Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

Yay!

Thanks, Sunshine. I hope my little bit helped. Trust me, every instruction came from me making a gross error such as having the dubious distinction of having to find the same fabric and piece a strip to a back that was only 3 or 4 " wider or longer, then the top was catywumpus due to failure to measure more than one area of the quilt or noticing the design creeping right or left at the bottom due to a series of mistakes and thinking "1/64 inch is so small, that little mistake won't matter." Multiply that out 32 pieces across the quilt, and your neck will strain looking at blocks 1/2" off the mark. I quilted so many "beginner" quilts as a professional, I can tell you if the quilt was not measured properly, the top could go all over the map. I sent more than one quilts back home with its owner before accepting it after measurements were made. Some of them thought me charging them 5 hours of labor for 5 hours of fixing the too-small back was expensive, but sometimes they'd have a yard or two they had at home and would take it back home and fix it until the back met my specifications. Professional quilt machines demand even more fabric than a hand-quilted one due to the rolling process. Invariably, more backing is necessary to accommodate rolling. If the professional machine quilter pulls the top too tightly, stitching errors pop out of their seam allowances leaving batting to spill out if not corrected right away. It takes several hours to dismount and remount a quilt onto the old style of professional longarm I had at the shop. By the time you get it all done, you're licked and might wish to wait until the following day to finish what should already be done if the seams had been sewn more sturdily. Sometimes, the piecer makes an error near the outer edge of a square, the phone rings, she forgets about it, so the quilter has this curious little open area that wasn't noticed until time to mount the quilt. It's nice to know you can utilize the tailor's blind stitch in a topical way if you are resourceful when that happens.

Today was good. I finished the Friendship Star Cabin with 7 borders done steps to log cabin fashion by adding the last border. I was pleased by how the randomly-selected light strips luminesced around the dark log cabin Friendship star in the middle. My husband's camera did not send pictures he took to the computer I had repaired. Apparently, they were somehow cleaned off the computer at some point, and some repairs require erasing a lot of memory. It's also a Vista, which I never cared much for, so the information for his camera may be there, I just don't know how to access it. The other alternative could be it was on a different computer or something.

Oh, I won a redwork quilt on ebay last night. I thought of Sunshine when I bid on it, because it had hand cross stitches. I am going to try to collect one red quilt a month and make one and host a local redwork show, perhaps some far time into the future.

The quilt and a closeup of the hand quilting is below. The third picture is just a reminder of that absolutely amazing red and white collection shown in NYC last March:

Wow! Those are some talented quilters. I really like that red. The importance of keeping things straight is not lost here. I have hung wallpaper in 4 houses. You can't get off even one millimeter or you pay at the corners. And sometime the house isn't plumb, so you have to pick your spot to even it out, usually in a short piece over a door or window, or behind where a curtain will hang. Plumb is more than just a state of mind. (Whatever that means, I'm really tired tonight! LOL)

I posted a really cool pair of videos on that show with closeups of the most spectacular quilts a page or so back. It is definitely worth the 8 to 15 minutes the videos take to see samplings of the 191 red and white quilts at close range if you haven't already seen them. Enjoy!

 

[Sunshine]

Yay!

Thanks, Sunshine. I hope my little bit helped. Trust me, every instruction came from me making a gross error such as having the dubious distinction of having to find the same fabric and piece a strip to a back that was only 3 or 4 " wider or longer, then the top was catywumpus due to failure to measure more than one area of the quilt or noticing the design creeping right or left at the bottom due to a series of mistakes and thinking "1/64 inch is so small, that little mistake won't matter." Multiply that out 32 pieces across the quilt, and your neck will strain looking at blocks 1/2" off the mark. I quilted so many "beginner" quilts as a professional, I can tell you if the quilt was not measured properly, the top could go all over the map. I sent more than one quilts back home with its owner before accepting it after measurements were made. Some of them thought me charging them 5 hours of labor for 5 hours of fixing the too-small back was expensive, but sometimes they'd have a yard or two they had at home and would take it back home and fix it until the back met my specifications. Professional quilt machines demand even more fabric than a hand-quilted one due to the rolling process. Invariably, more backing is necessary to accommodate rolling. If the professional machine quilter pulls the top too tightly, stitching errors pop out of their seam allowances leaving batting to spill out if not corrected right away. It takes several hours to dismount and remount a quilt onto the old style of professional longarm I had at the shop. By the time you get it all done, you're licked and might wish to wait until the following day to finish what should already be done if the seams had been sewn more sturdily. Sometimes, the piecer makes an error near the outer edge of a square, the phone rings, she forgets about it, so the quilter has this curious little open area that wasn't noticed until time to mount the quilt. It's nice to know you can utilize the tailor's blind stitch in a topical way if you are resourceful when that happens.

