domesticat.net -- quilts

Mitzvah

domesticat — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:34:33 +0000

Date:

15 August 2011

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157628780181157

Recipient:

Mellbergs

Pattern:

Double wedding ring

Level of completion:

Sewing (under 50% completed)

Stick with me here. You'll read the first few paragraphs here and wonder how in the world this is going to have a happy ending, but … it does. I promise.

* * *

I have struggled to name this quilt, as well as to write about it. It goes without saying that 2011, thanks to Jeff's accident, was … hell, let's pick a few adjectives:

painful
life-changing (and not in a good way)
unforgettable
humbling
brutal
exhausting

Let's just go with those to start. Mix in that as Jeff's survival became assured, and his return to (first) consciousness and (second) independence became more apparent, it became harder to write about what was going on in my life. Jeff and I were always private people, and every time I started to write about his recovery from my perspective, I realized I just couldn't talk about it to the Internets At Large. He wasn't able to speak for himself, to say what he was, and wasn't, okay with me discussing, so I shut up and stayed shut.

I think I can say this about 2011: after having lived through it, I will rip the fucking throat out of anyone who ever again dares say to me, "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

No, it doesn't.

If it's bad enough, it cripples you emotionally, shatters your ability to cope, makes you fearful to reach out to your friends Yet Another Time because you know you are the person who needs more help than any single person can provide …

… and you learn to get by with less, or nothing, because you have no other choice. (Sheer stubborn endurance is not automatically equal to positivity. Sorry, self-help industry. Find another sucker.)

I came out of 2011 with an unhealthy dose of resentment, but I also came out of it with a bright spot. I started 2011 with a spouse barely clinging to life in the second of two ICUs, and I remembered one thing a nurse told me in the first ICU:

"This is either gonna be really short, or really long. You need to prepare for both possibilities, because no outcome is guaranteed."

Meaning: injuries like Jeff's don't have quick recoveries. They can have quick deaths, but any potential recovery from a near-fatal brain injury is measured in years, not days or weeks. (Also, for those of you who weren't there at the time, it's the only time in my life I've known anyone to celebrate moving TO the trauma ICU … because it was a step up from the neurological ICU.)

About six months in, it became harder to ask people for help. I had drawn down so deeply on my friend reserves, I was past "favors owed me" or "favors easily paid back" to … "how the hell do I ever start paying back what I've already asked for, much less what I'll need in the next few months?"

The funny thing? Some people stick around. Having survived 2011, I can also say this: if you are ever in a position like the one we were in, you will NEVER be able to predict who turns out to be a long-haul friend. Sure, you can point to your bestie-since-pigtails and guess that one, but there will be some Someones in your life who just won't disappear, and who they are will surprise you.

They'll be the ones who have the uncanniest timing, who will call you on the day that you simply cannot handle the six most recent One More Things™ that have just been thrown at you, and say, "We were wondering if you had eaten dinner yet. We have extra, and would like to bring it over." At that point you do NOT cry with relief, but you put a smile in your voice and say, "That would be wonderful, thank you."

— and you totally don't mention it's the first hot meal you'll have had in a few days. Because you've got PRIDE, buddy. It may not keep you warm at night but it WILL get you through the next thirty minutes.

… and these people, whom you didn't know at all before the accident? They keep calling. Not all the time, but just enough to know that you're on their radar, and they remember that life didn't magically go back to normal just because Jeff was released from a rehab hospital. When he's not strong enough to travel, they bring food to you; when he is, they invite you to come visit them and eat there, at a table, like you remember civilized humans doing, once.

It's enough to remind you, yes even cynical you, that there really is a LOT of goodness in people, if you make it possible for them to show it.

So what do you do if, on one of those invited dinners, this person who has fed you repeatedly over the past year comments on the quilt you're binding and says, "You know, my mother started working on a quilt for me before she died. I'm not sure how far she got. I'm curious now, so let me pull down the bag…"

This is what we call in Amy-land a CELESTIAL HINT.

So let's recap.

Worst year of my life to date? Check.
Chatting with a person who has been unexpectedly, repeatedly, and frequently generous to us during said year? Check.
Said person lost a parent years ago, before that parent had completed an instance of a craft that I just happen to know how to do, in a pattern that I've done a few times before? Check.

