This and That: October 2023

October 15, 2023August 31, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Of course I took my quilt titled Annularity up to the Annular Solar Eclipse, and took its photo while the eclipse was going on.

And my new Eclipse quilt also got a photo. The first photo is beside the car from Colorado, with two photographers, five cameras, boatloads of gear and who still called themselves “amateur.” To our left was Tim from Temecula (about 35 minutes from our home in California), and on the other side of him was an Astronomy teacher from Murrieta (about 45 minutes away from our home). I did a roll call video, as people were stationed all around the sports park in Beaver, Utah. Near the end of the eclipse, the car just beyond Colorado (they were from Hurricane, Utah), opened up two portable burners and invited us to have tacos with them, since two of their group were having birthdays. When the moon was exactly in the center of the sun, cheers erupted around the park. It was wonderful.

Oh, and here’s an earlier trip to an eclipse in Utah.

Other than that, what have I been doing? Quilt-prepping. Watching news. Struggling with social media. But first, some quilts.

I fell in love with a Quilt Kit for a quick Christmas Quilt, although as usual, I changed it up, leaving off the word Christmas from the front. I just wanted a nice TV quilt, and didn’t need the drapey-wordy-thingie across the front, although it would be cute if you were hanging this. And I am quite fond of this designer’s fabrics. I finish up a quilt top and I think, oh good! I’m done! but I’m not. These are steps I go through to prep it up for Jen, my Longarmer.

Lay out the batting on the top of my bed, and cut the batting 6″ larger all the way around. I have a roll of my favorite batting, and Jen is okay to use what I like. The Eclipse quilt is waiting ~~in the wings~~ on the pillows.

I smooth the quilt back up on the design wall and construct a backing that’s 6″ larger all the way around. On the right, I climbed through the stash and cut-and-sewed to create a back. The blue swath is fabrics concerned with planets, moons, outer space and rabbits. When you are shopping the stash, you get what you get, even if it means rabbits.

I do a sheet like this for every quilt. It travels with the quilt, but it is also a record for me. It took me ages to pick out the panto for Merry (my title). My long armer has some good sources on her website, but often it’s just me clicking through a site. For this one I chose “Boujee” from Intelligent Quilting, designed by Melissa Kelley.

So I make the background transparent in my Affinity Photo program, then copy and paste it onto the quilt image, enlarging it or smallerizing it until it’s how I like it. This panto reminded me of stained-glass windows from France, and I thought it might work. I like SoFine thread, and I have a thread card (and many spools) so I can tell her what color I like.

Eclipse was a bit harder, because I have that yellow and orange and then the dark blues and black. So I spooled off some thread over the top, letting it fall over the areas to see how it will look. I’ve also heard of others who sew a bunch of different scraps together and then stitch down the pieced strip with different thread to see how it will look.

Finally the parts are ready. I sometimes will wrap up the parts for a quilt together, as the batting isn’t labeled. I do put little signs at the TOP of every piece, so that if I have a certain direction I want the top to go in, Jen will see that. (She always sends the little signs back to me.)

Then it’s find a sturdy box, put in a giant plastic bag, placing the quilts inside the bag. I include a paper with both of our addresses, and then tape the label on the outside of the box. I re-use bags, keeping them in my quilt closet so I know they haven’t held the lawn clippings from outside. Kidding. We recycle our lawn clippings. And our table scraps. And our cardboard, bottles, etc. And I reuse a lot of my quilting scraps and make Frankenbatting, so I’m good on that front, too. Geesh, I sound like I live in California, or something.

Recently the news came out that QuiltMania magazines (shown above) won’t be on newsstands for you to snatch up and enjoy. If you want to get their fine publication, you’ll need to subscribe. I’m writing this everywhere (on our local guild blog, too), with links to QuiltMania, Simply Vintage and Simply Moderne, so you can welcome this subscription into your home. We let our beloved Quilters Newsletter slip away from us; let’s keep these magazines around. I love that I get a glimpse of various quilt shows, how quilters around the world are doing, and different trends that can only come with a global viewpoint.

On the left is my very first Instagram post, on June 8, 2012. On the right is a screenshot of how Instagram 2012 really looked, with those blue banners. This is a screenshot of a quilt from QuiltCon, in 2013, and it’s when the power of this app sort of came alive to me–I could see all these quilts at a show where I wasn’t. I don’t remember much about comments early on, although clearly we could make comments. I remember that we mostly concentrated on how many heart-likes we received. Many months later, one quilter that I followed was diligent in replying to each and every comment, and I remember thinking: “We’re supposed to do that?”

