO low that he was in the critical range. We were talking to the nurse about it today and she said she’d think long and hard about giving her kid a transfusion, too, but with levels as low as Joshua’s had become, there wasn’t even a question. It was a “DO IT”. So that helps. He did improve quite a bit…not so pale or groggy. Here’s the poor kid at the end of the second unit of blood:

This morning he had his FOURTH surgery in six days! The first, Monday, was to stabilize the leg. The second, Wednesday, was to set everything. Friday and today were to change the dressins and clean the incisions (hope that last link in the previous post didn’t freak anyone out! even my normally unflappable hubby who has assisted in veterinary surgery said “oh that was gross!”). Today they were able to put a few sutures at the ends of the long incisions, and hope to be able to close them if the swelling goes down enough on Tuesday. I guess once that happens, he will get to stand up and try to get mobile. Plus, today they changed the pain meds (for those who know more than I, from Fentenol to Dilaudid, and that seems to have helped a ton….apparently he ate a LOT of supper…hoooray!). Maybe home over next weekend????

Then, Paul will reschedule his rotator cuff surgery!!!!!