Hello, universe, I'm Amy, and I'm still taking hints here.

Of course I asked if I could finish it out for her, precisely because she was the kind of person who would never, ever ask if I could. Her genuine intention was so plainly obvious: to show the fabric to someone who understood, and then to pack it away for that Someday that would come after her two boys were grown and her job was calmer — that magical Someday in which she would learn how to finish the quilt her mom had started for her.

Jacob likes to tease me sometimes about my complete and utter soft-heartedness that can be found underneath my cynicism. He jokes that I am rescuing orphans from the Island of Misfit Quilts, one at a time, and setting their worlds right: fixing them, finishing them, and putting them in the hands of people who will love and use them.

It's silly, and I laugh about it, but he's right. I do it for that very reason; I grew up with these items being both useful and treasured possessions, and I derive a massive sense of satisfaction in seeing each of these orphans to their forever homes.

Here's everything you need to know about me, in a nutshell: massively overcommitted, massively overwhelmed, but I looked at this fabric and the story behind it and I could. not. say. no. The thought of this fabric getting put back in its little bag and packed away for another decade, until another appropriate conversation happened, just saddened me.

So I cut the little arc pieces, and I bribed Hallie, who was interested in picking up some simple sewing jobs, to do some of the straight-line sewing, to get them to about this point:

She completed a large swath of the arcs, and returned them to me, neatly packaged, awaiting me to have the time and brain capacity to work on this quilt.

In that time, I've struggled to name this quilt. I don't even know the name of the woman who started it; I know that she named her daughter Jennifer, and her daughter turned out to be a generous and decent human being, and that's about the extent of it. It's hard to name a quilt when you know so little about it. I know that Jennifer chooses to live her religion, rather than speak about it, and I found myself thinking about words that had to do with the intersection of memory, duty, and religion.

The Greek word for memory, anamnesis, stuck with me a long time. It plays a subtle and important role in Christianity; in liturgy, worshippers are encouraged to remember, starting with Jesus' instructions during the Last Supper: τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. Do this in memory of me.

The word didn't seem right, though. Every time I tried using that word, or one similar to it, for the quilt, I could feel the wrongness. I eventually decided to start sewing, with or without a name for the project, hoping it would come to me.

It hit me, a night or two ago: in Judaism, there's a term for a deed done because it is the right thing to do: מִצְוָה‎‎, a mitzvah. The Hebrew term originally referred to commandments by God, but its usage has filtered down several levels: a commandment by God, a moral deed done as a religious duty, an act of kindness done because it is the right thing to do.

Exactly. This one finished piece was just enough to show me the intended pattern:

…my hands can do the rest. I do not claim to be religious, but there is a rightness to this task that comforts me. I cannot pay back what was given to me in 2011, not now and not ever, but I can finish this project. When it is done, it won't get one of my traditional care labels, but instead one of what I found in the bottom of the bag:

The Island of Misfit Quilts will have to live without this one.

spaces between

domesticat — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:40:11 +0000

I finished the top for Pentagon papers tonight. I don't have any photos, because it's dark and it's late and it's Friday and … do I really have to make more excuses here?

… yeah, thanks.

I need to flip the quilt top over, trim any seam allowances that are too large, and then press it … but of course, pressing it means re-filing all of the fabric that I've pulled out this week to finish PP. It does seem like every round of tasks comes with seventeen codicils these days, but it is what it is.

I'll clean off the ironing board, trim the seam allowances, clean off the sewing table, pin the quilt, and get to work.

I'm actually mourning the lack of more pentagons to make — I never thought I'd say it, but life in its current state is often a lonely and solitary beast, and those pentagons have kept me company in a lot of strange places. I toted this project to …

Total states: 10 (Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine) plus Washington D.C.
Total airports: 8 (Huntsville, Atlanta, Boston, Houston, San Francisco, San Jose, Phoenix, Reagan Int'l)
Intermissions and waiting periods during the Bay Area DrupalCamp, the 25th anniversary touring show of Les Misérables, the Beijing Dance Company, one crazy day of job interviews, hotel shuttles, the Boston Ballet, and a bunch of other things I'm forgetting.
Total hotel room nights: 20

This isn't the life I've wanted, but I took the spots and scraps of time — the flights, the intermissions, the waiting periods — I called "the spaces between when life was happening" and made something tangible out of it. It made me look silly and obsessed at times, but those collections of 5-15 minutes here and there, plus a heavy, concerted effort after returning home, turned those empty spaces into a warm and comforting gift.