Today was good. I finished the Friendship Star Cabin with 7 borders done steps to log cabin fashion by adding the last border. I was pleased by how the randomly-selected light strips luminesced around the dark log cabin Friendship star in the middle. My husband's camera did not send pictures he took to the computer I had repaired. Apparently, they were somehow cleaned off the computer at some point, and some repairs require erasing a lot of memory. It's also a Vista, which I never cared much for, so the information for his camera may be there, I just don't know how to access it. The other alternative could be it was on a different computer or something.

Oh, I won a redwork quilt on ebay last night. I thought of Sunshine when I bid on it, because it had hand cross stitches. I am going to try to collect one red quilt a month and make one and host a local redwork show, perhaps some far time into the future.

The quilt and a closeup of the hand quilting is below. The third picture is just a reminder of that absolutely amazing red and white collection shown in NYC last March:

Wow! Those are some talented quilters. I really like that red. The importance of keeping things straight is not lost here. I have hung wallpaper in 4 houses. You can't get off even one millimeter or you pay at the corners. And sometime the house isn't plumb, so you have to pick your spot to even it out, usually in a short piece over a door or window, or behind where a curtain will hang. Plumb is more than just a state of mind. (Whatever that means, I'm really tired tonight! LOL)

I posted a really cool pair of videos on that show with closeups of the most spectacular quilts a page or so back. It is definitely worth the 8 to 15 minutes the videos take to see samplings of the 191 red and white quilts at close range if you haven't already seen them. Enjoy!

I will be sure to catch it. Have to get off tonight, but leave the link intact!

 

[freedombecki]

Yesterday, we took care of the business of taking my dear one to the doctor and then drove 61 miles to a Stitch in Time to add some quarter yards of lights to my stash to alliterate that little luminescent quality the light areas in a log cabin my quilts have been showing lately. It started when I noticed mediums do not do well in the longest position on a star fashioned from log cabin blocks. The best contrast would be a sparkling white against double-dyed (darkest) black.

I cut 1.75" strips all morning along until I couldn't stand another minute of it. I also found some other lights I had never cut into at home, which is not unusual, except, I'm not sure where all the lights are. Since my husband came down with dementia, he has been unable to make shelving as he did when we had our store. And plastic containers weren't made to carry the weight of fabrics or books when they are piled full of either one. Our move 2 2/3 years ago proved that to me. Oh, well. I now buy smaller containers that are clear, so I can tell generally which color is stored where, and can easily moved them even when they are packed. The large ones are just too heavy when they're full.

I also found four truly beautiful red and white materials that will go in some future red and white quilt, possibly.

I look forward to tomorrow, when I will be able to start sewing again.

Hope everyone who makes quilts for others has a good time this season being with family or stitching projects. Just 5 more days to go.

 

[freedombecki]

Santa's Workshop: I was playing around with scrap nine patches and wondered whether they'd work for windows in an echo log cabin. I'd have to take a plain 4-patch square (3") and border it with very light squares to make the window portion (5.5" unfinished square), then border two sides with three strips each to echo the window. (The strips go onto the sides with 2 seam allowances first, then that gives the adjacent one 2 seam allowances also, if you play your cards right.) Anyhoo, this is a kind of fun one to do for the quilter's closet, so Santa's Workshop continues all year long. I took some pictures on the printer today, so I can share some of the squares. I've put 26 to a completion point, and more in the ready to hopefully use 40 of the squares that have 4-patch windows echoed by dark and bright colors

 

[freedombecki]

Santa's Workshop II

 

[freedombecki]

