NMAI • Top Finished! (Twice)

October 11, 2026October 10, 2026 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

I nearly always put the finished quilt top at the beginning of the post.

Not this time.

I’m putting the Finish, Before I Really Finished It, at the top of the post. Here it is:

This is the finished layout from the 2026 quilt-a-long project from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, with a few tweaks. As I mentioned in my BlueSky post, I absolutely am not a fan of piano key borders. You know those ones with a million little pieces that NEVER FIT? Sure you do.

And this was a type of piano key border, but the bits were subdivided to mimic a step design, seen on baskets from the designer’s region and people. I can honor that, but I was not keen about making it. That’s why you see two extra bands of yellow on top and bottom, as I’m trying to get that border to fit somewhat. I finally gave up because I knew I was going to do this:

(That fun figure I purchased in Northern Arizona is helping to show off my Really Finished quilt top.)

I got rid of all the inner borders, swapped out my sun symbol block for the hand, and tried to set the design to balance as well as it could. In her narrative about the basket inspiration used for the final border, Margaret Wood noted that the break in the design always points East. I intimated at this with my one yellow spacer, pointing to a traditional east.

So I consider this a successful finish.

(Early version)

But let’s talk about that final block.

Which leads me to ask, what is the real point of this quilt-a-long? Past all the designs, past all the paragraphs and aspirations? At first I viewed it as another traditional quilt-a-long, you know: get a free pattern, make a block, repeat.

But when I hit this one all that process abruptly ceased for me, because there was no way I was going to make that block. I went away for a couple of weeks (here, and here…always good for the quilty soul), and while gone saw another quilter on BlueSky make hers, changing it to suit her.

And then I started reading and reading; I read about the Yup’ik people. I read about their designs, where they lived. I found other artists in other venues. I searched for “Ellam Yua,” which is the black symbol floating over that random wave up there. And then I found this:

This hand-carved mask, from Jennifer Angaiak Wood of the Yup’ik people shows the river flowing from the upper right to the lower left. Things fell into place. Instead of that ocean wave representing water, I’ll do a river flowing over mountains.

The Yup’ik live in this area of the world where there are rivers, and oceans and mountains. After I borrowed Ms. Wood’s idea the creating began for me. I was — I think — finally catching the spirit of this adventure: learning about the native peoples who lived here before America was even a glimmer of an idea; perhaps that’s why the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian) was doing this for the America 250 celebration.

And if you haven’t been to that museum, please do put it on your list. We were in Washington, D.C. when it opened and it was just a party of different peoples from all over the American Continent (north and south) with a parade, food, programs. A good memory. And here’s a slideshow of that day, with all the amazing dresses (I love the Ojibwa Jingle Dress, slide 11) and regalia of the different nations. The first slide is a partial glimpse of the museum itself. The last three slides are inside the atrium, with the rainbows shining through the windows and down the walls.

Here’s a free pattern of my version of the final block for you to download. Please do not post this on your own site, but send others here to get it for themselves. Thank you. (This is already up on my pattern site, and eventually I’ll take this one down and the pattern will live over there.)

Yup’ik Block_opquilt Download

Okay, a quick review of how I made the block. I like using freezer paper when I do appliqué that has a tricky edge.

I pressed the raw edge (clipping at the curves) over the freezer paper. NOTE: please do pin your piece to the freezer paper as there is a tendency for it to move as you press.

Once cool, I removed the freezer paper, then put it into place on the “mountain” triangle, matching straight edges. I appliquéd it down, then cut out the excess behind. I chose to use hand appliqué but if you are familiar with using monofilament thread and a small zig-zag stitch, it would work well in this instance.

Similar process for the inner ring (the red center was appliquéd first, then I did cut out behind that). I trimmed the pattern piece on the lines, cutting away the seam allowances. Then, using a small-tipped iron, I pressed the clipped seam allowances over the edges of the waxy side of the freezer paper pattern. I pinned it to the block, then stitched down the inside of that first smaller ring. Then I removed the freezer paper, pinned it down again and went around the outside edges with my stitching.