During my Boston on-boarding time, I looked forward to getting back in my room at the end of the day. I'd put on a TV episode and sew; in the three weeks I burned through an entire season of Torchwood and a season and a half of Lie to Me while working through two quart bags of fabric pieces.

Two quarts!

I'll be sorry to see it go, but there will be other projects.

I've mentioned Scarlet, right?

Scarlet will even be staying in Huntsville! How's that for a change?

Alas, she won't be the next quilt, though. Miss Scarlet's been waiting about fifty years; she can wait another few months.

Faux heirloom generation station

domesticat — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:50:14 +0000

This entry needed to be made separately from the other one I just did, because it has a more limited audience. You guys know me; every now and then, I spot an antique quilt top that is the right combination of appearance + price, and I bite on it.

I bit on this one.

It doesn't have a name, and it doesn't have an owner.

The workmanship is solid but not spectacular; it took me looking closely to see that some blocks fudge here and there. I liked both the pattern and color sense; it is a classic pattern executed in a way that feels classic without being modern.

1930s-1950s. I don't feel a need to try to date this too closely. Not sure why; there is something about this quilt that made me say, "it is what it is, and I'm okay with that."

It has shirtings and plaids, and a couple of feedsack-ish fabrics. Some of the blues look a little older. I think it merits a simple, unpretentious finish; choose an era-appropriate backing, maybe blue, and if I feel really saucy, bind it in red.

I don't have any preconceived notions about who it should go to; if it's the kind of quilt you wish you'd gotten from your dotty grandmother who should've quilted but didn't … well, get in touch. Perhaps it's yours.

Extra credit for naming ideas.

Most of the provenance is lost, but we know it was probably made in the Terre Haute area, because it was bought in an estate sale in Terre Haute, Illinois (near Burlington, Iowa).

Thoughts?

Friday night round-up

domesticat — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:36:36 +0000

Nobody sees me these days, except for the people who pop by to pick up Jeff to take him out to lunch, so I really need to make a point to write here. I'm alive, I swear; my ticket queue at work is already too large for me to ever die.

I have mixed feelings about that. I suspect I would have especially strong mixed and smelly feelings, post-mortem.

So let me cheat and give you the life in pictures, lately. I have neither the brain power for introspection nor the ability to take a straight-on shot of my current quilt, so we're just gonna have to improv here, kids.

My hand-sewing project, Pentagon Papers, is almost done. I am size-limited by the backing. Several months ago, I snapped up a gently used duvet cover from a British family. I thought it would make an especially hilarious quilt backing. I'd been horrendously stumped on what to use for a backing, and then it hit me…

YOU BLITHERING IDIOT, HE'S A SO HUGE OF A DOCTOR WHO FAN THAT HE HAS INFECTED HIS CHILDREN WITH IT.

it is, then.

Bonus? This side will remain for another project:

Don't make me call that one Dalek Bumps. I will. I'M DANGEROUS WHEN PUSHED, SEE? I have other friends who are Doctor Who fans. I know who you are. (Wait, I'm threatening people with quilts now? God. I have GOT to get out of this house.)

Along those lines, have I mentioned that if you become the resident batshit quilting lady, people start giving you fabric? It's possibly the most freaking awesome thing ever. I, personally, will totally whore out just about any skill I have in exchange for fat quarters. What makes it even better is when the friends know me so well that they don't even have to ask when they see fabric like this:

Red-and-black frilly bras? I'm surprised they didn't have my NAME on it. Thank you, Jiggy. You rock.

Pentagon Papers

domesticat — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:55:28 +0000

Date:

7 October 2011 - 26 December 2011

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157627867531003

Recipient:

Jacob

Pattern:

pentagons

Level of completion:

Completed and given away

Travel looks glamorous for the first thirty seconds, especially when it's work travel. New places! New things! The implication of being skilled enough that you need to take your skills to the people who need them!

