Happy Pi Day 2022

It's strange that one of the definitions of "empty" is: to remove from what holds or encloses. And one of its definitions of the word 'freedom" is: not bound or confined or detained by force.

~Dorothy Gilman

Happy Pi Day! Every year more and more schools and companies celebrate this odd little holiday. Two friends told me their companies started this year with free pizzas and pie for lunch.

Here are the circles I finished this year. Most are one I worked on last year. At least they are now done.

The Wheel quilt is on the guest bed...

Wheel quilt

while Shadow Star is the summer quilt on our bed.

Shadow Star quilt

There are a few circles in the improv String Tulip quilt, too.

String Tulip 3 quilt 

The only other circles are the Os in some baby word quilts and they don't look much like circles.  Nevertheless, here are LOVE

LOVE baby quilt

HOPE

HOPE baby quilt

and HOGS.

HOGS baby quilt

This year is so upended I have no plans for future work. Just sewing when time permits. Stay safe and have fun today.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Pi Day 2021

It's Pi Day, the only time American dating makes more sense than European style: 3/14. Time to review all the circles I made this year.

My largest circle quilt was the Wheel although it's not back from the longarm quilter.

Wheel quilt top

I also appliqued circles on several quilts including the String Tulips

String Tulip quilt 2

and Mars on my newest grandchild's Christmas stocking

Christmas stock with Mars

and the Shadow Star sashing. The eight-pointed stars also look circular, probably because they are drafted with radii, and arcs.

Shadow Star quilt top

Speaking of eight-pointed stars.... I finished Lone Stars

Lone Star quilt

and LeMoyne Stars

LeMoyne Star quilt

and a string star. I'm counting all of them as circles. 

String Star quilt

We're having chicken pot pie with apple pie for dessert. What about you?

Enjoy your pie, Ann

Pi Day 2020

"Hope is the choice we make to see the light, 

even while recognizing the inevitable presence of darkness." 

~Rabbi Nancy Kasten

Quilting

Wonders never cease. Pi Day is Saturday and I'm currently working on a circle quilt as it approaches. In fact, the top is sewn. Sort of. Maybe I'm moving forward; maybe I'm standing on quicksand. I'm not sure. But I have sewn plain white sashing and posts to the Shadow Stars. While it's not as visually appealing as the green compasses, it's not lumpy and twisted either.

Shadow Star quilt with plain white sashing

While I consider whether to add appliqué near the posts {and if so, what fabrics to use} I'm also going to think about the border. The Stars are {fairly} precise so improv or very casual piecing won't match. Appliqué borders may be a solution but oh, how I wish I could think of a pieced border that would work.

Meanwhile, here are some light prints that might fit in a border somewhere. I'm wondering how they'd look as part of a pieced border or as the background to some appliqué.

Possible border prints for Shadow Star quilt

I can only find three circle quilts this past year. The propeller baby quilt:

Propeller baby quilt

The spirals on this Chinese Coins quilt:

Chinese Coins quilt with spirals

and Clara's emoji hair:

Clara, a collage quilt

Now that we have the spiralizer apple peeler, we are definitely having apple pie for dinner. All week!

The daffodils are fading. Every time they bloom I remember how our mother told my sister she was born "when the tulips bloom." Upon spying the daffodils in the garden she started dancing around crying, "It's my BIRTHDAY!" And we had cake that night.

Coronavirus
Professor Marcel Salathe recorded a lecture on coronavirus for an infection biology class at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne the last week of February. It addresses the state of our knowledge at that time but it also contains excellent general information about how epidemiologists address novel diseases. Just over ninety minutes so get your coffee first.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Pi Day 2019

Will we act in this world with respect for our founding conviction that all people have equal dignity in the eyes of God and should be accorded the same respect by the laws and governments of men? That is the most important question history ever asks of us. Answering in the affirmative by our actions is the highest form of patriotism, and we cannot do that without access to the truth.

~John McCain~

Celebrating Pi Day {3.14} this Thursday {3/14} - the best reason for using American date notation which I've always considered slightly backwards. Month/Day/Year is not as orderly as Day/Month/Year but at least gives us a day to celebrate circles.

What circles have I made in the past year? Mainly aspirational.

There will be loads of applique circles in the centers of the Shadow Stars as soon as I get my energy back. I thought I'd be much further along but still keep falling asleep. Plus, it's time to get the taxes finished. Not that I'm doing them myself; I just need to get them organized for the accountant. But not only do I have ours to organize, there's also the estate. It's tougher to do someone else's since I worry about forgetting a category. Getting sick put me way behind. Time to catch up.

Here are the three two-and-a-half centers I finished. I'm learning there is no such thing as too many pins when there's already a hole behind the applique. Those seams allowances like to wiggle.

Sewing the centers of the Shadow Star blocks

Other than Jupiter on the latest Christmas stocking, I didn't make many circles last year.

Velveteen Christmas stocking
with sequined ornaments

I'm looking forward to apple pie for dessert although not homemade. DH is bringing it home. I hope you're making celebratory plans, too.

Happy Pi Day!

Enjoy the day, Ann

Pi Day 2018

Ok, so Pi Day is tomorrow - 3/14 - but I couldn't wait.

I've been wanting to make a Wagon Wheel or Ferris Wheel block for several years, simply haven't gotten around to it. The joy and bane of rotary tools is that they make straight cutting so easy.

The 10-degree wedge ruler was a find at a quilt show... about three years ago. {It had to age on my bookshelf, you know.} When I was finally ready to start, I considered using bright fabrics but have a collection of oddly colored green, beige, red, and white fabrics sitting unused in my stash. Hmm.

