Know Them, Raise Them, Be Them Sampler Hedy Lamarr, 1914

Know Them, Raise Them, Be Them Sampler

Hedy Lamarr, 1914 - 2000 CE “Any girl can look glamorous, all she has to do is stand still and look stupid,” surprising words from Hedy Lamarr, one of the most glamorous actresses from Hollywood’s “Golden Age”.

In 1932 in Austria, she starred in the award winning European ﬁlm Ecstasy. The movie was banned in the USA for being overtly sexual, and banned in Germany because she was Jewish. As World War II approached, she ﬂed Austria and her weapons- manufacturer Nazi-sympathizer husband. As luck would have it, she booked herself on the same ocean liner as movie mogul Louis B. Mayer and impressed him enough to score a contract at his studios in Hollywood.

While Hedy was usually typecast as an “exotic” seductress, she was also a notable inventor. She was granted patents for an improved trafﬁc stoplight and she redesigned airplane wings for millionaire Howard Hughes.

As Nazi Germany rolled through Western Europe in 1940, Hedy applied to join the Inventor’s Council. She had learned a great deal about munitions and secret weapons from her ex-husband and wanted to help the Allied war effort. The Council dissuaded her and told her she would do better to help sell war bonds; she excelled, selling $25 million worth of war bonds during a period of 10 days.

When Hedy learned that the US Navy’s radio-controlled torpedoes could easily be jammed and thrown off course she developed the idea for a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed and enlisted a composer friend to help her implement it. The US Navy siezed her patent and applied it to many weapons and communication systems and the same techniques are the basis for today’s Wiﬁ and Bluetooth technologies.

It may be surprising to learn that Hedy, unlike most actresses, never sought an Academy Award, regardless of some misguided and unsuccessful attempts at notoriety. It was her dream to be acknowledged for her mind in her chosen field: technology. Recognition finally came in 1997, when she became the first female to receive the BULBIE™, considered the "Oscars" of inventing; as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award. Posthumously, in 2014, she was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her frequency hopping technology. Thus, she was dubbed “the mother of Wi-Fi”. Despite having invented the precursor to social media, she ironically died as a recluse.

Hedy Lamarr’s Block contains: Fabric A (bright/mixed*): (6) 43/4” squares (*I did 3 of one fabric and 3 of another) Fabric B (medium-dark): (16) 4” squares Fabric C (light or bright): (6) 4” square Fabric D (center): (1) 43/4” squares

Step 1: Pair (4) Fabric B 4” squares with (4) Fabric C 4” squares. Use your favorite Half Square Triangle method to create a total of (8) HSTs with these pairs. (See the half square triangle page posted at the same website where you found this pattern.) Trim to 31/2” square. .

Step 2: Cut remaining (12) Fabric B 4” squares and remaining (2) Fabric C 4” squares in half diagonally from corner to corner. Gently fold a Fabric A 43/4” square in half to form two equal rectangles and pinch the fabric (“ﬁnger press”) a little bit so that you can see the line of the fold down the center of the square. Place one of the Fabric B triangles that you just cut with the right angle lined up with the center fold-line of the Fabric A square, right sides together (RST), as indicated by the black dashed line in illustration below. The diagonal (bias) cut of the B triangle is the longest edge and should line up with the edge of the A square. Stitch together as indicated by the white dashed line. Press to the B triangle.

Repeat with another Fabric B triangle on an adjacent side of the Fabric A square. Again, press to B when done.

Repeat with (1) more B triangle, and then (1) C triangle adding onto each edge of Fabric A square. After pressing the last seam, you will have one square-in-a-square unit with a Fabric A center surrounded by (3) Fabric B triangles and (1) Fabric C triangle on one corner. Repeat process from the beginning of Step 2 with (3) more Fabric A 43/4” squares for a total of (4) square-in-a-square units. Set aside.

Step 3: Repeat the process from Step 2 using remaining (2) Fabric A 43/4” squares and the Fabric D 43/4” square, surrounding each with only Fabric B triangles, for three more square-in-a-square units.

Step 4: Trim all seven square-in-a-square units from Steps 2 and 3 to 61/2” square, leaving a 1/4” of fabric beyond the points of the square at the center of each.

Step 5: Loosely arrange all units into the block layout with the Fabric D square-in-a- square unit in the center (this illustration is not proportional):

Step 6: Assemble the sides ﬁrst by sewing the HST units together and then sewing the entire left column together, the center column, and the entire right column. Then the three columns get sewn together and your Hedy Lamarr “movie reel” block is complete at 181/2” at this stage.