Except it isn't really like that. It's looking at your cats and saying, "Shit, honey, I'm so sorry. Please don't bite the cat-sitter. I have to go to the airport again…"

and then toddling off. Eight hours later, you've walked through three airports, wondered if anyone knows how to read airline seat numbers correctly, and gotten to a hotel in a new-to-you city that you're too tired to leave, so instead of going out to see the city you order room service because comfort food and a slice of chocolate cake is second only to having your kitty fall asleep on you.

That's what travel is like.

As part of the Penrose quilting challenge I set up for some people earlier this year, I decided I should be fair and learn a new skill, myself. Don't push others unless you're willing to be challenged yourself, or some rot like that. I took up English paper piecing because it looked intimidating and I'd never tried it.

Turns out, not only is it easy, it's amazingly portable. Got a project? Got a flight? Got a zip-top bag? Stash scissors, needle, thread, paper pieces and fabric in the zip-top bag and your project goes with you. It's been a wonderful diversion through…

Boston:
Atlanta
Washington D.C.
Huntsville
Houston
San Francisco
San Jose
Phoenix
Houston (again)

(My hotel room in Boston, while on what I can now acknowledge was a job interview)

(A weekend vacation to see Matthew in Washington DC)

There's no rhyme or reason to this quilt; it's just a scrappy pile of everything-in-the-bin, with two of each. Ages ago, Jacob had sketched out a quilt design that he called Bow Tie Pasta, but I never got around to executing it. When I found Liesel's funky irregular pentagons, I realized they'd make a scrap quilt that would strongly resemble Bow Tie Pasta's original idea … but I just couldn't call it BTP.

Nameless, I kept sewing. Airports, hotel rooms, and mass transit saw me whipping out needle and thread to baste fabric to paper. It hit me after a while that as long as I did even a little in Phoenix, I would technically hit all four major time zones with this little quilt top.

Once I learned that I'd need to make an extended trip to Boston, I started frantically cutting fabric and stuffing a zip-top bag full of it to prepare for the trip. Three weeks is a long time to spend in a hotel room, and my suspicion is that this quilt will be a sanity-saver.

Obviously, you've already seen the name of the quilt, but seriously? I worked on English paper-piecing quilt, in Washington D.C., and it's made out of pentagons? What else could I call it other than Pentagon Papers?

Ok, fine. I'm a nerd. I get it. But my poli sci friends just laughed when they read it, I bet.

Expect photos of progress from Boston. I'd love it if I finished the top while in Boston. Improbable, yes, but not impossible; this is how much was completed after the California / Arizona trip:

…and here it is after the first night of the Boston trip:

Sentimental value

domesticat — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:29:42 +0000

It's been three years since I've seen my second quilt, Star Stories.

I always have a fear of looking at my finished work. I can always find the mistakes, and in Star Stories I know I made many. I've learned a great deal since I made it, but it was the quilt that sparked my interest in using reclaimed, shared, and repurposed fabrics. Forget what's "expected." In this case, sentimental value was more important.

The quilt was displayed at Lexie's wedding reception, even though it wasn't finished; I raced to get it completed and sent off, and in my haste I never thought to get a straightforward photo of it. (What can I say? It was only my second quilt. I had no idea I'd stick with this hobby.)

It was comprised of an elegant square block that, when turned sideways, created tumbling stars. Since most of the fabric in the quilt was donated (read: not really chosen by me) the color choices were out of my hands. I remember stressing a great deal over how to arrange the fabric; I tried a color-spectrum first and it just didn't work. The dark-to-light gradient, on the other hand, was simple and perfect — and looked SO much more complex than it really was.

Dark side

Light side

I know there are mistakes. I wince when I think about them. I've never sent out a perfect quilt, and every time I start a project I think, "This will be the time I get it right!" and … it never happens. I fudge a seam, I goof on color arrangement, or my corners aren't perfect. Maybe the recipients notice, and maybe they don't. I have to grit my teeth when I give a quilt away, and trust that the gestalt overrides the flaws.

Imperfect warmth beats cold perfection.

Still, though, I look at this quilt and I smile. I smile BRIGHTLY. My first thought when they held it up? "Cheeky woman." Seriously — had I known what I was getting into, I would have been terrified to start. For a second quilt, this is audacious as all hell. Good thing I didn't know it at the time.

