quilt your heart out podcast Archives

6 Mar 2016

Atlanta, Silk Pajamas, and A Twist At the End.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Story, Work | 0

It could be an ad for silk pajamas. It could be an ad for something...else. Either way, image courtesy Wikipedia. — It could be an ad for silk pajamas. It could be an ad for something…else. Either way, image courtesy Wikipedia.

This coming week has me heading over to Atlanta to teach and speak at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo. This is one of my favorite gigs to do because I get to see Marlene. Marlene is the brains behind the Atlanta operation among other, similar operations and has been a friend and mentor to me for years. She was most publicly my friend when I went down in flames in Atlanta a number of years ago; without her help, I might still be casting about in the halls of a hospital in Georgia, filling out endless forms in triplicate and not getting the good kind of pain medicine.

Whenever I go to Atlanta, I am reminded of the first time I went to Atlanta. I was traveling with Bari; like Marlene, Bari is the sort of person you want around when the zombie apocalypse comes. It was awhile ago, but I remember Bari needed to drive to St. Louis to deliver something to her grandmother. That sounds like a cover for something, but I think it was legit. Bari grew up in the Atlanta area and her parents still lived there; for some reason, it made sense for her to drive to Atlanta and then go on to grandma’s house. Bari and I were living together that summer and she asked me if I wanted to go. I had no plans and I loved Bari. We got in her SUV and got on the road.

Bari’s family home was the finest house I had ever been in up to that point. The architecture, the interior, the grounds — these people had impeccable taste in every area in which impeccable taste matters (e.g., food, art, dogs, etc.) And they were all so nice! Within an hour of being welcomed inside, I got used to the fact that there was a grand staircase in the front of the house and a back staircase in the back of the house. I wanted to live in the kitchen and could have, perhaps with ten or eleven other people.

Bari showed me to my own guestroom where I had my own bathroom and my own balcony, I think. There were silk sheets on the bed and I had packed silk pajamas. When I got into bed that night, I really slid around.

All the comfort of that home was thrown into sharp relief the week after: I went to visit my boyfriend Dan in New York City and we heard a dog get shot. Dan lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a decade before Bushwick began to be remotely cool or safe. I didn’t like being there, but I really liked Dan. One night, we were going nuts listening to this dog bark and bark and bark and bark and bark and then we heard a gunshot and the dog didn’t bark anymore.

In life, as in patchwork, contrast is what makes things interesting.

3 Mar 2016

Quilt Your Heart Out, Thank Goodness.

by Mary | posted in: Family, Quilting, Work | 1

Me and a good thing. Photo: Joe Mazza, Bravelux.

Bad Things That Happened Today

Wanged the back of my leg so hard I whined about it for 30 minutes
The to-go coffee I got was lukewarm
Someone stole my cell phone

I can’t talk about that last thing. There was weeping. When anything goes wrong with my mobile phone, I am reminded how much I resent them for having to exist, to be on my person, and to function perfectly at all times. It’s just a cell phone. But still.

Phenomenal Things That Happened Today

Got a kiss
Wore new boots that did not hurt my feet
Saw that the third-ever episode of the Quilt Your Heart Out podcast was posted on the Quilt Your Heart Out website

The last thing zeroes out any woe I might’ve had about modern technology because modern technology is to be thanked for the whole podcast thing. If you don’t know by now, my mom and I have started a call-in advice show for quilters. You don’t have to be a quilter to enjoy it, but if you are a quilter, you will freak out.

Here’s hoping you find some things in your day that are so good (e.g., good falafel, good hair, good heavens, etc.) they cancel out any bad things (e.g., bad apple, bad dog, bad company, etc.) That podcast will make you smile, so there’s that.

26 Feb 2016

Bummed Out, New Phone.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Story | 2

Michigan Avenue AT&T store not pictured. Photo: Wikipedia

It’s been a tough few days. Battling anacondas. Liquidating a Fortune 500 company. Quashing a pandemic seconds before it’s unleashed on the Earth by a villain. Seriously, though: it’s been a tough few days.

Canada has been cancelled. Peru has been cancelled. Let’s call it health reasons and leave it at that. Bon soir, Montreal. Adios, Cuzco. (Balls, I say, and that’s plain English.) But life is consistently weird and often lousy and what can you do? Well, fun things. You can do fun things and try to not be as lame as you were yesterday. That’s all you can do — and that’s advanced stuff.

I walked up to a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and got done early. Feelin’ blue, I did what any red-blooded American would do in my situation: I went into the AT&T store to see if I could get a new phone. It turned out that I could, provided that I promised my firstborn child to the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell. Sure, dude. Do I sign with my finger or the stylus? Doesn’t matter? Right on.

