August 22, 2011
Phat Quarter Food Swap (or how I work the Simpsons into everything I do)
I know that by now, I’ve expressed my love for the Phat Quarter a million ways. The Phat Quarter is the Flickr branch of the wonderful stitchers found on the Mr. X Stitch site. I feel honored every time one of my pieces goes up on Mr. X Stitch, and I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I am able to do if it weren’t for the people in the Phat Quarter and all the photos of their truly amazing creations.
Ok, enough of that.
Every few months, there’s a swap held on the Phat Quarter, with some theme to stitch around before mailing off to a stranger. This month’s theme was food – a perfect theme for a food blogger, no? Pop culture references usually go over pretty well in this group, so when a few different Simpsons quotes popped into my head immediately, I figured I had a good foothold on the subject (did I mention that I taught a class in college on the Simpsons for not one, but two semesters?). Then I found out the person I was mailing to is named Lisa (here’s her blog!), and ideas started to fall into place. I asked Lisa if she was a Simpsons fan to make sure my plan would work (although if she had said no, I don’t think I had a back up…).
I opted for one of my favorite lines of Simpsons dialogue, from the episode Lisa the Vegetarian (yep, the one with Paul and Linda McCartney)… only to find out that I have been misquoting the episode for years (and I use this quote pretty damn often). I like the version in my head better (“mystical, magical animal”), but I had to stick to the real quote for the stitching.
The whole time I was stitching this, I had a strong craving for bacon…
Making Islands Where No Island Should Go 