Same steps. I clipped into the corner when the lines poke out from the circle, and tucked the raw edges under the shape.

I was in Scotland and England when researching this Ellam Yua shape and found it interesting that there were echoes of it where I was: a circles with the four points jutting out:

I learned a lot on this block, really enjoying my exploration of the Yup’ik art. And I learned a lot with all the other blocks and borders, too — expanding my horizons while doing a good challenge. Many thanks to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and thanks to Congress’ America 250 Committee, which contrtibuted to this.

This final image is of a mask that Jen Wood made and put up online. In the text she notes that “the blue with white dots on the forehead represents the sky and stars, as well as our ancestors.” I liked the idea of this, so maybe the dots for my backgrounds evoke the same idea?

Thanks, Jen.

Happy Stitching!

This and That for JulyAugust 2026

August 16, 2026August 15, 2026 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Can I just get this off my chest? I am not a fan of AI, even though — it appears — that we will all soon be swimming in it if we aren’t already. This ad is from a prominent mail-order quilt shop. Love the three parts of the glasses in the front: the lenses part, the eyeglass arms…and the other eyeglass arm, sticking out from the right. Every fat quarter fabric is a perfect shape-replica of the one underneath it/above it.

And then there’s this:

Should I be honored that the Giant Vacuums of AI have hoovered up (if you know the reference, you are showing your age) my blog, the thing that I’ve spent years writing and creating and making quilts and talking and thinking up? And if they’ve come for mine, they’ve come for yours, as well as the text in your gmails, the fun stuff on Instagram and Threads and anything that is online. And now, to make money to pay their data center loans, they are selling MY content back to the world?

Yes, I’m a bit ragey when I think about this. In my last post, I wanted to grab a picture of a baby crawling. Fifteen years ago, that would have been no problem. I was happy to share my images with others, and they shared their with me. But now every illustration is AI. I don’t want to put AI on my blog — I want it an AI-free zone. So I went back in my personal photo archives and pulled up a picture from long ago of my child, knowing that by putting it on my blog, I was now subjecting it to the Giant Vacuums of AI (I should copyright that phrase) and now it will also become AI by the very fact that it’s been published online. All my quilts are not now “my” quilts. And if you’ve posted online, yours aren’t either.

Ok, rant over. Sigh. Do I feel any better? Please be assured that I don’t use ANY AI to generate any writing either here on the blog, or in the emails I type back to you.

Moving on…A random shot from Moda’s display at Market a couple of years brings joy to my heart: look at these amazing (mostly) two-color quilts! We generally think in red/white, or blue/white, but definitely I want to make a periwinkle/white quilt now! (Add it to the list, she hollers!)

For a mere $5,000, you, too, can wear a Gee’s Bend Jacket made out of old jeans. Don’t forget your $3,000 tote bag!

In a recent social media post about screaming children on airplanes, I read this:

“Inside thought just broke containment,” may apply to those paragraphs at the beginning of this blog. I apologize.

Recently an artist covered the Pont Neuf Bridge in Paris in order to make it look like a big mountain.

And inside, you could walk through tunnels to some interesting soundscape music. Please click on the Instagram of @kristinetghardeberg to listen. And thank you to her for posting!

This is why that is so fascinating to me: here’s the guy sitting at his (industrial) sewing machine, cranking it out. Oh, I’m sure those belts and geegaws also played a part.

I don’t know about you, but this is more my speed this summer. I did finish up a couple of quilts, but the energy overall has been so incredibly low, for some reason. Good thing I make quilts to nap with! And of course, that’s a screen shot from somewhere and I don’t know who to give credit to. When I did a Google Search, a whole lot more really fun “confetti” quilts pop up. Now I have lots more ideas of what to do with all those leftovers squares from my Oh! Granny quilt.

I don’t know who Poliana Araújo is, but really? She spent “so long picking out these green and blue prints?”

And even though I have this declarative statement on my website? Happily my wonderful readers saw the stolen quilt images and connected it to this one that Riley and I made some years ago, and called her out on it. Hmmm. Is this the early version of the Giant Vacuum of AI? Link to her ill-gotten Facebook post.