The upside of getting a new phone at the phone store is that you don’t do any of the data transferring. You punch in your password and the tiny magic doo-dads are synched by someone who won’t ruin everything. The downside is that it takes a very long time. If you amble into the phone store and think you’re going to amble on out with a new phone in twenty minutes, you are incorrect. I learned today that “getting a new phone” may be something I procrastinate about when time comes to do it again. It’s not a “Let’s play hooky and go get a new phone!” proposition; it’s an errand.

That is, unless someone groovy helps you. Then it’s a blast. Bekie, an extremely pretty Hispanic girl with hair that I will never, ever have and could never even fake, greeted me at the door. I told her what I was after and she walked me through my options. I could have a dinner plate-sized phone or a turkey platter-sized phone. I went with the dinner plate, but it was tough choice.

While we waited for Samsung to transfer all the information it has on me from one X-ray spy machine — sorry, phone — to another, me n’ Bekie got to talking. We talked about men. Boys, really. We moved through relationship drama, jobs, other jobs, past lives, patterns, dreams, annoyances. We covered territory like we hadn’t seen each other since college, but I was just a customer, she was on her shift..

The tables at the AT&T store on Michigan Avenue are high-tops, so when you’re sitting down you have the feeling you’re in a bar. Several times over the course of my two-hour relationship with Bekie, I had to get over the uncomfortable feeling that our waiter was really slow bringing our drinks. It was just that friendly there in the AT&T store. Bekie told me her eight-year-old daughter recently turned eight.

“Oh, that’s great. I’ll bet she had a princess party. Is Frozen still cool?”

“Yeah,” Bekie said. “It’s still cool, but she didn’t want a party like that. She wanted to go to this adventure place, like an activity place. I took her. It was really fun.”

When my phone was done, I gathered up all my things and gave Bekie a big hug.

20 Feb 2016

I’m Going To Peru.

by Mary | posted in: Travel | 3

Achoo! Machu Picchu, 2009. Image: Wikipedia

I’m going on a 3-week backpacking trip to Peru. I leave tomorrow.

Just kidding. I can’t leave tomorrow because I’m still at QuiltCon in Los Angeles. I go home to Chicago tomorrow. Next week, I’m the keynote at the big Sewing & Stitchery Expo in Washington state; the week after that I go to Canada; I’m at OSQE in Atlanta the week after that and then I’m going on a 3-week backpacking trip to Peru. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I do not have any children, pets, or plants. I only have shoes.

My world-travel portfolio is slim. It’s been years since I needed my passport and this trip will be unlike any I’ve ever taken; I’ve only been to Europe and the Balkans. I’m going to need some good world-traveler advice and, lucky for me, I have a trusted source.

My sister Rebecca and my brother-in-law Jack are world travelers. For the past five years or so, they’ve celebrated the New Year in a place far from home. One year, they rode Icelandic ponies in Iceland; another year had them eating haggis in Scotland. They hung out with the kids running around the grounds of the Taj Mahal year before last; they drank warn, sugary, mystery drinks from vending machines in Tokyo last year and this year, Jack and Rebecca went to Vietnam. I’m in awe of their sense of adventure and their photographs. Rebecca and I had lunch the other day and I told her I was going to Peru.

“Get a pee-pocket,” Rebecca said, and gave our ticket number to the stir-fry guy.

“A what?”

“A pee-pocket. It’s a little pouch you wear and then when you have to pee and all there is is like, a hole in the ground, you’re fine. It’s like a little funnel.” Our bowls were put up on the counter and Rebecca took the tray. “Pee-pockets are like two bucks apiece on Amazon. I’ll show you. Can you grab chopsticks?” She wears her world-traveler mien well.

“So why are you going to Peru?” Rebecca asked, biting into a sugar snap pea.

I told her that Claus has time in mid-March before he goes back to Germany and was thinking of going on a trip someplace cool. He asked me if I’d like to go with him and I said that I would have to a) check my schedule and b) learn what “cool” means. To my surprise, my calendar was open. When we discussed “cool” places to go, we came back again and again to Peru. After much thought, research, and deliberation, we purchased plane tickets to Lima which, I’ll have you know, were $500 roundtrip. Hotels will be about $30/night total, and the buses and trains are cheap, too. This is not a luxury trip, but it’s amazing how far your money goes in Peru; we’ve confirmed this with people who have been there.

“Peru sounds good,” Rebecca said. “Have you gotten your shots?”

“No, not yet. I have to do that today. Do you have someone?”

She pulled out her phone and gave me her travel doctor’s office number, which was in her list of contacts. “I’ve gotten all the juice I’ll need for awhile,” she said. “Hep A, Hep B. I’m all hepped up. Listen, don’t wait to get your shots; some of the immunizations you have to start up to four weeks before your trip.”