Start as you mean to continue, I guess.

The full writeup, start to finish, is at Quilt festival: the story of 'star stories'
The pattern is 'cosmosdust,' available at http://www.liesbosquilts.nl/patronen/pat99kosm01E.html

Save me, interlibrary loan!

domesticat — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:36:27 +0000

I wised up with my book purchases some time ago. I realized I liked looking at craft books more than I liked owning them; I have a small-but-growing stack, and a realization that I don't actually need to keep many books. Keeping books leads them to eventually be part of cataloging and Keeping Up With and then sadly part of Clean ALL The Things. Those just aren't as fun.

My rationale: save my book-purchase money for the books that I just can't get through interlibrary loan, or books where $book->value > $cleanALLthethings->time.

(Yeah, I went there. Shut it.)

Issam el-Said's unfinished thesis, "Islamic Art and Architecture," was absolutely worth purchasing. His entire thesis? Craftsmen were able to draft, and tailor, geometric patterns using straightedges and string. Sadly, he died before completing his PhD, but it was published anyway (rightfully so!) and it's possibly the single most useful quilt book I own, even though it has nothing to do with quilts.

Title: Islamic Art and Architecture: The System of Geometric Design, by Issam El-Said
Edited by: Tarek El-Bouri and Keith Critchlow
ISBN: 978-1873938454
Format: Hardback
Published: 2008
(buy it at Amazon)

Every page starts with a basic idea, shows you how to create it, and then demonstrates the final pattern. For a budding quilter with Adobe Illustrator, it's a lifetime's worth of patterns in one volume.

I ordered another book last night that also holds promise. I don't remember how I came across it, but when I searched for images from Liesels Fünfecke, I stared, flabbergasted. When I first ran across the name, both my rusty German and my itch for another paper piecing project kicked into overdrive, because Fünfecke = fünf + ecke = five sides = pentagons … and pentagons just aren't that common in sewing.

Title: Liesels Fünfecke, by Liesel Niesner and Hilde Klatt
ISBN: 978-3000189036
Format: Paperback
Published: 2006
(buy it at cotton-color.com)

It looks like a few English speakers have found the book, but very few have made anything from it; these photos are all I've turned up on flickr. I've only found one English-language blog post that mentions the book, and there are no libraries in the US that have this book available through interlibrary loan.

Printable paper pieces are available here. Printable graph paper is available here.

I am intrigued, to put it mildly. I've been desperate for another English paper piecing project, so I could have something to fiddle with while occasionally watching television, but I've already done a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt and while it was lovely and period-appropriate…

I am not interested in doing another. Hexagons and I? We are ready to see other people for a while.

Nerd out. Now go get some work done, Amy!

No charge, no sale

domesticat — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 03:38:27 +0000

I've had a couple of projects on my mind today, projects I haven't added to my quilt list or spoken much about, but which have been difficult to stop thinking about. One has been brewing behind the scenes for a while, and another I just committed to today.

If they had a common denominator, I would describe them as "compassion projects." Some projects suggest themselves: baby quilts, marriage quilts, life-change quilts. These are different. I think I'd go as far as to describe them as "love projects" — projects you take on because in your heart, you know you must in order to be the kind of person you want to be.

Neither have names. I'm open to suggestions.

Project #1 belongs to the family of a co-worker of Jeff's. The husband and wife have been quiet presences in our lives since Jeff's accident. They've sent food our way several times since the accident, and they always have a knack for inviting us over, or sending an actual healthy dinner, when I seem to be at my lowest. During one of our visits to their house, the co-worker's wife brought out her quilts and, lastly, brought out a bag.

I had a feeling where this was going. It's not the first time, after all. Sure enough, the bag contained folded and stored fabric, with only a tiny amount made up into a pattern. She smiled and said, "My mother started this quilt top for us before she died. I've always meant to get around to finishing it," with the kind of shrug that spoke eloquently of a full-time job and multiple children.

I contacted her later and offered to finish it — if she'd be interested. She was. The bag had pattern pieces and clearly enough fabric to make the quilt happen, and the project had all the hallmarks of a love project: it needed to happen, it deserved to happen, and I had the facility to make it happen.