Santa's Workshop III. The windows finish at 5" and when the echo portion at the side and bottom is added, the square is about 9.25 unfinished and will finish at 8.75". Five across will be 44" give or take a quarter inch. Eight down will make the quilt 40 blocks, and the length before a border is added would be 70 inches. If I placed the squares in a black sash, same width as the logs, the quilt width before border would be a quarter inch short of 52 inches and the length would be 81.75" before sashes. So therefore, to get an overall length of 72" with a border included, I'd only need 6 rows. 6 rows down would be about 53", but with a black window sash and set, would come to the 62" range. Then, borders of 6" would make the quilt be 64x74".Since it only needs to be about 60" wide and 72" long, I could get by with 4" vertical strips along the sides and 5" horizontal strips. (I just figured the dimensions of the child-sized quilt based on the request by the charities foundation to please make the quilts larger than infant size due to having older children. 72" is 6 feet long, long enough to really cover most 12 year olds, who are 60" tall or less. The quilt in later childhood could be converted to either a couch potato cover or be handed down to the smaller children in the family or a niece, nephew, or friend, provided reasonable care was given the quilt during washing and drying.

So Santa's workshop is a little messy right now, but Mrs. Santa is happy.

 

[freedombecki]

So the quilt, will be 5 blocks across by 6 blocks down with black window sashes all around a 4" vertical border on each side and a 5" horizontal border top and bottom. So glad I put squares on the copier and decided to do the Santa's workshop series this evening, and later, I'll go hunt up window log cabins set on point and set block style, if I can find one. There are other windows, but I've never seen the kind I'm showing here, with a 4-patch for a window around light borders to contrast with dark scrappy echo logs. Don't worry if all this sounds like gibberish. An advanced or intermediate quilter will understand perfectly, and a carpenter might get it, too, or at least 80% of it.

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, and one other thing about the quilts above. I went shopping yesterday at a quilt store that does a stellar job of stocking packed small prints. If you click on any of the thumbnails in the above 12 blocks, you will see many contemporary cottons, some of which are hot off this year's press. The rest of the strips come from my ridiculously huge stash as well as quilt fabrics I've found in the last 2.5 years since we moved. A few strips came from the church closet, which means I cannot have this quilt, it already belongs to God's children who are fatherless or in abuse shelters.

I found instructions for a beginner to make what I learned was an "echo log cabin" pattern back when. Today people may not know the name, so they use the same principle and give it another name, or they just come up with an idea so unique, they rename it after making it into a reverse giant 4-patch as was done where I found the instructions to make the echo log cabin. The Fat Quarter shop has a fantastic quilt they made that uses the echo log to make a Kite Quilt.

The second image is one I picked up at a knitter's site who was mimicking a log cabin square in her craft. She had a good graphic of an echo log cabin square she showed as an example, but she called it "half" or "quarter" square log cabin. The books in the 80s were calling the same square "echo log cabin," so I stand me ground in calling the square "echo," even if I can't find a darn thing on it online anymore.

It took half an hour and the decision to load "Chevron log cabin quilt" in my search engine when all else failed. It turned up several echo log cabin quilts like the second picture below, but I only found one that will be set like my first "echo the 4-patch window log cabin" quilt. All credits to Wordpress, and the pattern for this quilt exactly is at the link and refers to the pattern being from a book "Log Cabins Today" from the House of White Birches.

 

[freedombecki]

Found around the web:

"CHEVRON LOG CABIN"

The pattern is available here at PATCHWORKS
​

 

[Sunshine]

Santa's Workshop III. The windows finish at 5" and when the echo portion at the side and bottom is added, the square is about 9.25 unfinished and will finish at 8.75". Five across will be 44" give or take a quarter inch. Eight down will make the quilt 40 blocks, and the length before a border is added would be 70 inches. If I placed the squares in a black sash, same width as the logs, the quilt width before border would be a quarter inch short of 52 inches and the length would be 81.75" before sashes. So therefore, to get an overall length of 72" with a border included, I'd only need 6 rows. 6 rows down would be about 53", but with a black window sash and set, would come to the 62" range. Then, borders of 6" would make the quilt be 64x74".Since it only needs to be about 60" wide and 72" long, I could get by with 4" vertical strips along the sides and 5" horizontal strips. (I just figured the dimensions of the child-sized quilt based on the request by the charities foundation to please make the quilts larger than infant size due to having older children. 72" is 6 feet long, long enough to really cover most 12 year olds, who are 60" tall or less. The quilt in later childhood could be converted to either a couch potato cover or be handed down to the smaller children in the family or a niece, nephew, or friend, provided reasonable care was given the quilt during washing and drying.

So Santa's workshop is a little messy right now, but Mrs. Santa is happy.

That makes me think of my mother's nine patch quilts!

