Happy Old Year Ending for 2025

January 3, 2026January 2, 2026 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Happy 2026!

Sharp eyes will have noticed that 12-plus thing. One quilt has not yet had its beauty portraits released, nor the pattern thing settled (I keep adding with new ideas), so while that is officially a 2025 quilt for counting purposes, you’ll see it next year.

Here, for the record was my attempt at cheerful and interesting Monthly Markers on Instagram, although you all keep telling me that its demise is coming quickly. I’m still there, but sporadically.

This is also the Happy New Year post, so here are my reflections:

Thoughts on 2025: none.
Wishes for 2026: none.
Things I Learned in 2025: Don’t read too much of the news. Focus on color, nature, a funny meme, poetry, good friends (both in real life and online), art, quilts, books, musicandallthegoodthings and most definitely chocolate. Take a trip. See new sights. Avoid clichés like the ones in this paragraph. Smile at the hummingbird outside your window.
Things I Hope for in 2026: Peace inside me, even if it’s crazy outside me. A new insight here and there. Some good Substack reading (here’s one). Morning walks. Interesting quilts. Happy children and safe grandchildren. New recipes that delight. More of my focaccia. Less distractions from near and far.

Although my birthday is right around the corner, I’m hopefully not heading towards my demise, but instead can sporadically can crank out a quilt, like this one I finished on New Year’s Eve after just a few days. It really really, legitimately is going onto my 2026 list, as it’s not yet quilted (but I’ve cut the backing…does that count?).

And I had to make it because I’d purchased the pattern ages ago online, and then when I bought the kit it came with a pattern, so I’m offering up the Real Live Pattern to you all. Free, and I’ll pay postage.

Just leave me a comment with your best *whatever* for the New Year. Your best wish, your best resolution, your best un-resolution, your best hope, the name of your best friend (kidding on this one, but maybe the best quality of your friend). Whatever. Be funny, be serious, be thoughtful, as I’ve corresponded with you and I know you are all the smartest quilters. Just write Whatever. But do leave us with something that can help us with our whatevers.

I read on my blog about the time I made 24 quilts in one year, and now the thought seems staggering. Isn’t it funny that even though we lived that past life, we can’t quite believe it? And because of this reason — that you’ll likely forget all the times you un-sewed, or messed up, or got angry, or were filled with frustration — I encourage us all sally forth into 2026, trying to avoid the minefields. Head for the daisies. And if something explodes, I hope it’s your scrap drawer as you are hunting for the perfect color.

Leave me a comment, and a very Happy New Year, everyone!

My classic Happy Old Year Ending Post

A whole bunch of Happy Old Year Ending Posts

300 and Beyond · First Monday Sew-day · Quilt Finish · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts · Something to Think About

Gathering Up All The Fragments • Quilt Finish

December 14, 2025December 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

The etymology of the Economy Block is — as are many popular quilt blocks — complicated. According to Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, it’s titled Economy Patch by Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger around 1935. It’s also called the This and That block, in the Kansas City Star around 1944 (you know this is a favorite phrase). And more recently, it’s been known as the Thrift Block as when Taryn of ReproQuiltLover hosted the recent #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge. I have mentioned before that this year I had been making things that helped me make things: quilt-a-longs, Block of the Month, group projects, and so forth. And so this one joined the line-up, and I finished it this week.

I needed a title for this quilt, and since in early 2020 I had taught it to a small beginning quilt group as the Economy Block, so I went with that name (although many now call it Square in a Square).

Full quilt title: Economy: Gathering Up All The Fragments.

Economy, as we think about it, means thrift. Saving. Making do with less. The exchange of goods. A dollar is worth something and everything is for sale (as the old saying goes). But the idea of economy, says one wag, is really an enigmata**:

Enigmata refers to things that are puzzling, mysterious, or riddles
OR, a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation
OR, a person of puzzling or contradictory character.
OR, a saying, picture, etc., containing a hidden meaning; riddle.

The title of this quilt comes from yet another riddle: the poet Emily Dickinson’s punctuation and shape of her small poems. Some think it began with this:

“‘Preserve the backs of old letters to write upon,’” wrote Lydia Maria Child in The Frugal Housewife, a book Dickinson’s father obtained for her mother when Emily was born. It opens: “‘The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time as well as materials.’” (from a review by Jen Bervin, titled Studies in Scale).

Like a star is small…but it is its own world.
Or an atom is small… but contains worlds.
Or fragments of fabrics are small…but put them together and they make a quilt.