She asked me how much, and I told her no charge.

I think there are plenty of crafters in the world who could walk away from such a project. I'm learning the hard way that I'm not one of them. I was raised in an environment that saw these objects as physical, tangible, comforting expressions of love and care; bringing a project like this one to completion has a very Quantum Leap feel: setting right what once went wrong. Better that this quilt sees life than spends another decade in a box, unfinished and unused.

(Hallie has been an amazing help with this project; I've been able to rent out a few hours of her time on her sewing machine. She's handled some of the simple chain-piecing, and in return I've helped fund some crafting purchases for her. It will allow me to focus on just the more difficult piecing, and hopefully get this quilt finished more quickly.)

Project #2 will go to a new friend who, in the next 24-48 hours, is going to have one of the most horrific experiences we can have in this lifetime: her significant other, her new and shiny significant other who made this year so delightful for her … will be taken off of life support after a freak accident last week.

It was a brain injury. (Don't think I didn't want to punch a wall when I heard those two words.)

Words can't express how un-fucking-believably unfair this is. Just a few months ago I was sitting across a restaurant table with her; she asked with kindness how I was doing and how Jeff was doing, and now I find myself struggling to find words to give her similar comfort. It could have been me — damned near WAS me — and even after months of proximity to mortality I still have no better answer than a hug, and tears, and "I'm so, so sorry."

I relayed a message through a mutual friend today: nab some clothing of his. I'd prefer woven cottons, but for a situation like this, I'll work with whatever I'm given. Just get something that has meaning to you, and I'll work it up into something physically, tangibly warming for you.

No charge, no sale.

The urge to DO, even though there is nothing to be done, is so strong. I like to think that our humanity is marked by our compassion and care for others, but we are hamstrung by death and dying. We cannot bring back what is lost, so we use what we have — in my case, my hands — to comfort others as best we are able. It's very rarely enough, but that's one of humanity's shining points: we try anyway.

Little stars at night

domesticat — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 03:14:38 +0000

I mentioned recently that I'd been holding off on Adam and Brenda's quilt until I had my skills up, and that it was time to get started, because I had the skills. I picked up the very soothing English paper piecing, and the last thing left to do was master foundation piecing. If that last sentence didn't make any sense to you, the short version is that if I take my intended finished block design, break it into component parts, and print it onto some easy-to-tear paper, I can use the paper as a direct template to sew complicated patterns with dead-on accuracy.

This is a more natural-color version of the smallest, lightest star. The edges are rough because they'll be appliquéd under, later, and don't need to be perfect now:

I realized there was little chance of me being able to photograph this little star at night while allowing you to see the subtle patterns underneath, so I shot a second photo, stripping it down to grayscale and exaggerating the levels so you could see that wicked tight center join and the prints in the fabrics:

These are not large stars, and if you look closely, you'll see the threads in the weave of the fabrics, helping you gain a sense of scale.

On an unrelated happy note: Tenzing received a provisional clean bill of health today at the vet's. Given how ill he was, and that it took two courses of antibiotics to clear up the infection, the vet has asked to see him one more time a month from now.

He is asleep between my knees even as I write this post. I am glad to have him home, safe and well.

Smile, and feed the soul

domesticat — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:53:44 +0000

I survived the second go-live of the week today, and my brain is sloshy and very liquid. I've been sifting through the piles of fabric I cut during the week-long power outage after the April 27th tornadoes…

and Pentatonic is actually starting to take shape. The insane idea of using only two fabrics is actually working.

There are a couple of small mistakes in my template, but it's useful for planning the general idea:

I've gotten enough stars done that I can start sorting them by similarity:

What I know:

The star in the upper-right corner will be the center of the quilt, I think; it's such a lovely, dark vortex.
Next I have to pick five stars to surround it, and I am inclined to go with five green ones. I have four; I just need one more.
After that, I'll need five external points. I think those will be the purple stars on the upper-left.
Sets of 6: 4 (These could be a total of 8 sets-of-3 depending how it shakes out)
Sets of 5: 3
Sets of 4: 2
Unique: 1

It's actually happening — one star at a time. I think a glass of wine is in order.