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, Hahahaha All that time I spent last week looking for a Fields and Furrows Log Cabin quilt to show? Now I find a really pretty one with a "chevron" border, aka known as "French Braid" by some. The credits are to okckwilter at home and garden webshots link

 

[freedombecki]

Santa's Workshop III. The windows finish at 5" and when the echo portion at the side and bottom is added, the square is about 9.25 unfinished and will finish at 8.75". Five across will be 44" give or take a quarter inch. Eight down will make the quilt 40 blocks, and the length before a border is added would be 70 inches. If I placed the squares in a black sash, same width as the logs, the quilt width before border would be a quarter inch short of 52 inches and the length would be 81.75" before sashes. So therefore, to get an overall length of 72" with a border included, I'd only need 6 rows. 6 rows down would be about 53", but with a black window sash and set, would come to the 62" range. Then, borders of 6" would make the quilt be 64x74".Since it only needs to be about 60" wide and 72" long, I could get by with 4" vertical strips along the sides and 5" horizontal strips. (I just figured the dimensions of the child-sized quilt based on the request by the charities foundation to please make the quilts larger than infant size due to having older children. 72" is 6 feet long, long enough to really cover most 12 year olds, who are 60" tall or less. The quilt in later childhood could be converted to either a couch potato cover or be handed down to the smaller children in the family or a niece, nephew, or friend, provided reasonable care was given the quilt during washing and drying.

So Santa's workshop is a little messy right now, but Mrs. Santa is happy.

That makes me think of my mother's nine patch quilts!

I made so many nine patch quilts, I got right burned out on them. I think it was my primary square for wedding quilts, baby quilts, and the handicapped daycare that started in our church in or around 1970, until they chartered with federal funding to build their own facility, in or around 1990. Handicapped day care enabled single parents with children with severe disabilities to work. Some of the children need one on one supervision, others can function in small groups with one to four other children, and others look normal, but still have severe enough problems to require special caregivers to look after them when a single parent home needs a paycheck coming in every month. It was so good to be a part of a church that really got out there in the community and found where the real needs were, and helped people with lives made impossible by demands made by special childrens' needs. Also, a lot of baby sitters will not take special needs children. The lady who ran that day care center was one of the dearest, most selfless people I have ever met, and it was an honor to make 50 quilts for them.

Even so, the 9 patch quilt was overdone. I've done a few through the years after that , but that's generally when someone brings me a sack of someone else's quilt and sewing scraps that have invariably a few nine-patch squares, none of which is the same size of all the others. Every sash must be sewn to accommodate squares that don't match, and some squares are so much smaller than the others they need extra strips sewn on them to get a uniform size going. Plus, most of them look, well, "utilitarian."

I have a hunch your mother's were not like that, but master works. There are 9-patch quilts in museums that truly are eye candy, but the one's I've inherited were end of the line squares. I'd make a utility quilt just to get them out of my sight. lol. They're warm, and you needed warm stuff where we used to live (the Equality State).

 

[freedombecki]

I was still looking for echo log cabin quilts, when I found this one that is made by varying the size of the logs. The Pattern is available from Quiltology link.

I've made uneven log cabin quilts before, and they truly take a lot of time and precision, but oh, how beautiful they can be when you complete one.
​

 

[freedombecki]

Sheeze! This is my day to find cute quilts. This one is a beautifully-done collector's piece of silks. I don't collect silk quilts, but this one has a true charm and could be very valuable someday due to its extremely well-done embroidery not to mention its dogtooth border:

Located at ebay thru Dec. 22-23
​

 

[Sarah G]

I like them best made from scraps of old clothing that people have actually worn and or used.

They mean so much more.

Grandmas tablecoth that got torn, aunt Margrets sunday dress, brother Bobs summer shorts and the like.

Every little corner has a memory

I know a kid that got a quilt for a graduation gift. It was made from all of his sports jerseys from childhood.

I like them but they get really expensive.

 

[freedombecki]

I like them best made from scraps of old clothing that people have actually worn and or used.

They mean so much more.

Grandmas tablecoth that got torn, aunt Margrets sunday dress, brother Bobs summer shorts and the like.

Every little corner has a memory

I know a kid that got a quilt for a graduation gift. It was made from all of his sports jerseys from childhood.

I like them but they get really expensive.