Why am I strolling down memory lane? Because Instagram did this to my account:

And they aren’t kidding. The “Tell us” button is bogus. It does nothing. So I’m back to a decade ago, liking things, posting things, but unable to have a conversation. If I really need to get through, I send a DM. It’s kind of weird, but also very freeing — meaning that while I miss our little conversations we had every day — I’m not included in the IG universe for a while. I don’t really know how to describe this, but it feels very much like how I felt at the beginning. And now this little meme is how it feels now (watch out, there’s one bad word), and it takes a minute to figure it out, but it’s so good.

Couple that with the warning I saw last week that if we have any Jewish or Palestine feeds, we should stay off Instagram for a while, as the Hamas terrorists are plan to air videos of those they took hostage, and it won’t be good. The whole incredibly horrendous attack on Israel has me aware, but admittedly, hiding. I know what’s going on and am not turning a blind eye to the suffering, but I am careful where I click, what I watch, all the while keeping the prayers going, and wondering which charity to donate to to help. Our church partners with many non-profit organizations around the world, and I know that soon we’ll find our avenue of action and a way to help. As Elizabeth Spiers wrote for the New York Times, “Sitting with uncertainty is hard.”

I imagine you are all in the same boat I am. So I write seemingly blythe posts like this one, but know that’s all I can do at this moment. I remember that even Christ was “troubled in spirit” as he contemplated what would befall him, when he considered the betrayal that would come. And the children in that area of the world, and their families, have certainly been betrayed. Wherever you find solace, I wish that for you, because for many of us, “peacemaking means that we resist the impulse to respond and instead…remain quiet” (from here). This does not mean quiet forever, but actively looking for the right moment, the right time, and in the right way. During this time of waiting, I will continue to post about quilting, and my life and the things that infuse joy, working to steadily to loosen the roots of evil where I can.

So, last quilt to report on. Progress on the temperature quilt for 2023, as I’m pretty much caught up. It’s a whole different color scheme than my first one, and the jury is still out on whether or not I like it. And yes, speaking of juries, I was summoned to Jury Duty for this next week, but since I’m going to be here…

(from here)

…I moved my summons day until after Christmas.

See you when I return from our trip–

300 Quilts · Quilt Patterns

Eclipses: Aren’t we so lucky?

October 7, 2023December 6, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Way back in the darker ages, eclipses were thought to run the gamut of Should Never Be Looked At, to fear and terror. Nowadays, thanks to NASA and all the people like me who love the heavens, eclipses are a big deal, and rightfully so. Way back in the day, I made this quilt and titled it Annularity, never dreaming I might be able to see an a real-life annular eclipse, but it’s going to happen in a week!

And. . . I made another quilt to celebrate. This one is called Eclipse, and is an easier –much, much easier — quilt to whip up to watch the Real Annular Eclipse. Next week! (Have I mentioned that before?) Here’s proof:

Yeah, I’m pretty interested in this.

I missed the big one a few years ago, and I’m determined not to miss these two, and am hoping that the weather in Southern Utah will cooperate. Historically, we have a good chance:

(Who makes up these charts? I don’t know, but I’m all in.)

Scenes from the Missed Eclipse in 2017:

We stayed in Southern California, and I doled out glasses and made eclipse cookies and friends came over. I hear libraries are passing out the solar glasses this year, but you can also rustle some up on Amazon, if you hurry. You HAVE to have them to gaze heavenward. If no glasses, then look at shadows:

Even the shadows in a far-away eclipse are cool. I’ve read advice to take colanders or steamer inserts to hold over white paper to see all the quirky shadows. Yes, I will. Okay, back to threads and fabrics and eclipse patterns.

This was my first thinking: to have the narrow sashing do a dance of colors, too. My husband helped me decide, and yeah — it’s fun, but you lose the eclipse blocks.

So I took out all the colorful bits in the sashing, and then put a narrow black border on it.

I will send it to the quilter when I return home, and get it ready for April 2024.

And because you might want a dedicated eclipse quilt, too, I made you two patterns. The Eclipse pattern you will have done in two days. Anularitywill be finished by the next solar eclipse. These sales are on until the end of the Annular Eclipse — like in a week. So head to my pattern shop if you want either a quick and easy — or many pieces, but beautiful — pattern. {Note: Sale has expired.}

And in case you aren’t the least bit interested in the heavens, but love a field of flowers, I illustrated this version just for you. All you Kaffe lovers, those centers are calling out for some fussy cutting. All info is on the pattern.

I hope you get a chance to wander outdoors next Saturday, and either with your glasses, or a sheet of white paper, take a look at the dance in the heavens.