In pulling fragments for this quilt, I opened bag after bag of small scraps from a decade ago, cut into 2 1/2″ squares or 3″ squares, as it had been recommended to me to do that in order to “use up your scraps.” Finally, I was using them up, so this quilt is as much a record of an era, as it is a complication of “gathering up all the fragments.”

Backing/binding is fabric from Tula Pink, and the quilting is the Continuous Baptist Fan, by Urban Elementz.

Quilt-making is an enigmata, isn’t it? We take our scraps, our fragments, cut them smaller, sew them back together to make something that expresses an idea or a sentiment. And we quilters do it over and over, saving scraps, repeating the process “so that nothing be lost.”

This is Quilt #312, and the last for 2025, as there are no more fragments of time to add to the calendar. I will, however, try to get up another post or two of the beautiful Carrefour quilts, but no promises.

I do promise, however, to make merry the rest of the month and be of good cheer!

Quilt Finish: Orange Sprite Phenomenon

December 7, 2025December 10, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

The Blue and Cheddar quilt is finished, bound, and sent off to the recipient. If it were to have a name and a label, I would call it this:

This is Quilt #311 in my Quilt Index.

I titled it this because of a celestial event. A rare celestial event.

This is called a red sprite phenomenon, when when lightning flashes above thunderstorms, creating a spikey flash of red light high in the sky. By using cheddar and deep blue, the quilt pays tribute to this transient luminous event: an orange sprite phenomenon. (photo) You can read more about it in this gifted article from the New York Times.

Hawthorne Supply Company was having a sale on Kaufman’s navy blue flannel. I ordered two packs for the back, washed them up. They are so thick and yummy, they are almost like chamois. My quilter, Nancy, did an awesome job on the quilting, with the pattern Diagonal Plaid Bias Cut from Urban Elementz. We used a copper MicroQuilter thread (Superior Threads) on the front and a coordinating thread on the back.

Our wisteria was dropping leaves this week, so here’s the requisite “fall” shot from Southern California. The blue fabrics are just ones I had in the stash, a full spectrum of rich, deep colors. Every so often, I feel like a label would interrupt the quilt back, and not that important (no lectures, please), so I leave it off. This happens like (wait for it) once in a blue moon.

I have long been fascinated by celestial events.

We’ve attended an annular eclipse, a solar eclipse, and a recent total solar eclipse.

When I was first married to my husband, we took our children up and stayed at his parents’ house for a week; one night was a star shower. I spread out a quilt on the grass in the backyard and watched the shooting stars. Since we were pretty much newlyweds (he married me and my four children, saving us all), I wonder what his parents and family thought. But he came and joined me on the grass, on the quilt, and we star-gazed together.

I was fascinated by what Jonny Thomson said this week on his Instagram account about the Korean idea of in-yun. It is not the first time I’ve run across this philosophy, and he described it well:

Imagine you pass somebody in the park and say, you nod, you smile, and you go back to your life. Then, a few days later, you notice the same person behind you in the supermarket. According to the Korean idea of in-yun, something important is happening here. In-yun means fate, but it really means the fate between people and relationships….[E]ssentially, it says that if you see a stranger more than once, it is not just a coincidence. That is the universe trying to tell you something. It is trying to say that here is someone important, they have something to teach you.

The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel argued that we should live our lives in a state of disponibilité, which means that we are ready to be at the disposal of the world.** If you stop seeing events as irrelevant accidents, but as messages, then you start to see the world as an opportunity. If you live your life ready to be helped, and ready to be changed, you will be. In-yun is the philosophical version of the crossing paths theory. It says that if somebody comes into your life, it is for a reason. If something keeps happening to you again, and again, and again, the universe is telling you that there is something to learn.

I’ve had more than a few things that have taught me to stay curious, to live in a state of disponibilité (or availability, as I understand it). Quilting, and the constant rate of discovery that happens in any quilt — from choice of fabrics, to colors, to inspiration — seems to match that idea for me, and I enjoy diving into a new project, and I enjoy finishing up. I also enjoy the quilters I meet, the quilters who teach me, my correspondence with all of you who read my blog, learning from every writer.

And so when my desire to rework my Azulejos pattern kept coming back around, and then I read about red sprites…well, that connection propelled me to this place. I hope the person who receives this gift will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. I had fond thoughts of him (my son-in-law) as I worked on it.

UPDATE: He likes it!!

Stay curious, everyone–

**Availability of mind, thought; state of availability, according to this French dictionary page, which I asked Google to translate into English.

