Syzygy Means the Planets Aligned Long Enough For Me To Get This Done

... being a quilt of a graphical nature, for dancing queen and designing woman, DB.

Welp, so much for resolutions.  A short post, just to get this sucker out the door.

It's not so much that I'm not doing anything crafty, as that I've been shuffling around a little for work: this quilt, for instance, which I call Syzygy, was started in NYC and made a trip to Ecuador before being finished in Chicago:

You can maybe see why I thought of it as "Syzygy", though it could have also come from Zzyzzx, CA.

Which is suitable for DB, who is herself a jet-setter of some reknown: a boot-scootin' country & western music lovin' Francophile that I know via an extended college crowd.  DB then moved into my neck of the woods in Chicago and promptly opened shop as THE best-catered party apartment north of Irving Park Road (and by "catered" I mean "she did all the damn cooking, holy shit", which is nothing short of magical to me and my pop-tart eating, can-opening culinary habits.)

Ms. DB, whom you might remember as the talent behind the Gramdrew's Home for Wayward Girls logo, is hereby the recipient of this cracked mirror of an offering.  She had expressed a desire for something of a graphical nature, and as always, these airy descriptions coming from an actual designer just baffle and terrify me and I demanded examples. So she picked out some of the quilts I had made for other folks that she had liked, and the one that stuck with me was Sister Lulu's Fractured Flowers quilt.  This pattern is "Arrow Point Path" by MeadowmistDesigns and seemed to fill the graphical bill, AND had the advantage of not being too complex to piece when I was in transit for pretty much 3 solid months.  I did a little bit of an ombre fade thing with the shades as I moved to the outer zigzags.   And I went with toasty reds and oranges, and a linen-y taupe-brown, in part because it was freaking cold out when I started to do this and I couldn't even look at my glacial blues and cold water greens in January or whenever the hell that was; but also because my impression of DB's living room revolved around these warmer shades.  Hopefully I'm not misremembering that, DB!  But if I am, let us just say this color scheme is reminiscent of the endless vats of salsa I have cumulatively consumed at your annual Cinco de Mayo party, as well as the cheery warmth of your hostessing in general.

The flip side is one of my favorite patterns (which I compulsively draw in my graph paper notebook) in oranges and yellows with one strip of the central red tone from the front to make it fit lengthwise:

Man, I love this pattern.  In Sashiko I think it's called Asa-no-ha, or hemp leaf.

As I pieced this top, it reminded me of many things: zippers, tire tracks, the cymatic visual representation of sound waves caused by dance music... this last, of course, because DB is a dancing fool extraordinaire, and once stayed out dancing so vigorously that she broke her foot (okay, or exacerbated a running injury, maybe): like, on and on until the *actual* break of dawn.  I know this because I witnessed it, since we were the only two that stayed out that late after many other wimpy dance-haters had left hours prior..... and we might have made it out at the same time they were leaving except at that crucial moment "The Killing Moon" started up and that was all she wrote.  Hence: broken foot. Eternal respect for your dedication to the craft, lady.

I started working with Suki the Juki on free-motion quilting, but my lines were still just straight(ish).  However, it's still like 50% faster than using a walking foot, IMO, because you don't have to wrestle with your quilt to reposition it so much.

This is to say nothing of her karaoke prowess, which runs a funky gamut from Stevie Wonder ("If You Really Love Me") to some classic Country & Western ("Tiger By the Tail") and I even saw her captivate a live-band karaoke crowd with that venerable old chestnut "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," because she is a born entertainer, and a natural onstage (something I never, for all my karaoke obsession, ever mastered.)  And indeed it was DB who introduced me to the dearly departed Carol's, the last honkytonk on the north side, which was within stumbling distance of her apartment, and mine, back when I was her neighbor in the RavensHood.  In addition to being the bar voted Most Likely To Be Playing a Patsy Cline Torch Song At Any Given Moment, it was also home to a truly David Lynchian cast of neighborhood characters, including a tiny, reedy-voiced librarian-looking woman who used to on occasion bust out with "Birthday Sex" at Thursday night karaoke (one of my favorite karaoke nights in the city, especially during the unemployment/grad school stint of the late oughts.)  Think the C&W bar at which the Blues Brothers sang, minus the protective chickenwire, mating with the Isle of Misfit Toys.  Aw, Carols. We hardly knew ye.

The edges are a little different from the diamond centers, nothing too crazy.

In any event, I hope this one works out, DB, and satisfies your preference for something of a graphical nature. Surely you know by now that your fancy pants artistic terminology falls on deaf ears when it comes to me, but maybe if you think of this as tire tracks or dance tracks or as an abstract rendering of the excitement one might feel upon being gifted a one-way ticket to a prepaid apartment in the 11th arrondissement, it will endear itself to you anyway?  In a pinch, at least, you'll have something to throw on top of any party guest that might decide to take a quick snooze on the living room couch, in spite of the raucous dance party going on in the dining room (ahem.)

In which it becomes clear that colors really do look way better in sunlight than in whatever you call the light in the basement I'm living in right now.  "Grotto-esque"?

I would tell you to let me know the next time you get your rock show on, but let's be real: these old bones do that like 1x per year these days and would likely take a raincheck. On the other hand, Summerdance starts in June with Samba, Swing, and Salsa - right up our alley!  Hollar if you're going: I'll bring a walking cast, just in case.


Besos!

Astrid.

Linking up with Confessions of a Scrap Addict - Fridays Whoop Whoop