Hi, Sarah G. You can say that again! When I was a young girl, my mother went into an old dimestore not far from here and found some fabric being closed out for ten cents a yard. She had 5 children, so she went for it. She didn't seem to mind the ironing all of that would take. Mothers back then were truly such beautiful people.

I finally found a picture of the butterfly quilt I designed some years back. It hung in my shop by the door for just the enjoyment of seeing a red and white quilt. Those were the days.

 

[Sunshine]

Santa's Workshop III. The windows finish at 5" and when the echo portion at the side and bottom is added, the square is about 9.25 unfinished and will finish at 8.75". Five across will be 44" give or take a quarter inch. Eight down will make the quilt 40 blocks, and the length before a border is added would be 70 inches. If I placed the squares in a black sash, same width as the logs, the quilt width before border would be a quarter inch short of 52 inches and the length would be 81.75" before sashes. So therefore, to get an overall length of 72" with a border included, I'd only need 6 rows. 6 rows down would be about 53", but with a black window sash and set, would come to the 62" range. Then, borders of 6" would make the quilt be 64x74".Since it only needs to be about 60" wide and 72" long, I could get by with 4" vertical strips along the sides and 5" horizontal strips. (I just figured the dimensions of the child-sized quilt based on the request by the charities foundation to please make the quilts larger than infant size due to having older children. 72" is 6 feet long, long enough to really cover most 12 year olds, who are 60" tall or less. The quilt in later childhood could be converted to either a couch potato cover or be handed down to the smaller children in the family or a niece, nephew, or friend, provided reasonable care was given the quilt during washing and drying.

So Santa's workshop is a little messy right now, but Mrs. Santa is happy.

That makes me think of my mother's nine patch quilts!

I made so many nine patch quilts, I got right burned out on them. I think it was my primary square for wedding quilts, baby quilts, and the handicapped daycare that started in our church in or around 1970, until they chartered with federal funding to build their own facility, in or around 1990. Handicapped day care enabled single parents with children with severe disabilities to work. Some of the children need one on one supervision, others can function in small groups with one to four other children, and others look normal, but still have severe enough problems to require special caregivers to look after them when a single parent home needs a paycheck coming in every month. It was so good to be a part of a church that really got out there in the community and found where the real needs were, and helped people with lives made impossible by demands made by special childrens' needs. Also, a lot of baby sitters will not take special needs children. The lady who ran that day care center was one of the dearest, most selfless people I have ever met, and it was an honor to make 50 quilts for them.

Even so, the 9 patch quilt was overdone. I've done a few through the years after that , but that's generally when someone brings me a sack of someone else's quilt and sewing scraps that have invariably a few nine-patch squares, none of which is the same size of all the others. Every sash must be sewn to accommodate squares that don't match, and some squares are so much smaller than the others they need extra strips sewn on them to get a uniform size going. Plus, most of them look, well, "utilitarian."

I have a hunch your mother's were not like that, but master works. There are 9-patch quilts in museums that truly are eye candy, but the one's I've inherited were end of the line squares. I'd make a utility quilt just to get them out of my sight. lol. They're warm, and you needed warm stuff where we used to live (the Equality State).

I think that was my mother's way of using little bits of fabric she had. That way she didn't have to waste it. Her squares were uniform though. But they were good warm quilts. I always loved sleeping under them.

 

[freedombecki]

That makes me think of my mother's nine patch quilts!

I made so many nine patch quilts, I got right burned out on them. I think it was my primary square for wedding quilts, baby quilts, and the handicapped daycare that started in our church in or around 1970, until they chartered with federal funding to build their own facility, in or around 1990. Handicapped day care enabled single parents with children with severe disabilities to work. Some of the children need one on one supervision, others can function in small groups with one to four other children, and others look normal, but still have severe enough problems to require special caregivers to look after them when a single parent home needs a paycheck coming in every month. It was so good to be a part of a church that really got out there in the community and found where the real needs were, and helped people with lives made impossible by demands made by special childrens' needs. Also, a lot of baby sitters will not take special needs children. The lady who ran that day care center was one of the dearest, most selfless people I have ever met, and it was an honor to make 50 quilts for them.

Even so, the 9 patch quilt was overdone. I've done a few through the years after that , but that's generally when someone brings me a sack of someone else's quilt and sewing scraps that have invariably a few nine-patch squares, none of which is the same size of all the others. Every sash must be sewn to accommodate squares that don't match, and some squares are so much smaller than the others they need extra strips sewn on them to get a uniform size going. Plus, most of them look, well, "utilitarian."