BACKGROUND UPDATING IN PROGRESS!

Apparently the “Classic Block” is being phased out. So I’ve been busy updating all my posts to the recommended “Block” style. Besides working on that, I’ve also been working on updating the Blog Index that shows a photo from every blog post, as well as a little bit of the writing.

Here’s a video showing a page from far back…and right in the middle of it is Riley, making his quilt! (Sure hope this works on your computer/browser/whatever.)

These represent the blog Four-in-Art blog on Blogspot/Blogger, as well as the Mid-Century Modern blog. I was supposed to delete them several years ago, but just now (sadly) said good-bye. Here’s a record of the quilts I made in the Mid-Century Modern, as well as other bees. The Four-in-Art quilts are scattered through the Quilt Index, above, or you can do a search by typing that phrase into the cute little box, above right.

As I’m starting to distribute my quilts more frequently now, I *need* this label! Clever way to tack down a binding, too.

As my husband and I are taking a trip to Scotland soon, I’ve been looking at what connections I can make there with quilters. I’m a bit too late for this one!

However, I did find a quilt shop in Edinburgh, as well as a tartan shop (or twenty).

I was named for two “Elizabeth” great-grandmothers. One of them was my great-grandmother who came from Haddington, Scotland. (The other great-grandmother was born in England). Because of this, I’m figuring out bus routes and times, so I can pay a visit to that village, as my mother did when she visited Scotland some time ago. My husband’s forebears also immigrated from the Edinburgh area, so we have another small village to visit for his relatives, too.

I’ve been doing my searching on Family Search, an online archive of lineage and memories. You can find your relatives, too, by going there and setting up an account. I’m not a genealogist, by any stretch, but my friend Dayna is and she’s teaching me how to use it. I’ve got so many things I want to upload on my relatives’ pages, to “make them known to their grandchildren,” as Dayna says. Maybe I’ll bring back a photo or two of her Scotland for her page?

Lest you think I’m a total slacker, this has been patiently waiting for me while I run around like a chicken with her head cut off…wait…wrong image…while I laze around like a woman in August, trying to beat the heat and keep her sanity. (Better.)

Remember these? It’s the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the Indian’s quilt-a-long for our 250th celebration. I made their August 2026 block:

I liked it. I just didn’t love it. So I combed the artist’s Instagram account, looking for other motifs I might like better.

And this was it. I widened the strips, made a different motif for the center. As a quilter, I’m always considering how the subsequent blocks in a quilt-a-long will play with the first few blocks. I feel like this will play a little bit better, to my way of thinking. I may end up using both? Stay tuned.

Here’s the free PatternLite Handout of what I did. I’m calling it Sunrise on the Prairie. Please don’t sell, don’t steal, and if your pals want one, send them over here to download their own from my website. That is very appreciated. And please don’t tell AI this is up here (haha).

Sunrise on the Prairie_OPQuilt Download

I hope for you gorgeous sunsets at the end of the day, or sunrises at the beginning.

(In honor of the recent eclipse)

300 and Beyond · Appliqué · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Kraków Circles

June 7, 2025June 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

I have this line of patterns I call PatternLite. Usually they start out as just a block I’m kind of doodling around with and want to share. Then I decide I want to make it, and take a lot of photos, and work out some helps and aids and tips and tricks, and before I know it, it has blossomed into a full-fledged — or at least partly-fledged — pattern.

Kraków Circle started out as a free block on the post about my visit to that city, and touring all the churches. Then I thought it might be interested to try out Sharon Keightley’s circle method, since there are bunch of little circles in this design. And then I added a different view, different color way, and so on. Here’s my first stab at the little circles:

She has you use a long pin as your handle, and then using the shiny side of freezer paper, you ease up the fabric, ironing to make it stick (Iink is below) I usually do the gather-stitch around the outside, and then slip in a plastic circle and press, with some spray starch. That just did not work on these little orbs:

You can see how over-full they are. The first try with this, it took me about five minutes and the circle was a bit of a mess. But after about 7 or 8 tries, they were nice and round, so I re-did the gather-circles.

