There may only be a few quilters among our jackals, but as we have seen from their work, their talent is out of this world. So I’m happy to share a story about one of NASA’s astronauts who is also a quilter and now that she’s retired makes fabric from her space photos.
Earth Views by Karen Nyberg from Robert Kaufman Fabrics on Vimeo.
Karen took her lifelong love of creating art with her to space. While there, she captured the beauty of space through her photography. She also crafted and stitched together a toy dinosaur for her son which she made out of scraps of fabric recycled from the lining of the Russian cosmonauts’ food containers.
THE ASTRONOMICAL QUILT BLOCK CHALLENGE
When Karen lived on the International Space Station, she and NASA invited crafters from around the world to join a project to stitch together a global community quilt. Karen stitched a 9” square star-themed quilt block in space and encouraged others to create their own star-themed quilt blocks on earth. No one realized how quickly the project would grow. NASA received over 2400 quilt squares from around the world. Many of the squares were accompanied by letters and personal stories of how space travel and the worldwide space program had impacted lives. A team of NASA and Johnson Space Center volunteers quilted the squares together and created 28 king sized quilts. The quilts were showcased at the 40th Anniversary International Quilt Festival in Houston. Quilt blocks from Ohio and California were put next to blocks from Australia and Japan. A New Orleans block was placed next to a block from Russia and the UK. The panels spanned the globe and the completed quilts represent a truly interconnected world.
For a look at her entire collection of fabrics, click here
For the rest of you…this is an open thread
indycat32
As if I don’t already have enough fabric!
Faithful Lurker
@indycat32: Me, too. I’m actually looking for places to donate fabric. My guild has enough fabric to make Comfort quilts for the next 5 years. Comfort quilts go to Hospice, Oncology patients, Children Protective Services, etc. So, if any jackals know an organization or person that needs good quality cotton, please let me know. I’m keeping my fractal prints and hand dyes. I have to go run errands but I’ll be back later.
mrmoshpotato
Wow. Very cool.
NeenerNeener
Makes me want to learn to quilt…someday. But I really should do something with that big plastic tub of cross stitch linen, and the 100+ patterns I’ve collected, and all the DMC thread first. And mount and frame the five or six things that I finished 20 years ago, too.
That quilt that looks like what she saw out the windows though….stunning.
SiubhanDuinne
I love the “cupola” pattern. That repetition of circles in honeycombed hexagons is just mesmerising.
Karen Nyberg is very impressive. I’m sorry I never heard of her until this post.
TaMara
If you haven’t seen this, it’s pretty amazing. it’s a 360° Van Gogh-ish work. It’s a facebook link, but you don’t need FB to view it. If anyone finds a non-FB link, let me know!
Van Gogh viewing
ETA: don’t forget to look up!
ETA: Thanks Mike! here’s a non-facebook link
Mike E
@TaMara: Here you go!
NeenerNeener
@TaMara: This is going on here in DougJ land:
https://vangoghrochester.com/
UncleEbeneezer
So I assume everyone has already heard about the Federal Court filing by 1/6 Committee last night? They have testimony implicating Meadows, Jordan, Perry in coordinating to pressure Pence to help Trump steal the 2020 Election.
Juliet
I’m a quilter and now I want to buy a yard of every piece in her collection. It’s beautiful!
UncleEbeneezer
Since y’all love quilts, a friend of mine from grade school has become quite the quilter! She also recently did a piece with proceeds going to Ukraine (she also regularly does ones with proceeds going to victims of sex trafficking). Here is her instagram page. And she just so happens to be married to Aaron Mahnke, the host/producer of Lore, Unobscured podcast and others. I recently reconnected with her after 30 years and was surprised at how cool she turned out.
TaMara
@UncleEbeneezer: Let’s see if it will let me embed one of her quilts
StringOnAStick
@UncleEbeneezer: Finding old friends is so great; I got back in touch with two from college (40 years ago) and they are now two of my closest friends. They weren’t a couple then and married 6 years ago, after getting back in touch with each other. We don’t live in the same state but we do lots of long phone calls.
Dusty Confetti
Quilting is actually a pretty easy craft to learn – that’s part of what drew me to it in high school – but like any craft, the nuances can be difficult to master.
Where most beginners fail is in picking their first project, going with something with curved or inset seams, or with complicated appliqués. One of my things is to find abandoned quilt projects and finish them, and a lot of them are things like that: Double Wedding Rings, Dresden Plates, and Grandmother’s Fans.
I also have way more fabrics and UFOs (unfinished objects) than I’ll probably use in my lifetime. But I’m definitely giving it a go. Astronomical-themed prints have always been my favorite, so I’m sure some of these fabrics will make it into my stash at some point.
I am assuming most of my fellow quilters here know that there are several companies that can custom print fabrics for you, and if anyone here wants to design some blog-specific prints I’d definitely add some to my stash.