I have a hunch your mother's were not like that, but master works. There are 9-patch quilts in museums that truly are eye candy, but the one's I've inherited were end of the line squares. I'd make a utility quilt just to get them out of my sight. lol. They're warm, and you needed warm stuff where we used to live (the Equality State).

I think that was my mother's way of using little bits of fabric she had. That way she didn't have to waste it. Her squares were uniform though. But they were good warm quilts. I always loved sleeping under them.

The other day when you were describing your mother's 9-patch quilts, I was thinking about a quilt I saw a few years back at the Shelburne Museum. It was made by a museum contributor named Florence Peto who made a masterwork 9-patch floral quilt aptly named "Calico Garden Quilt." I did a little searching and found it. It, too, of course, is precision, no larger than a wallhanging, but it just stayed in my mind long after we visited there one beautiful October day, 2003.

photo credits
​

 

[Sunshine]

I made so many nine patch quilts, I got right burned out on them. I think it was my primary square for wedding quilts, baby quilts, and the handicapped daycare that started in our church in or around 1970, until they chartered with federal funding to build their own facility, in or around 1990. Handicapped day care enabled single parents with children with severe disabilities to work. Some of the children need one on one supervision, others can function in small groups with one to four other children, and others look normal, but still have severe enough problems to require special caregivers to look after them when a single parent home needs a paycheck coming in every month. It was so good to be a part of a church that really got out there in the community and found where the real needs were, and helped people with lives made impossible by demands made by special childrens' needs. Also, a lot of baby sitters will not take special needs children. The lady who ran that day care center was one of the dearest, most selfless people I have ever met, and it was an honor to make 50 quilts for them.

Even so, the 9 patch quilt was overdone. I've done a few through the years after that , but that's generally when someone brings me a sack of someone else's quilt and sewing scraps that have invariably a few nine-patch squares, none of which is the same size of all the others. Every sash must be sewn to accommodate squares that don't match, and some squares are so much smaller than the others they need extra strips sewn on them to get a uniform size going. Plus, most of them look, well, "utilitarian."

I have a hunch your mother's were not like that, but master works. There are 9-patch quilts in museums that truly are eye candy, but the one's I've inherited were end of the line squares. I'd make a utility quilt just to get them out of my sight. lol. They're warm, and you needed warm stuff where we used to live (the Equality State).

I think that was my mother's way of using little bits of fabric she had. That way she didn't have to waste it. Her squares were uniform though. But they were good warm quilts. I always loved sleeping under them.

The other day when you were describing your mother's 9-patch quilts, I was thinking about a quilt I saw a few years back at the Shelburne Museum. It was made by a museum contributor named Florence Peto who made a masterwork 9-patch floral quilt aptly named "Calico Garden Quilt." I did a little searching and found it. It, too, of course, is precision, no larger than a wallhanging, but it just stayed in my mind long after we visited there one beautiful October day, 2003.

photo credits
​

Wow! That is sensational! You are certainly well versed in the world of quilting. When I was in college, I was required to take Speech. One of the speeches we had to do was a 'demonstration.' I was quilting on a quilt for my sister at the time - the one I mentioned that was the only one I have done largely on my own. I did my demonstration on quilting. It went over pretty well. At least I got the A.

 

[freedombecki]

You did a quilt for your sister while talking a college load and getting A grades? Yikes!!!! I'm glad you gave a demo on quilting in college. No wonder you can do such challenging embroideries and apparently design them too like your Celtic of Chinese symbols.

I never thought to show any sewing projects when I took persuasive speech as my speaking elective in college. But I do remember a Consumer health course at Oregon State University in which we were required to give a 5 minute speech on a Consumer measurement issue (count to make sure there were 100 aspirins in an aspirin bottle, or make sense of federal consumer requirements.) I elected to make fun of the consumer health-paper industry. It was a pretty darn dull speech until I held up the yardstick with a square yard of t. paper taped onto it to show how "useful" knowing how much a square yard of toilet paper was (which was the standard info used to tell consumers how much t-paper they were getting back then). The professor doctor said she was giving me an A for the whole course because that was the funniest student speech/demo she'd ever seen. It's kinda fun to see a room full of 300 of your fellow students rolling in the aisles. I felt like a Carol Burnett that day.