There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She set out one day In a relative way, And returned home the previous night. (limerick by Arthur Henry Reginal Buller)
Our high respect for a well-read [wo]man is praise enough of literature. (Emerson)
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make ourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. (Thomas Henry Huxley)
But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run. (Milton)
Have faith and pursue the unknown end. (Oliver Wendell Homes)
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I’m just having fun here, typing in some quotes that fit my happy mood at having finished the Ladies. For a while this unfinished quilt top fell into the worst place for a while, as it became a metaphor for my sadness, my sorrows, my frustrations, my pain, my inability to finish a task, the mess downstairs in my under-construction kitchen, and it mocked me at night when I would come in to try and finish it. I had to hack off a border to get it to this place. I did like that border — but it was either make more to even things out • or • take it off and be done — so the rotary cutter came out. We are all friends again, the ladies and I.
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I don’t really have a title for this quilt yet. Ladies has to be somewhere in that title, though.
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I decided I did not want to snowball a million rectangles to get that border. So I figured out a pattern for two triangles and a diamond that would fit together. It’s not that I hate making snowball corners. I just hate having to figure out what to do with all those leftover triangles. Yes, I know: make more half-square triangles, but then it begins to feel like real work, instead of fun.
Sometimes we know of a block that is a familiar patchwork pattern. Cindy of Liveacolorfullife and I chat back and forth occasionally and we happened to strike up a conversation about this Spider Web block, from our March 2015 Mid-Century Modern Bee:
We were trying to remember how we made these blocks for Cindy’s turn as Queen Bee in the Mid-Century Modern back in 2014, but when we headed to the linked blog that had the instructions — it was No Longer in Service. She was trying to finish up her quilt, so we tried another place. No Longer in Service. Somehow I think of the internet as being eternal, like a good book, but obviously the joke is on me for that one.
So I started drafting things in my Affinity Designer, then I dug up an old handout for the small quilting group we had Before Covid, and combined them. So I have another free pattern for SpiderWeb for you, but since it’s under the PatternLite series, it will be found over in my Pattern Shop. I’ll have it on 100% FREE! until the end of the month, where it will be my usual PatternLite price: less than a fancy drink at Starbucks. It’s still free!!
While it is for free, consider clicking on Follow as a thank you, and to keep up with my shenanigans. Cindy and I are doing this in tandem, so she’ll also have it on her blog, LiveAColorfulLife — so head over there and read about her goings on and follow her, too. Cindy is an amazing quilter, and has done the hard work and compiled a visual list of all her quilts. Number 219 is one of my current favorites, but there are others that have caught my eye.
But from Spiderwebs, we must move on to October’s beginnings, which includes these two motifs: black cats and pumpkins. These are pillow tops that I’m sending to another DIL, who loves Halloween. I hope she likes them. She has a nook in her upstairs bedroom that we would all covet: a large Palladian window with a loveseat, filled with cushions and pillows. I was thinking about those when I made these, two from my collection of Riley Blake Pillows from last year that I saved for her.
I included this homemade card. Download the blank and send some to people you love:
Lastly, we passed the Autumn Equinox on September 22, so the days are getting longer. So are the shadows of my silverware.
Happy October, everyone!
P.S. One year we lived in Alexandria, VA and the leaf colors that year were spectacular. I would bring home fistfuls of beautiful leaves, lay them out on my flatbed scanner to scan and save them. These are some my husband brought home one day. No–we don’t have gorgeous fall color here, but come January — we have a few trees that will turn red. All of you who live in fall color territory are so lucky!
It’s too hot to think, but here’s a fun sketch from a traditional block, originally called Boise (Brackman 2306). The periodical, Hearth and Home, which published this block, was in operation from 1885 to the 1930s.
The block, exploded.
The 7″ block, set on alternating verticals. All of these can be found in BlockBase+ which is software that is basically the Brackman Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I modified this in my design software, Affinity Designer by Serif, a reasonable cost design software (NO, you don’t have to buy Illustrator. YES you should buy BlockBase+.)
And I think we should give the quilt a name. I know it’s the capitol of the state of Idaho, but I’d like to give it a more contemporary name: Blockchain. What does that mean? Since I just donated to Wikipedia (you should too), here’s their definition:
A blockchain is a type of Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) that consists of growing list of records, called blocks, that are securely linked together using cryptography.