Here’s my one-minute video and I hope inserting the video works! (I’m trying something new.) I know there is a little bump on the circle’s outside, but when I appliqué that, I can ease it in with my needle.

Here’s Sharon’s version of making circles. And she also has a version for the petal shapes, too, found on her page of Appliqué Video Tutorials.

I use Painter’s Palette Solids, purchased from here. This has been my go-to color scheme for years, ever since this quilt, but I was happy to see that it also drew on the stained-glass windows from Krakòw.

I bagged the pieces for the blocks, so I wouldn’t get lost.

I made a placement guide for the block, which is included in the pattern. I also added a print-a-ton-of-circles-at-once page, at the end.

I printed that page onto freezer paper, the how-to shown on this post. Sometimes, I chunked the 12 circle sections together, layered them up carefully, stapled the pages together, and then cut them out.

I also folded the freezer paper into smaller pieces, layering it up, then traced on a petal. Staple the layers so they won’t shift, as shown.

In the pattern, I give the tips for tracing the placement guide, and here, I’ve slipped the block underneath, taping it into place. (The placement guide is pinned to a board, but you could also tape it to a workspace.)

One all pinned into place, and another ready to come off the pinboard.

I was listening to a book, so I can’t tell you how long it took me to appliquè these all in place (maybe 90 minutes?) but it didn’t feel tedious, as the circles had been prepared.

I flipped over the block when I was finished, and cut out a small circle from the back — and slipped the paper out. Sharon Keightley suggests that cutting it out in a circle (instead of just cutting a slash) will keep the quilt back more intact.

I slipped out the freezer paper from the larger pieces as I appliquéd them.

Here’s the thumbnail of the pattern: it grew from 3 pages to nine. However, I’ve still priced it as a PatternLite — less than a slice of pizza, a pot of basil from Trader Joe’s (ask me how I know), or a Kouign Amann pastry from a bakery in Kraków.

If you like to make circles, here you go–

Pattern can be purchased in my PayHip Pattern Shop. If you have the introductory version, this one may be more helpful.

TIPS & TRICKS

I use MonoPoly as the top thread. I use both their Clear and their Smoke, depending on what colors of fabrics I’m working with. The smoke (as their website says) is a reduced sheen invisible thread.

I use SoFine polyester thread (also from Superior) in the bobbin, and a very fine needle — size 12 is preferred.

Slow down your sewing machine speed if you can.

This clay tool, Mudshark from Mudtools, is one of my favorite stiletto tools for working with machine appliqué. It’s easier for me to hold and the tip is quite long. I also just like the colors. I bought it in the Smithsonian Museum after seeing an exhibit about Michael Sherrill. I figured if he used it and got such beautiful work, then I was going to lean in on his skills and start using it myself.

Stitch settings:
Length 1.4, width 1.3
The zig-zag should just catch one side of the folded appliqué piece (green) and then the (white) background:

This quilt was done with all machine appliqué, and was mentioned in my video.

PREPPING THE APPLIQUÉ

I cut all my shapes to the finished size, then cut the fabric 3/16″ (a fat one-quarter inch) bigger all the way around. I use the freezer paper shiny-side up, and with a hot iron, “adhere” the seam allowances to the waxy side of the paper while moving my iron in an arc-like motion.

Folding edges in freezer-type paper with shiny side down, from @jillilystudio on Instagram. She uses spray starch.

(NOTE: I don’t always wash my wallhangings, so don’t like a lot of glue and starch on them, but for Useable Quilts, she has some great ideas.)

HAND APPLIQUÉ

The only thing I have to offer up about hand appliqué is to think of the folded edge of the appliqué as the frosting inside a macaron, the background being the lower cookie layer and the appliqué itself being the top. Try to bring your needle out of the frosting, then poke it back down in the background just below. Run the needle for about 3/16″ (fat one-quarter-inch) underneath the background, then bring it back out through the frosting (the fold of the appliqué piece). There are many more talented people out there who can explain it better than I, but that’s how I think about it. (I know Jill Finley has a one-hour class on appliqué on her website if you are interested.)