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!

300 and Beyond · Quilt Finish · Quilts

Build Me a Cabin of Light

November 9, 2025November 8, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Remember this cartoon from a couple of posts ago? Well, I decided to break the secret rules about Blocks of the Month quilt-a-longs and decided to finish up my quilt at Month Nine.

The world didn’t end.

I used a three-inch border, then some snazzy dots for the binding.

That sweet checkerboard on the back is another bit of fabric from Sherri and Chelsi. I’d been ~~hoarding~~ collecting their fabrics from their very first collection, and used only their fabrics in this quilt. The patterns are from the Sherri, of Sherri and Chelsi, and you can find them on her website, A Quilting Life. She’s already talked about her BOM (Block of the Month) for 2026 — lots of fun, there!

I did machine-stitched binding again for this one. My friend Lisa taught me to use two different colors of thread: one matching the binding, and one matching the backing. It went pretty quickly.

The title is from a poem by Kwame Dawes, as I liked the imagery in it.

My quilter, Nancy, did a great job on using one of my favorite patterns, Boujee by Urban Elementz. This is Quilt #310.

I superimpose the quilting design over a lightened image of the quilt, to help guide her on the size I want.

It’s nice to have it done, and hanging on the bottom of the guest bed. Thank you, Sherri!

And I think it’s okay to throw in a couple of other things, here. One is squircles (free pattern on this post). I’m seeing them pop up here and there, especially on Gladi’s blog, where you can see her squares in the background as she shows the basket she won from her guild’s show (which gave me complete guild-envy). She also shows them on her social media. I’m closing in on 80 of these little guys, and I’ll put them all up on my pin wall when I do make it to that milestone.

I’m seeing cheddar-colored fabrics in a lot of places. I have been collecting these for about a decade, and thought It Was About Time. Plus, Gladi has been working on a cheddar quilt, and Barb Veddar has more than one on her IG feed.

I’m using my Azulejos pattern and made some test blocks to answer my burning question: Do I like it better when all the scrappiness of the blues and cheddars are mixed up (the two on the right)? Or, do I like it better when there are only two different fabrics in each block, but the quilt will be scrappy?

I just couldn’t handle the chaos of the blocks on the right. The whole quilt will look scrappy, but it will have some order to it, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Autumn has arrived in the bedroom, with my pillow and the Nancy Rink Amish quilt, Shadow Owes Its Life to Light on the bed. Our weather is so strange — like it’s 82 right now as I type this (Saturday afternoon). In November!

The quilt remains folded on the end of the bed as it’s too warm, and we lift it off at night. Rain is supposed to show up next week, so maybe we’ll put it to use then.

This morning, I helped my sister figure out her artist’s statement for her art, which led me to think about another conversation I had with another quilter, about how she’s more interested in watercolors right now. Another is working hard at learning the flute. It reminded me of this quote, from Todd Plough:

It is not the brush you bring to the canvas but what you bring to the brush.

As long as there is some kind of canvas (quilt, digital screen, thick watercolor paper, clay) and some kind of brush (needles and thread, a computer mouse, a paintbrush), you are good, in my mind. Of course this coupling of canvas/brush could be so much more than what I thought of. It could be food and a dinner plate. Or a bowl and some rising sourdough bread. Or wood and a bandsaw. I’ve scrolled through enough posts in my life to know that there are multitudes. And while you may start in one, you will probably end up with another, even if you continue with your first creative love.

What matters is what’s behind the brush, and that is you.

300 and Beyond · Quilt Finish · Quilts

Tiny Victories are Still Victories

November 3, 2025 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Rookie Mistakes could be another title, even though I don’t consider myself a rookie. Both of these ideas are true for me this week.

I’ve had Krakow Circles kicking around since Spring, and when I needed a small something to finish, I chose this.

A quilt from Lois Parish Evans (Australia): Mandala 6 • Winter Solstice

After seeing Lois Evans’ quilts at Carrefour I decided to attempt her tiny stipple. Okay, not as tiny as hers, but a reasonable facsimile. Tiny victory, on this one too.

Then I continued the small stuff with swirly-circles. Tired of that, and not wanting a whole quilt to be that way, for the borders I drew on a wavy line, added more lines, then finally, a circle to echo all the others. Cool, I thought, a close-to-the-end tiny victory. Now, on to the binding. I chose to do it from the back-wrap-to-the-front, as for some quilts, I’ve come to love this look of the finished binding being on top.

Trouble.

I didn’t count on/remember/realize that the teensy stippling would draw up the quilt that much. Now those corner yellow circles would be cut off by the binding. I snipped a few threads, releasing them, and finished sewing the binding.

None of my circle templates would work, so I traced the end of a spool of thread onto freezer paper, cut those out and shaped them for appliqué. Except for one. That one I had to make even smaller. Yes, I do personalize my patchwork.

Kraków Circles, quilt #309, 28″ square
I started designing this at the end of May, after our return from Poland, and cut the first shapes June 3, 2025.

I think the back looks cool — it’s an older ombre-type fabric.

Labels are oldies from Northcott, by Deborah Edwards. I found them when we had to pull out the sewing desk from the wall when the new blinds went in. (Hmmm. There’s a lesson here somewhere.)

Finished: November 3, 2025. It’s a little victory to get this one done and it will hang in my sewing room, reminding me of Krakow’s churches and our trip there this past May. I’ll take tiny victories, these days.

Hope you have some too–