300 Quilts · Happy Old Year Ending (Wrap-up)

Happy Old Year Ending 2019

I am a firm believer in making lists.  There are Best Seller Lists, To-Do Lists, Grocery Lists, Honey-Do Lists, in short, lists for everything.  A grand event in my world is making a list of tasks, then whipping out my yellow marker to cross them off when completed.  I even have lists of lists, and many of them are in my calendar

Quilts 2019 Conglomerate.jpg

2019 ListQuilts.jpg
This is my list of what I accomplished in 2020, quilt-wise.  We won’t talk about the other stuff (like shoulder surgery–yikes!).

You haven’t seen number 18 Azulejos yet.  And in a little more housekeeping, Field Flowers, number 7 in the listing above, is listed as 188 in my Quilt Index, since I posted about the top back then, and like to keep them together.

Five Merrion Square Quilts.jpg

Can’t believe I made five Merrion Square quilts.  But here they are.

I also made a couple more Tiny Quilts which aren’t listed; they are free patterns available in the tab “Tiny Quilts” at the top of the blog.Crossroads SModerne.jpg

This was a highlight of 2019, as I am quite a fangirl of this magazine.

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Here’s one you haven’t seen on this blog yet.  It’s Home Is Where the Heart is, a re-do of my Home, Sweet Home pattern.  Lots of people would rather piece in the doors and windows (the smaller version has you fuse them on), so I am in the process of refreshing the pattern; it will be available Febrary 1st in PayHip.

HomeWhereHeartIs_2.jpg

The backing shows scenes of New York City, and reminds me of my daughter, who is in totally besotted with that place.  She was born there, but we moved when she was still tiny.  The city is in her DNA, I’m convinced.2019 completed Quilt Tops.jpg

But I still have some work to do.  Tannenbaum was on my Christmas Day post, and it needs a few more tons more squares for the borders so it can live on my bed in December.  Small World is pin-baseted, ready for quilting, as is the City Streets variation.  And that Temperature Quilt will soon be finished (like tonight).

Output number Sign 2019

So, even though I started the  year with that surgery which sidelined me for a few months, I think my output has been decent.  I also visited seven different guilds, taught seven workshops, and wrote/refreshed many of my patterns.  I’m not listing the number of doctor visits, trips to the grocery store, visits to the car dealership, nor the trips to see my children/grandchildren/parents/family.  In this blog, all revolves around the quilt, and my Quilt Index (or Indices, if you want to get technical).

And why is a quilt index important for you?  I was sitting next to Judy R. in December’s Guild meeting, and the question came up “Who has made the most quilts?”  Several women raised their hands, but Judy popped her hand up and said “Elizabeth has! And has a Quilt List to prove it!” (She’s very sweet.) It made me, yet again, happy that I’d made a quilt index and kept it up to date.  In this new upcoming  year, I’d like to encourage you to start one, if you haven’t already.

BTC and ESE Matching Outfits
That daughter and I, long long ago.

If you are new to this blog, last year I wrote an introduction of who I am.  In this space, I generally talk about my quilts, places I go that are textile/quilty related, as well as discuss quilt/work/create topics once in a while.  I keep this quote of Thomas Merton’s handy, perhaps to help me keep perspective:

“We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.”

For now, for today, it’s time to unwind from that tension, take a break and close out this year, looking forward to the next.  In all ways, quilting can help.

German Happy New Year

Prosit Neujahr 2020!

300 Quilts · Quilts

My Small World Top • flimsy finish

mysmallworld2019_final full top

It’s done!  I decided to forge with ahead My Small World because basically, nothing else in my life was getting done with that mess in the sewing room, and I wanted to be finished with this project, the Third Hard Quilt of 2019. Here, in my backyard studio, I’m showing the finished flimsy of My Small World, a pattern by Jen Kingwell.  I made some changes here and there, but it’s basically her pattern.  Began in 2014, I was nudged to completion by a new Instagram Quilt-a-long #mysmallworldsewcial, where many others are still working.  Let’s take each of the last two sections, one at a time:

mysmallworld2019_5_completed

One late night I was thrilled to discover an Eiffel Tower in one of my fabrics.  I love the embroidery others had done, but it wasn’t for me.

mysmallworld2019_5_1a

I took the hexie bubble with me to Guatemala last week, and stitched it up while chatting with my sister/BIL (who we went to visit) and on the plane home.  I brought home some illness, courtesey of the Chicken Bus airplane we flew home (kidding, it was a regular airplane but there were a lot of people sneezing, coughing, etc).

I made a teeny video of our visit to the bus depot in Antigua, where we saw a lot of Chicken Busses, so nicknamed because they can carry everything, including live chickens.  If I could have figured out how to add a chicken bus to this quilt, I would have; I fell in love with them, as well as Guatemala.