Off to spend the rest of my day rehabbing the garden. (The Michigan winter was not kind to my perennials this year, sigh.)
UncleEbeneezer
@TaMara: Thanks! I don’t know anything about quilting but I love alot of her work.
PS- I have a bunch of great pics from Quiltcon a couple years ago if you have any interest. Lots of great political Resistance messaging, BLM etc. Could be a nice option for an On The Road (even though it’s not really travel, per se).
Gin & Tonic
Dumb luck, probably, but had to share this.
Wordle 308 2/6
⬛?⬛?⬛
?????
Dan B
@UncleEbeneezer: MSM seem to have missed the 1/6 committee Court filing. Should have had a Cardassian go with I suppose, sigh. Sounds like a good omen.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@UncleEbeneezer: I so hope the J-6th committee takes Perry and Jordan down and out of congress. They are both horrible people! I think Meadow’s voter fraud thing may have already put paid to any chance he has to get an elected office for at least a few years.
Geminid
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): I get the sense that Meadows is like a journeyman ballplayer who decided to give up on a playing career and work for the front office instead. He wants more money than he can make as an elected official.
MomSense
I am a frustrated quilter. I admire the skill and artistry, but I’m just not good at it. I saved all kinds of fabrics (many from grandmothers and great aunts) and gave them to my cousin. She makes beautiful quilts.
I am lucky that I have inherited the quilts made by my ancestors on both sides of my family. I also have their thimbles which are so beautiful but too small for my fingers.I’m going to share these quilts with my cousin. I think she will love them.
CaseyL
@NeenerNeener: I went to that when it was in Seattle. Fabulous experience – definitely recommend. The show offers a extensive look at his work, including earlier pieces and less hallucinogenic ones. I had a better feel for how revolutionary Van Gough’s work is!
Ohio Mom
@Gin & Tonic: When the Wordle Archive still existed (before the New York Times made the site owner take it down), and Steeplejack told us about it, I went through a period where I played it many times in a row. I’d hit the random button and do whichever of the 200+ Wordles in existence appeared.
Twice I got words on the second row. Then, later when the random button again pulled up one of those two Wordles, my luck was gone. It would take me my usual 4-5 tries. Only when I succeeded did I recognize the word as a previous personal best.
Still, it’s a great feeling. Enjoy it and congrats!
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense: I have several beautiful quilts handed down from my mothers side, that were sewn by great aunts somewhere in the hills of southern Indiana.
sab
@Dusty Confetti: Thanks. Useful info (how newbie quilters fail.)
My mom didn’t quilt but she did sew. Left lots of fabric. Used a lot of it in early pandemic for masks but lots still left. But I have craft inclined grand-daughters.
MomSense
@MagdaInBlack:
Mine are from Ohio, Connecticut and Maine. All so beautiful. I have all the tatting, needlepoint, embroidery, and knitting projects, too. I wish I could do a masters or PhD research project on the artistry of hand made textiles. The artistry is exquisite and so under appreciated.
trollhattan
So I’m amusing myself reading the new Calif Primary voter guide–hi Bible-thumpers, great to see ya’, covid policy victims–and note among fourteen governor candidate statements one is not from Gavin Newsom. His website addresses winning the recall. Is there anything I should know?
sab
Hot today. We have the windows open and StarScream is parked in front of one of them. Ponyo the pitbull is parked on a nearby bed. Dobby the demon cat came by but did not want to hang with StarScream who is elderly and thus not cool. So Dobby went away and is now trying to shred the hall carpeting. Everyone else is just hanging out where we have been all day.
Dobby just came back and is on top of the cat tree. So just another cat hanging out.
trollhattan
@sab: Watched a midday soccer match in North Carolina and they had mandatory hydration breaks. Not what one expects in April.
NorCal weather is dead on perfect ATM.
sab
@trollhattan: Yikes. That sounds warm.
trollhattan
@sab: Yup! Some of the players looked drenched in sweat.
ThresherK
I call myself a not-young (and don’t know how long i can get away with that) and am not as lean as previously.
As a radio geek I see many folks on the ISS–lots of hams up there–and the item here sorta reinforces the idea I’ve been carrying that there are really no chubby astronauts. Am I accurate in this hardly-researched opinion?
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense: One is a Wedding Ring pattern that was made for my parents when they got married, in 1933 ❤️
MomSense
@MagdaInBlack: ?❤️???
sab
@sab: Planning to quilt this summer. Useful to know how newbies fail. I intended to make those same mistakes. Waste of effort, and more importantly, fabric.
CaseyL
@ThresherK: Being an astronaut is among the most physically demanding professions, since you need to be ready to deal with horrendous emergency situations in the blink of an eye.
I think you also need to be in tiptop shape to weather the “wasting” that happens when you’re in space for an extended period of time. Loss of muscle mass, bone mass, and lots of other stuff – if you’re not in great shape to start with, you sure as hell won’t be in good shape when you come back to Earth!