So couldn’t we define a quilt as “a growing list of blocks that are securely linked together with thread”? I think so. I was amused to see that a lot of the images used to depict the idea of blockchain are some of our traditional quilt blocks, like baby’s tumbling block, among others.
If you’d like the 8-inch version, I’ve got that for you here, as a free download. I didn’t monkey around with it too much, so it’s rather a no-frills set of templates (remember, it’s too hot), but you can see how nicely the templates are generated for you by Blockbase+. [Okay, I did do a bit of monkeying…]
Here’s the 12-inch version, which finishes at 52″ square, with those 2″ borders and cornerstones. To get this layout, I did four columns of the Blockchain block, doing half-blocks at the top and bottom of columns 2 and 4. I’m sorry I didn’t include the 12″ size block, but it’s hot, and we are about to head to our traditional Labor Day Cookout: a trip to In and Out Burger, where they do the grilling for me.
Many years ago, my mother stayed up all night on the 24th of December, worried that the child she was carrying would actually come on the due date of Christmas Eve. Who would help the other three young girls? Who would get the ironing done? But I did not arrive on my due date. Nor on New Year’s Eve. But I came 12 days later on Twelfth Night, and dodged forever having my birthday on Christmas. (And she did get up early that morning to get the ironing done before she went to the hospital.) Now I share a birthday with Richard Nixon, the arrival of the Three Kings and the Storming of the Capital.
Why do I bring this up? Because Tannenbaum will most likely suffer the same fate, arriving somewhere around Twelfth Night. It’s because I wanted a longer drop on the sides, and didn’t have enough of the beige fabric (earlier version is seen here). So as long as I was playing around, what would the quilt look like with red? I quite liked it. Many iterations and consultations with my quilt gurus (I have a couple) and I ordered some more red fabric. Like me, in my almost early days…this probably won’t be done by Christmas.
Trying it out for size; I like it!
This is where I am now, with the two borders attached (big smiles), the wrinkles that will need to be quilted out in the center, and sideways on my design wall, because it’s too big now to go vertically. (In other words, it looks like it needs its make-up put on, the lipstick applied, and good blow-out for the hair. You know, like all of us in the morning.) It’s coming along.
But what has arrived?
This one’s mine…you’ve seen it before.
Several of my Piece Maker Quilt Ladies have arrived from the Gridster Bee, along with their cloth sewing treasures, like buttons and rotary cutters and topiary trees. You can read more about this project, written a few whiles ago, but basically I got the idea from Surfside Quilters, from their Blocks of the Month page. I’ve always wanted a Freddy Moran-style quilt, and now it looks like I’ll make one.
To help further this quilt along, I’ve been collecting black-and-white prints to go with other 400 black-and-white prints (dear, I’m kidding). I have discovered there’s a particular kind of black and white print that works with Freddy Moran style quilts, and I think I probably have enough now. Too much white? It bleaches it out. Too much black? A blot in the quilt. Black and white — that when you squint your eyes — turns into grey? Nyet. I think two of the prints above are perfect (on the outer edges) and we’ll see where the others may go.
In keeping with the red theme of today’s post, here’s a treat I want to try: Cranberry Lemon Bars, from New York Times Cooking.
And I’ll see this, next week. First airplane ride in over 20 months (better get it in before Omicron shows up).
But before that, we have to finish putting out my husband’s nutcrackers, arranging the lights on the mini-tree, switching out the quilts, and generally getting ready for the Christmas season. Another work in progress.
Merry Quilting!
In case you want something fun, here’s a free pattern to make this little tree on a frame, from my earlier days of pattern making; still good to go, but not quite as fancy.
And here’s a sneak peak of what I’m working on for 2022. I’m thinking a monthly quilt-a-long, sort of easy, no sign-ups, free patterns, work together, have fun, make a nice-sized wall hanging. And if you can’t deal with any more outside pressure to produce, it’s okay if you just want to grab the patterns and squirrel them away. That’s fine, I’m fine, you’re fine.
I also always make colorful quilts, and this one may go there yet, but I was gifted a little stack of Sherri and Chelsi’s newest line (thanks, Sherri!), and I’m starting there, because — oh my gosh — I do need a cool Valentine-y quilt. So that’s my starting line. I’ve got the first month’s pattern done, but I want to make samples, so you won’t see it until after the holidays. Maybe even by Twelfth Night!