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I also fussy-cut a unicorn (just under the top rainbow, but everyone on IG called it a horse–his little white horn is hard to see).

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Underneath the arches and hexie-bubble are bigger blocks of fabric, as I figured I was going to cut them out from behind the two structures at the end, and why waste all that piecing?  I cut out the fabric from behind the rainbow (shown above) and the spikey arch and hexie-bubble:

mysmallworld2019_5_1

Those arches were a grind, but I did them.  I included other tips and tricks in this post.

mysmallworld2019_6_completed

Section six was a relief to get to, after those arches.

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I liked the two blue silos, but they were a bit stark, so I added signs to them: a sewing chicken and the word Quilt.

mysmallworld2019_5_2b

I changed the order of the bottom row of patches around, and I just couldn’t face another eight teeny flying geese, so I did a square-in-a-square with fussy-cut horses, since this is the farm section.

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I sewed those two sections together, then stitched it to the other part of the quilt I’d already completed.

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Yes, I’m pretty happy to be at this point.  My friend Laurel added a border to hers and I’m considering that, too.

My To-Do list of items is lengthy, all being held hostage by this quilt.  Now I need to go and clean up my sewing room, vacuum, clean some bathrooms, and try to find the extra furnace filter in the garage, as well as maybe take a nap. But I’m done!!!

300 Quilts

Sing for Joy • Quilt Finish

Sing for Joy_3

Sing for Joy • Quilt #226

This is the second of my Three Hard Quilts to Make for 2019.  It’s a lovely day now that Sing for Joy is finished.

Here was my recipe in a few easy steps:

  • I decided I wanted to make a quilt with words, so I bought every quilt book there was on words.
  • Then I decided I wanted mine a bit wonky and NOT paper-pieced. 
  • I sent around an email to see if anyone else was interested, and some colleagues in a former online bee jumped in, so we ran the Spelling Bee ran for one year, all of us making words for each other.
  • I follow Kviltstina on Instagram, and she has the sweetest little creative shapes on her feed, so I put some of them in this quilt.
  • Here’s a blog post, with free pattern, for the hearts around the edges.

I posted the how-to’s, one by one on Quilt Abecedary.blogspot.com, where they still live.

Sing for Joy_4

The back, showing the signature blocks of my beemates.  I had to remake one, when the ink started running down the block when I pressed it; I guess she grabbed the wrong pen.  (It’s always something, right?)

Sing for Joy_1 Front

My husband and I went out for some photos in our neighborhood park, and several of the walkers asked about it, wondering how long it took to make it?  (Why is that always the first question, when people talk to us about our quilts?)

I began in 2016, and finished it this year (some early photos, above). I had to remake some of the words and cut down others, so I could fit them evenly on the quilt.   I hand wrote a label and pieced it in with the signature blocks, but if I printed one out it would say:

My brother and I had an active discussion last week about whether or not there is such a thing as a soulmate.  I said I believed there is no such thing, as it was the stuff of movies and greeting cards.  What is possible is that you find yourself a partner and you work to build a relationship and sustain each other and the family.  Soulmates are ephemeral, I said.  Of course, he disagreed with me, as so might some of you.

But what I think I do believe in is a cheerleader, someone who has your best interests at heart, who encourages you, listens to you when you’re sad, upset, cheers you on in happy times and is steady and consistent.  Someone who is always on your team, and for who you’ll do the same.

This quilt is a tribute to my cheerleader of a husband, who 30 years ago married me and my four young children, raising us all.

He makes me Sing for Joy.

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First Hard Quilt of 2019
Second Hard Quilt of 2019 is this one, Sing for Joy
Third Hard Quilt of 2019

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

City Streets Pattern Release

City Streets_1

City Streets now has another rendition.

City Streets_B1

I made it up in a 15″ block pattern, and broke into my meager Tula stash to create a colorful quilt.  This pattern is made for beginners, with no triangles anywhere.  I envisioned the 15″ block to sew up quickly for baby quilts and other times when you need a quilt.  Fast.

I cut and sewed this all in a long morning, which leaked a bit into the afternoon.  It’s a pretty quick sew if you are experienced, but a bit longer if you are a newbie.

City Streets Pattern Cover

City Streets, with both sizes included, is now for sale on PayHip. (Get coupon, below.)

Yardage City Streets

I also learned a few new things in my Affinity Publisher Software, making the pattern more colorful and easy-to-read.  Above is the yardage chart for both versions.

You’ve seen a photo shoot on the first version of this quilt, but more pictures of the new version (not yet quilted) are below:

City Streets_B3

Here’s a coupon code for you in case you want to pick it up. Head over to PayHip and use CITYSTREETS20 — it will get you 20% off the price for a little more than a week (it expires on September 17th).

Happy Sewing!