It’s many weeks before the trip and I’ve got my travel doctor appointment set up. I’ll share more about where we’re going, what we’ll see (Machu Picchu, of course), as well as my impressions while I’m there. As Claus told me recently, “Mary, if you can’t take three weeks — three weeks — out of your busy life to go do something wonderful like see Peru, your priorities are out of order.”

He is right.

18 Feb 2016

Quilt Your Heart Out: Pithy Advice For Patchwork & Relationships (The Podcast!)

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life | 2

All right, Fons. Out with it.

Mom and I have launched a podcast. It’s called “Quilt Your Heart Out: Pithy Advice for Patchwork & Relationships” and it’s a weekly call-in advice show for quilters. Quilt Your Heart Out is now available at QuiltYourHeartOut.com and on iTunes.

We will take your calls on the air. Yes, we are waiting for your problems! It could be a problem with your borders, it could be a problem with your boyfriend. We take all comers.

There will be a celebrity guest each show — sometimes we’ll just chat about life, sometimes we’ll focus on a new project they’ve got going, sometimes they’ll take a whack at a listener question — maybe yours. There’s a trivia question each month, too; if you answer right and your name is drawn, you get a prize from one of our advertisers. There’s a recipe each week, too; not all quilters like to cook, but all humans like to eat, so we feel a featured recipe will be well-received.

There’s also a feature called the “Social Media-Shout Out.” This is a nod on the show (and in the blog) to someone doing notable work in the quilt world online. The Internet was good for a lot of communities (Trekkies!) but it’s been especially good for people who want to share their begging-to-be-photographed, colorful, meaningful, functional art with as many people as possible.

You should call in with a question right now. Call 773-273-9120. Or you could email your question: questions @ quiltyourheartout.com. Visit the website to get all the instructions, though: there are instructions!

CRUCIAL NOTE: We’re new at this. The only way we could be newer is if we didn’t know what a podcast was, but we do know that. The team is me, Mom, and Heather, our intrepid producer. But we are starting at zero. Mom and I lecture together and we do TV together, but radio is surprisingly different. And learning how to record and mix sound, well, turns out there are colleges that take four years to teach you how to do all that. But we jumped in, because that’s how we are. We’ll iron everything out (hey-o!) and we so want you to jump in with us and enjoy Quilt Your Heart Out each week.

Please be super-fans and do the Facebook thing, click the “share” button. Tell your friends. Subscribe on iTunes. Leave comments, follow, all those things that make or break a project in 2016.. We are having so much fun already; the more momentum, the more fun you’ll have listening to QYHO for many, many happy hours in the sewing room.

Yo! Quilt’cha haaaat out!!

15 Feb 2016

Big Announcement This Week… Hint: STAY TUNED.

by Mary | posted in: Family, Quilting, Work | 1

Me and Mom, goofin' on the mic. Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux, Chicago, IL. — Me and Mom, goofin’ on the mic. What can it mean? Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux, Chicago, IL.

My mother and I are embarking on a New Endeavor. It’s big. It’s bold. It launches this week.

Mom doesn’t need another project. I don’t either, but at least I’m not renovating a movie theater. But we can’t help adding another worthwhile project to a stack of others because we’re people who love to do stuff that sounds exciting and we love to make things that feel good to make. We find room.

I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but I’ll tell you very soon. And when I do, you should have your phone in your hand. Most of us have our phone in our hands all the time, so that won’t be hard. “But wait,” you say, scratching your head with your phone, “Why would I need my phone for an announcement? Are you guys on American Idol?** Do I need to text my vote?” I think the only way to handle this until I can tell you is to play Mad Libs.

“This week, Mom and I are launching a [NOUN]. We’re sure that our [PLURAL NOUN] will love it and will [VERB] every week. We’ve been working very [ADJECTIVE] for many months on the [NOUN] and feel ready to announce it to the [NOUN] on Thursday. The best way to learn what the [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to [VERB] and [VERB] and [VERB]. See ya later, [ANIMAL]!”

Anything worth announcing to the public should be put through a Mad Libs process first. Not only does it get people actively involved in the event, there’s no way the actual announcement won’t be received well. If your work with the passage above looks like this, there’s no way you won’t be relieved when you learn the truth:

“This week, Mom and I are launching a FROG. We’re sure that our POTATO CHIPS will love it and will DROOL every week. We’ve been working very STUPID for many months on the UMBRELLA and feel ready to announce it to the BOARD OF TRADE on Thursday. The best way to learn what the STINKY BOOGER is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to CHOKE and WORK and SUFFER. See ya later, DUCK!”

*I’m sure this is a) not how American Idol works; b) hilarious because American Idol was canceled six years ago or something; or c) extremely offensive because American Idol is run by a fascist dictator. I assure you, I don’t know.