Monday, August 06, 2012

Math Word Problems

I knew it would come to this...the pattern called for 5.5 yards of background fabric and I only had 5. I decided to press on anyway, because I really wanted to use the design on that fabric...and I ran out of fabric for the border. I've scrounged together little leftover pieces to make my 2.5 inch by 3.5 inch squares...and then I needed 16 more triangles! I found a fat quarter in my stash...and now needed to figure out how to get 16 triangles out of it. Ever since fourth grade when I was called to the front of the class to show long division on the blackboard and couldn't do it, I have hated math. Thing is, I'm actually good at it, as demonstrated by my MBA and doing well in the math classes in the program. But let's not talk hypotenuse legs and right angles. But good news! I figured it out. I couldn't even begin to demonstrate how I cut the triangles out so that I squeezed every last inch out of a fat quarter, but I did it! Einstein would be so proud! We do share the same birthday, you know. 

Then I started laying out the fabric for the border and decided how to arrange them. I sewed one together and thought I had sewed it together incorrectly, took it out, rearranged, only to find I had done it right the first time. Took it out, now to sew it again.
Because it's paper piecing and you are sewing the back, everything is reversed. So the way it is laid out is the correct way. So you don't reverse it.

It's complicated.

Every time I see a word math probem, it looks like this to me: If I have 10 ice cubes and you have 11 apples, how many pancakes will fit on the roof? Answer: Purple, because aliens don't wear hats.