Plitvice • Quilt Finish

March 29, 2019January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.29 Comments

Plitvice
Quilt #218 • 76 1/2″ square

After four years, I finally finished up the quilt of multiple pieced hexagons. Yes, every seam on that top is hand-stitched. I’ve had many posts about this, but here’s its final and complete post: it is done!

Back of the quilt, using an Andover Fabrics wideback fabric. No piecing, no fussing around. This was so slick–just buy the three yards and send it off to the quilter, Darby of Quilted Squid, who did a great job.

About that edge binding: it was supposed to be a faced binding, tucked behind the quilt, but once I saw it on the edge, that was the missing piece that fell into place for me. I wasn’t quite sure I liked this pile of English paper-piecing, until I saw that. But I stab-stitched the facing in perle cotton all the way around, to get that nice tight, bound edge look. That’s why it’s so large on the back–I didn’t want to cut down the width of my facing, so I went with it.

And if you’ve been reading my Instagram account, you know we are poppy-crazy out here with our California Superbloom, so we took the quilt on one of our poppy-hunting treks to get the two photos you see in this post.

Plitvice_1 — *Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia*

You can use the tags on this post (click on them) to search for other entries of this quilt, if more information is needed. Many thanks to Katja Marek for starting us on the Millefiore road.

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilts

Northern Lights Medallion

September 12, 2018January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Northern Lights Medallion
Quilt No. 210 • 52″ square

I love these posts where I get to place a quilt front and center, quilting finished, bound and photographed, and even a label made AND sewn on. It’s like that Easter Sunday long ago, where your mother dressed you and your sisters up in fancy new dresses, new patent leather shoes and anklets with ruffles and you all posed for a picture. It’s like that wedding day, where your hair was behaving, and your wedding dress and veil were just how you wanted them, and oh–the love you had for your soon-to-be-yours was shining from your face.

Yeah, kind of like that. Some process photos:

I now pin my quilts on my kitchen counter–the floor is too far down these days.

I’m getting faster at quilting: the dates from start (August 8, 2018) to finish (August 25, 2018). Part of the challenge is figuring out what to quilt, and another part is not to physically wear myself out.

I love the texture that quilting creates.

Northern Lights Medallion Name label — Fun detail: I like to include my name and address on my quilts, but also like to hide that info. So I used the logo from the Mad for Solids Challenge and used it as a disguise.

This began as a challenge to create something using just eight colors of Painter’s Palette Solids, in the March Madness Challenge in 2018; you’ve read posts about this before.

But the other challenge I put for myself was to create a medallion quilt using my favorite quilt software, QuiltPro, which I’ve been using for years. I love it love it love it and their tech support person, Linda, is nothing short of a fairy godmother, always answering questions quickly and succintly. Like she taught me how to do this conversion:

northern lights no pen outlines — to this (no pen outlines)

This creates a more modern look, I think. Anyway. I’m a fan.

So I posted this design up on their Facebook page, and I was contacted and one thing led to another, and Northern Lights Medallion (its real name, in spite of other confusing malarky above) will hang in their booth at both Paducah and Houston this year. I’m honored, and I love working with these lovely people (and it may be the only way I get to be at either of those shows!). So if you go, snap a photo and email me (opquilt@gmail.com) or tag me on Instagram (occasionalpiecequilt). Thanks!

This is quilt number 210, and it’s going up on the 300 Quilts list.

You Are Not Going to Run Out of Ideas — *You’re Not going to Run Out of Ideas*

And I need to keep remembering this.

300 Quilts · Quilts

Northern Star Medallion Top Finished

August 9, 2018August 9, 2018 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

It was a lot of mind over matter, but I finished the borders, worked out the measurements and sewed everything together. There seemingly was a big canyon between where I was last post and where I am now: getting it ready to quilt, but really, it wasn’t that hard once I settled down, stopped freaking out and followed Melanie’s advice.

I finished the Gridster Bee blocks for Linda for August. I like her idea of lots of churn dashes all the same size, but in a variety of fabrics. If you head to our hashtag on IG, you can see that Linda has already received some of the blocks.

The same night I finished the Northern Star Medallion top, I stepped outside to see this.

We drove up to the top of our neighborhood to see where the smoke was coming from–way over yonder in Orange County on the left bumpy mountain. California is burning up, and it’s only the beginning of August. When I first moved here 27 years ago, we only had fires in September, just like clockwork. Every year there would be one big one, and then it would be done.

Tonight the fire map looks like this and it’s not even September. Oh yes, we also have an earthquake map, a smog map, but we don’t generally have snow or flood or tornado maps, like some of you do.

This morning I had to have a couple of stitches taken out from a recent procedure, and the doctor was about to throw these into the sharps container. When I asked, he gave them to me. I washed them up and put them in my sewing supplies–those tweezers are great for grabbing the end of the seam of an HST to keep it from going wonky, and I’ll find a use for those scissors. Yes, I’m still sewing on my hexies. I think I’m halfway there.

Look at that yucky sky in the background–seems like it will be a good idea to stay inside and start quilting!

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilt Patterns · Quilts

Annularity

May 29, 2018January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.27 Comments

Annularity
Quilt #203
Began October 2017 • Completed May 2018

I use Magnifico thread as it has a nice sheen without being shiny, and it lays down a lovely line of stitching. In the bobbin is So Fine thread (both by Superior Threads).

I made a duplicate of Annularity II — which was a quilt I designed and made for Paintbrush Studios (which hung at QuiltCon, and most recently, Quilt Market) — because I thought the first version had been lost in the mail en route to the quilter. It hadn’t, and now I had my own top.

Then I decided to quilt my own, trying out different ideas as explained in an earlier post. But thanks to my quilt holder Dave, I can now reveal the fully quilted version to the world, as well as deliver some great news about this quilt.

Recently I’d been talking with Rick and Dot Kimmelman of Pineapple Fabrics about this quilt, hoping they’d want to use it for their booth, as they carry the full line of Painter’s Palette Fabrics. In between Point A and Point B of our discussions, they purchased Keepsake Quilting, which made many of us in the QuiltWorld very happy. And so, beginning this summer, Keepsake Quilting and Pineapple Fabrics will be the exclusive sellers of my Annularity pattern. Both Keepsake and Pineapple will also have kits available that include all the fabrics for the top and binding. (You can check Pineapple Fabrics.com to purchase within the next month, and see Keepsake Quilting’s Fall catalogue, due out the second week of August. You can bet I’ll put something up on here when I first lay eyes on my quilt in their catalogue!)

The wild and crazy back. It’s “prairie house” from the De Leon Design Group, for Alexander Henry Fabrics. I thought it might disguise any oopsies, but I was happy to note that I actually had very few. I guess maybe after ten years I’m getting better at the quilting? Much credit belongs to the Sweet Sixteen machine I use, and the threads, which always seem to balance so well.

After one quilting session, when I turned it over to check the back, I noticed I had quilted in this wedge-shaped scrap onto the back. I started to try and cut it out, then decided I kind of liked this nod to the process, so left it in. Really, you can’t see it, when looking at the overall back. (Well, NOW you do, but you didn’t at first, right?)