Yes, I once did make, not one eclipse quilt, but two!

And an artsy eclipse quilt:

300 and Beyond · Creating · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilts · This-and-That

This and That • November 2025

November 24, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Dropping off the face of the quilty universe has one advantage: you get some sewing done. But first, let me talk about the Carrefour Quilt Show (France) posts.

All discussions of any project begin with this process: throwing out thousands and thousands of corrupted files on my computer. It’s like how you can’t find the evaporated milk to make your pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving until you clear away all the bunches of canned food in front just so you can get to the back of the cupboard.

Same, same. Every time I start to work on the Carrefour photos, Something Computer-Wonky This Way Comes, and it gets in the way. But the pictures are coming, because I want to show you a lot of the beauties that didn’t get all the press.

Soon, my pretties, soon.

I’ve been re-downloading a lot of the patterns I’d purchased on ETSY and on quilters’ websites. Most of it has been a pretty smooth recovery. I’ve been having real troubles with a clothing patterns site, and we’re trying to work it out, but I’m about ready to give up on that one. And a badge site wants me to re-buy the things I’ve already purchased. Yes, I have the real-life badges, but the digital ones were zapped in the Great Computer Meltdown of 2025. (Gee, I should get a commemorative plaque, or something, to put on the desk.) Buying and purchasing is a lot more complicated when sellers can switch their products from one platform to another. [Public Service Announcement: I now have three hard drives at my disposal for backing up.]

And yes, some pattern-writing has been delayed as I’m having to recreate the digital files that were lost (see illustration, above, of all that I lost in my Shine Circles patterns). I’m just glad it’s up online and free for the download if you click on the link.

I’ve been helping a new mother-to-be design her first baby’s quilt. And for those who are interested, I’ll have it on here for a freebie, once I finish (we moved on from that design, just to warn you). Affinity’s digital editing software is now FREE, apparently, so you can get some of that, too, to design your own quilts.

Remember 2020? Haha.

I’m standing underneath my quilt Azulejos, hanging in the gallery at Road to California in January 2020, before Covid-19 and all the Murder Hornets were released and when the world turned upside down. Well, I’ve been wanting to make this pattern in deep blues and cheddars, and I finished it this week.

Just a reminder.

It has been dropped off at the quilter:

I worked on these, while listening to the end of Louise Penny’s novel Black Wolf, as well as this:

It’s not the Thursday Murder Club series, but a new freestanding novel, and I really liked it. I lost track a little bit, of the minor characters, but the main characters are well-drawn and entertaining, and yes, the novel and I and the Economy Blocks hummed right along.

I finished it last night and rushed out in the setting sun to take a couple of photos, such as this stained-glass effect.

I delivered that one to the quilter this morning, too. I had started this #scrappythriftblockchallenge with Taryn of @reproquiltlover on Instagram. I wrote up a guide sheet and shared it (you can find it all on this post); the quilt begins with this blog post. [Note to all the Historians out there: first Instagram post was on March 31]

I’m just kind of ready to finish up a lot of loose-ends projects that I had started at the beginning of the year, when my abilities were hampered by anxiety/depression/sadness and a lack of wanting to do anything. Over time, a lot of those issues have resolved, faded. Sadly, I think I lost a couple of friends during the last two or three years, when the one-two-kapow-punch of my parents’ death really knocked out my creative — and other — lights. As those who have lost parents know, no death goes easily into that great night (thank you, Dylan Thomas), so I should add it was all the swirling around of everything that knocked me back.

So I chose HelpMeMakeSomething projects, like these economy squares, and a Block of the Month, and a reworking of an old favorite pattern, plus squircles (which are still ongoing).

Here we are in the waiting room at the medical clinic, because all that stuff still goes on, doesn’t it? People get sick and husbands and wives need check-ups and gosh, they already have their Christmas Tree up and it’s not even Thanksgiving.

It’s no shame to admit you can’t make it without some help, and all the quilters I know (well, maybe minus one or two…) are more than willing to sit beside you while you figure out a path through the gloom. And somehow, this fall I started to feel like myself again…with Energy!

We were supposed to go somewhere for Thanksgiving, but Life Intervened, so now I’m considering a new roll recipe, and maybe a stab at that Delicata Squash Pie in the lower right corner, but with a gingersnap cookie crust, instead of the recommended graham cracker.

Lastly, I decorated:

Thank you, Trader Joe’s. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this, and/or write something, or maybe just carry a thought or two around in your head. I’m grateful for you all and for what you share; what rich and varied lives we all lead.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!