This-and-That

This & That: Hiding Out

September 28, 2023August 31, 2025 Elizabeth E.19 Comments

I think it started with the post-fun-trip dreck (laundry, cleaning out suitcase, realizing I couldn’t just walk out the door and play all day), then it morphed into I-got-an-RSV-vaccine blahs (a needed shot, as I already had a doozy of a respiratory illness last December and I don’t want another one). Add that to the I-just-don’t-feel-like-sewing, and before you know it, a week, then two goes by without ever turning on the machine.

I also started trying to find photos of my first 100 quilts, and regretfully, some just can’t be found. Or if they are found, they are a photo-of-a-photo-of-a-bad-photo sort of thing, and by this point in this narrative, the Hyphen-Police are going to be coming after me (and yes, I know that last one wasn’t a proper usage).

So, hiding out is the best term for what I’ve been doing. I like seeing you all on Instagram, but felt like I want to pull the covers over my head when assaulted by all of Meta-formerly-Facebook’s ads, including questionable movie ads filled with gore, cleavage, and anger. It’s a Catch-22 for all of us, so I try to find you to comment; sorry if I missed you! I haven’t even replied to the comments on my last blog post which is something I genuinely love doing, and I would offer up an explanation, but this whine has gone on far too long. So…photos:

That’s Susan there, and that charming sewing-machine quilt (proper hyphen usage: linking together two or more adjectives that can’t stand alone) is hers too. When I was feeling stronger after last winter’s events, I volunteered to help with our Guild website. Which turned into their FB (bad, b/c I hate FB), which turned into setting up a new website, helping my friend Char write a set of Bylaws (8 pages) and Standing Rules (16 pages), and take photos when the photographer doesn’t show, and notes when the secretary can’t. Yes, my simple little stream volunteerism has turned into a torrent, but those of you who are involved with Guilds know how this goes.

This next month we vote on these Bylaws (in 24+ years they’ve never had any and now the President of 22 years wants to retire, but it’s a process made easier if you have guidelines…hence the process) and then hopefully I can slink back into my favorite place: doing hand piecing while the Guild meeting takes place.

Still feeling the buzz after picking up my new phone (it’s for the camera, the camera, the camera), we walked through Pottery Barn and what to my wondering eyes should appear??

FAKE QUILTS! Boo! Hiss!!

Speaking of Boo, we decorated, both inside and out, both stuff from the bin in the garage and naturally. That spider is on like 15x zoom OUTSIDE my bedroom window and it has on its own grumpy scary face, like it has also decorated. It’s an Orb Spider and is pretty harmless. We used to spray for bugs, etc. all the time, but when they raised their prices and insist on coming every quarter (in our territory that is not needed), we do it ourselves (since my husband is a toxicologist and has worked with bugs). Which means we live with a lot more spiders outside.

Moving on, this photo means I had to weigh a package that is going to France. (Hint: one of the QuiltMania magazines)

I also set up my quilt stand in my bedroom, and let the diffuse afternoon light shine in while I photographed this quilt and this quilt and this quilt to enter into Road. I do love the back of the Autumn Leaves quilt, with blocks made for me by the Gridsters. I will link you a hashtag, but Instagram — in all their bone-headed wisdom — has decided to not allow us to see the full range of hashtags. But the Gridsters were, and are, quite active, with over 1300 photos of our blocks and quilts. (Do I expect to get into Road to California this year? Not in the least, but it’s good to keep in practice.)

Finally got this one pinned. We have our church’s General Conference this weekend, which is broadcast over the internet. We don’t go to our church buildings, but we get to listen at home to thoughtful, uplifting talks. It’s good to have a project to keep my hands busy, so I plan to quilt this one. Or make the one below:

I’ve already written the pattern, and here is one of the graphics:

Yes, there are TWO solar eclipses and I went back-and-forth on whether to label it “Dual Solar Eclipse” or “Double Solar Eclipse” and that’s how you know I am losing it.

So now there are double-not-dual graphics of the Double Solar Eclipse for you. The first celestial event is an Annular Solar Eclipse and is October 14th. The second one is a Total Solar Eclipse and it’s on April 8, 2024. Those in the southern Midwest and on the East Coast will have the best views of that one.

Lastly (finally!! She’s at “lastly!”) while I didn’t turn on my sewing machine for nearly three weeks, I did sew a stitch. I finished this little wool mat filled with pumpkins and all sorts of twiny-viney lines of stem stitching, which I can finally say I’ve mastered. I purchased this for a friend who was going through stem cell treatments, but her eyes took a turn and she couldn’t see very well until she got new glasses. (She is working on the larger one I already gave her.) So I kept it back, then lost it, then found it again, and decided it would make a nice doo-dah for our table.