Wedge ruler and fabric pull for Ferris Wheel blocks

So I made a sample that turned out to be a mess. Granted, I extended the ends of the ruler in both directions by adding my regular ruler but the wedges are disconcertingly inaccurate. Into the Future Box it went. {Doesn't that sound better than UFO? Like a Hope Chest, perhaps?}

First Wheel

Rod Kiracofe showed a Wheel quilt at a recent lecture with Julie Silber that has similarities with my original plan. The varying blade widths are attractive here.

Julie Silber holds a Wheel quilt
from Rod Kiracofe's collection

On the drive home I remembered Audrey's quilt with striped binding. Red and white striped binding. And I have some red and white stripe fabric. I pulled everything out again adding a random grey-green solid for a background. {I'd forgotten she put quarter circles on her quilt.} Possibilities.

Quarter Ferris wheel block
with red and white striped binding

This was the last photo I snapped before leaving on the family emergency so there's no telling when I will get back to it or how it may change. Well, it's been in the Future Box before.

What other circles have I made this past year? Well, I finished the Thirty Year Sampler

Thirty Year Sampler quilt

and Rabbit 1.

Rabbit 1, a Strips 'n Curves variation

Pluto and the moon on these Christmas stockings,

Velveteen Christmas stockings for grandchildren

the Racetrack quilt,

Racetrack quilt

Circular Anomaly {which isn't finished},

Circular Anomaly quilt in progress

and the Propeller baby quilt {which is still basted but not quilted.}

Start Your Engines propeller baby quilt basted

Not a bad collection of Pi(e)s. Off to make an apple pie. Lots of family around so it will be gone before it's cooled. Yum!

Enjoy the day, Ann

Pi Day 2017

3.14. It's Pi Day! This painting hangs at the Cantor Arts Museum at Stanford University.

Maxon's Island by Frank Stella

I had three circle quilt finishes in the past year. One was the Polka Dot quilt from Freddy Dot Com class.

Polka Dot quilt from Freddy Dot Com class

The other was a Crafted Applique pillow using Lara Buccella's method for raw edge applique.

Crafted Applique pillow

Part of the magic of Kaleidoscopes is the optical illusion of circles.

Kaleidoscope quilt

My family always refers to the time before a child was born as "when you were just a twinkle in your father's eye." Here's the quilts that are still just a twinkle in my eye.

Quilty365 blocks are still stacked ready to create a top.

A month of Quilty365 blocks.

New York Beauty was set aside with plans to finish this top this year. We'll see how that goes.

New York Beauty blocks

Spiderweb is almost a circle plus it's almost done.

Spiderweb quilt top

Progress! The stars are finished and I moved to the inner border. There's already so much applique that I simply  meandered around while outlining the leaves and birds. Here's the front

Meander quilting on the applique border

and the back to date.

Spiderweb border quilting from the back

I would be further along but... a friend called. There were two last minute openings at Empty Spools for The Complex Composition with Valerie Goodwin. On two days' notice, we loaded the car with fabric, machines and ideas and off we went.

Valerie is an extremely talented architect, professor, and quilter from Florida. She layers maps, architectural perspective drawings and images to create cohesive compositions. Quilters came from across the country and overseas to participate in this challenging class. We all wish we had another week or two with Valerie.

Empty Spools is held at Asilomar which is now part of the California Park System but originally constructed by the YWCA in the 1910s. Julia Morgan, architect of Hearst Castle  designed many of these buildings in the California Arts and Crafts style.

Much more later. I just need to settle back in.

Enjoy the day, Ann

"What after all has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them." - Jane Addams

Pi Day 3.14.15 @ 9.26.53

It's Pi(e) Day. Another crazy reason to celebrate.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It's an irrational number (which just means it can't be written as a fraction because the digits don't end or repeat) whose first few digits are 3.141592653... March 14 is extra special this year because we can correlate those digits to a specific time down to seconds. Nerds are thrilled.

It seems like a good day to celebrate circles in quilting. My favorite circles are my quilt guilds: currently SCVQA and QGGH. I've joined a guild everywhere I lived. They are always a source of friendship, inspiration and education. I hope you have a group of friends as inclusive and supportive.

On to circular quilts.

Although New York Beauty isn't finished, there is some progress. Only sixteen more. Even though these blocks are a decade old, I still like the colors and the pattern. {Why, oh why, didn't I finish it with the millenium?}

New York Beauty in progress

All my quilts in the show this weekend have circles or curves. There have been many photos, but here's a new one. I used this fabric (a decade ago) to applique on t-shirt quilts for my daughter and her friends who all had dogs. This is the last of it. Does that make Propellers and Planes a scrap quilt?

Steam Punk quilt block
from Propellers and Planes
with dog face conversation prints

Windmills is my current project. The block has slight curves. I'm echo quilting a quarter circle over the top.

Quarter circle curves echo quilted across Windmills

The quilting shows up better from the back.

Windmills back with leftover blocks. 

I drew one line on the quilt using my cutting ruler. I placed it in one corner, rotated the ruler and marked with chalk at intervals. Then I connected those dots. That was my first quilting line. Subsequent lines are a walking foot away. This seemed like a better idea than starting in the corner.

Example of marking the first line of quilting on Windmills

And we're having lemon meringue pie for dinner. Yum.

Enjoy the (pi) day, Ann

A Very Special Pi Day

Carpe diem! This past Friday was National Pie Day in the States. Quite delicious. But another Pi Day (3.14159...) is coming in March. This year we'll see 3-14-15. Quilters can celebrate by making quilts with circles instead of (or in addition to) eating pie!

New York Beauty blocks, 2000

These blocks were tucked in my stash along with some fabrics I planned to use. Pi Day is the new deadline. Propellers and the curve pieced tops should be quilted by then, too. Lots of pi for me!

What about you? How will you celebrate Pi Day?

Enjoy the day, Ann