a star is born

A week or two ago, after creating a transparent plastic template for 45-degree diamonds, I spent a few minutes putting the template here and there on the different fabrics of my bargello WIP, "Doppler Shift". I concluded that none of the fabrics was particularly good for fussy-cut stars. I considered sewing strips of two different fabrics together and cutting diamonds with the seam line down the middle the long way, but an 8-pointed star made like that, though spectacular, has 16 seams meeting all at a single point. Very bumpy. Or I could make just plain ol' 8-pointed stars. That was a disappointing thought, so I set the whole issue aside and watched skaters and skiers fall down for a while.

This weekend I decided on the plain ol' 8-pointed stars and sat down to start cutting. One fabric, however, observed that it'd be cute to put a single flower in each diamond and although it'd technically be a fussy-cut star, it wouldn't produce the elaborate kaleidoscope effect generally associated with the technique, so if it were the only f-c star it wouldn't make the others blush. So I did it.

I don't care how you define it, those 24 seams were ALL set-in seams. However, it came out beautifully! I ironed it carefully according to dimly-remembered instructions, and the dog-ears of the 8 seams meeting at a single point fanned out very prettily. The back is almost as cute as the front! So all 5 of the 8-pointed stars on the top of the quilt will be fussy-cut, even if not as gorgeous as what I remember seeing in QNM years ago. (Apparently they're no longer fashionable.) That was definitely 2 1/2 hours well spent.

Last night, while I watched more skaters fall down, and how about those Italian cross-country skiers, eh? hooray for them!, I wielded transparent template and pencil on a poppy print, putting two leaf designs into the frame 4 times each. It'll be lovely. There's a fussy cut awaiting a 3rd floral, and just now I thought of sewing two strips together and then cutting the diamonds such that the seam crosses the diamond diagonally, not straight down the middle. Still only 8 seams to fan out in the center, but nothing plain or even old about it.

Category: small things amuse tiny minds. The coolest thing about set-in seams is how you put the two fabrics together in a configuration that looks like the one fabric couldn't possibly fill the space. Sew the seam. Then rotate the one piece of fabric so that in spite of itself there's a raw edge meeting the raw edge of the other piece of fabric, and sew. Folded fabric everywhere, except right on the seam line. And then you open it up and press, and lo! The space is nicely filled, just as intended. If it weren't that sewing seams edge to edge were so much faster and less demanding of careful needle placement, I'd be tempted to set in seams all over the place, just for the pleasure of seeing the highly improbable come out perfectly.

Tomorrow I have the great pleasure of going to work for someone new -- yes, today's my last day working for my church for the ever-shrinking paycheck -- and my life in general seems much more delightful. This quilt is coming along so nicely (strips #20-35 (of 73) look real good sewn together, and I created strips #7-12 yesterday, too), and I'm feeling so good about the change in employers, that I'm thinking of renaming this confection "O My Stars and Garters". I acknowledge this is something my father might have said, or maybe his mother, but I'm feeling much too playful for the somber "Doppler Shift". And it looks like my fabric choices will make it quite a perky quilt.

what makes a champion

At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Hitler packed all the events with German athletes (and some German non-athletes) in the belief that with a preponderance of attendance the teutonic types would have to win all the medals. Any German athletes who lost their events were required to leave immediately; Hitler didn't want them in the stands watching the competition and providing visible proof that the "master race" can lose to members of other ethnic groups. We all know what happened when Jesse Owens won his event.

Among the German non-athletes competing in 1936 was my mother. Well, face it, she was only 12 years old at the time. Why anyone would think even a fast little 12-year-old girl would be able to outrun seasoned athletes of any ethnic type is beyond me, but that's why we peg Hitler as insane now. Be that as it may, there she was, with 3 other little 12-year-old girls, running a relay race in the 1936 Olympics. Of course, they lost their first heat, and since Hitler didn't understand what the Olympics are all about, they were packed off home, not allowed to watch any of the other competitions. Understandably, those Olympics were kind of a non-event for my mother, who remembers it more as a time of frustration, disappointment, and exhaustion than anything else.

So she doesn't have, as I would if she lived with me, a neon sign, or even just a plaque on the door: "Home of Anna Schneider Bryan, Olympian 1936". But unlike Hitler, she does get it. She was there, and she competed, even if only briefly. She's right up there with Mark Spitz, with all his medals. She did her best, just like Michelle Kwan who, when she decided her injury wouldn't allow her to compete as well as she knew she could, stepped aside so that the young hopeful Emily Hughes would have a chance to compete. All those Olympians who are faint hopes for their nations, even jokes for the media of countries sending "medal hopefuls", are as much Olympians as any of the best athletes in the world.

The ones who don't get it, those who take forbidden drugs, those who pout when they don't get a medal (or their medals are the wrong color), those who gleefully accept the rulings of suborned judges -- now, those are NOT the true Olympians. The point that they don't get is that the Olympics are not there for people to win. They exist for the free exercise and demonstration of peaceful, open, honorable competition, and the celebration of excellence in all matters of sport.

I love the Olympics. My family ranges from weekend athletes to confirmed couch potatoes, but we have watched them on TV ever since US networks started showing them. We cheer the Americans and the Germans and the athletes of the host country, we cheer the great runs and performances no matter who does them, we cheer and tear up for the very last runner or skier straggling in exhausted, we ache for the athlete sidelined by accident or sudden injury. We sneer at the NHL, who refused to tweak their schedules so that the Olympians who play hockey for them could attend the opening ceremonies. We sneer at the sore losers, the cheaters, and the pompous, all those who don't understand that they are winners, they are Olympians, merely by being there. The podium is wonderful, no doubt. But all national and international competitions have podia and medals. No competition is like the Olympics. Nothing is like the Olympics.

The chance that a past, active, or wannabe Olympian is reading this is even more slight than the chance my mother had to win a medal in 1936. But I say to you who are reading this: if you were there, remember: you are for all time an example of the best humanity can be: able to strive to be the best and to strive honorably in peaceful concord. If you are learning your sport and training in hopes of going, remember: it is the achievement of being there that makes you great, not the result of your competition. Just do your best, and like Mark Spitz, Michelle Kwan, Emily Hughes, and my mother, you will be an Olympian forever.