Happy Doo-dah to you, too!

100 Quilts · Totes and Purses · Travels

Dumplings

September 16, 2023August 31, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Not *this* kind of dumpling!
Yes, these are dumplings, but it’s not the kind I meant. However, if you want the recipe, I describe it here (but the NYTimes Cooking website is the original source). It’s soooo good for an end-of-summer recipe.

This is the Dumpling I was thinking of — a sweet little zippy bag. It’s a design by Michelle Patterns, and she has a great tutorial and a free pattern at her website. I’ve made many, and use them for little things in my purse, I use them for travel (it carries my tiny portable phone charger/battery/thing). They hold lip gloss, lipstick, treats — all kinds of stuff.

This is why I made them: my granddaughter’s wedding had champagne and beige and cream and white for her wedding, and my daughter — the designer — had used chiffon and satin ribbons everywhere. So I grabbed some of the ribbons when we were cleaning up and brought them home.

I pulled all the tones of the wedding I could find in my stash, cut 2 1/2″ squares and sewed them together in rows. Then I backed them with batting and fabric, did a random wavy pattern for quilting, and cut out the dumpling bag shape. It goes together really quickly. I sewed a clump of ribbons onto the zipper pull and sent them off!

Glad they like them! A little momento of a big day.

And what else have I been doing? Mending quilts. If you’d told me I’d be mending quilts decades after making them, I wouldn’t have believed you. The Christmas quilt (since passed down) was ripped, but luckily I had the fabric. Watch the little movie here. But the other was an earlier quilt of mine.

This is how it — and we — looked in Road to California in 1998. I’d seen a Wheel of Mystery Quilt in a National Quilt Show in a city close to ours (the only time I can remember one coming that close). I didn’t have a template and can hardly remember if 25 years ago we were using rotary cutters, but I’d sort of figured out the pattern and made a template from a Crisco shortening container lid, and used that to draw all those circle-y shapes.

I purchased just about every color way in the pansies fabric, and used solids to coordinate. It took me about 3 years to make this, and yes, it was hand-quilted, on a small hoop stand that was in the corner of our dining room.

Last night, Dave held it up for me in our back yard, another sun-going-down photo.

The back. This is Quilt #25, in my Quilt Index. Unbelievably, that’s 254 quilts ago.

The label on this well-loved quilt reads:

I SEND thee pansies while the year is young,
Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night;
Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung
By all the chiefest of the Sons of Light;
And if in recollection lives regret
For wasted days and dreams that were not true,
I tell thee that the “pansy freaked with jet”
Is still the heart’s-ease that the poets knew.
Take all the sweetness of a gift unsought,
And for the pansies send me back a thought.
Poet: Sarah Dowdney

I used the phrase “heart’s-ease” as a title on another quilt, but this one is just all Pansies. And yes, that label is all reverse appliqué –I slid the hand-written poem underneath a pansy rectangle, and edged it with a border of pansies. I cut out and appliquéd more pansies around the edges.

Why was I mending it? The binding had worn right along the edges (we used it on our bed for many years). Because I had made a double-width binding, and because I didn’t have any more of that fabric, I pulled off the binding, pressed it, and cut it down the middle, tossing the worn side, and saving the “underneath” side:

I did a double-fold binding, sewed it on, then trimmed away excess before I folded it back over the raw edge and hand-sewed it down.

That’s what talking on the phone is for: put in earbuds/put on headphones and talk and sew. It’s already been claimed by one of the children, and I’ll deliver it to him in the next couple of weeks.

*Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)* by Claude Monet (1890-91)

In last week’s poem, I mentioned “ricks” and found out they were haystacks. Well, this past week I was in Chicago (my husband was at a scientific meeting) and I spent two of those days at the Art Institute of Chicago, even becoming a member. And here they were, these piles of hay as described by Dylan Thomas: “hay / Fields high as the house” and “the nightjars / Flying with the ricks” as painted by Claude Monet. There were multiple images of these haystacks, and lots of beautiful Monets.

(Above is a video, if technology is working for me. )
I hope that wasn’t too fast, but you get the picture. Multiple pictures. And a patchwork Rail Fence floor.

When I left to Chicago, I determined I was not going to seek out quilts, or fabric stores, but instead accept whatever Chicago was going to give to me. It gave me so much: time away, time for walking, time for seeing pattern, time for seeing art, time for resting. It also gave me a chance to see many interesting things, catch up with some friends, go to church with a different congregation, and stay in a grand old hotel where I didn’t have to clean and I didn’t have to cook one meal all week, and where they claim the brownie was invented.