Crossed Lillies, Riverside Sawtooth, and Halloween

October 31, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Although the title has three subjects and in a particular order, I’m going to reverse them, starting now.

We need a Halloween quilt and this one, made by Tracy Cox using my Sun and Sea Pattern, catches the mood of the day. I love her use of spooky prints! I have corresponded with her for some time, and met in person at PIQF held before the world shut down. She lives near my old stomping grounds in the Bay Area, so it was fun to hang out with her and admire her prizewinning blue ribbon quilt.

Here’s my version of this…of course! you say. I remember. It’s just so different in different fabrics, which is one of the magic tricks we quilters do. We are really good at this particular trick and don’t even need a magic wand, unless that’s what you want to call our rotary cutters.

The next one is Riverside Sawtooth, a quilt that was featured in QuiltMania in issue #163 (July/August 2020). It’s finally time for it to hit the pattern shop!

I was asked by Brenda if she could purchase the pattern, and I realized I hadn’t put it back up when it was time to do so. And then it was revise revise and spruce up, because I’d also made it in the Before Times — before I knew sort of what I was doing in Affinity Publisher. Both the program and I have made strides, so I updated what I could. It’s for sale in my pattern shop.

Lastly, it’s Crossed Lilies. This is probably the most complete pattern of my Pattern Lite series, and could probably sell for more, but it’s the same price as all the rest: less than a bag of Halloween Candy, less than an upscale chocolate bar when you are sick of eating all that candy, and way less than the price of a good rice bowl, when you are totally sick of eating sweets.

I had many inspirations, but mostly this stems from the pillow series I’ve been doing this year. You know I wasn’t that keen about October’s pillow kit that came in the mail, so I made Mister Pumpkin. And then I kind of liked this month’s kit, but it was a pumpkin (again), so I had to do something different.

I like the mixing of the fall tones with the deep aqua blues, and these pillows are all fun to quilt, before I back them and bind them. This pattern is also for sale in my PayHip shop, if you need a fall pillow.

But I could wave my quilter’s magic wand, spend an afternoon, and have something completely different for spring, or Christmas, or in red, white and blue for summer.

The magic is all up to you, my pretties!

Happy Halloween!

Other posts about Riverside Sawtooth:
Finished Quilt Top
Finished Quilt, binding and all

PatternLite · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Pillows

Mister Pumpkin

October 19, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Sometimes I really don’t like our season-less world. I walked through Target last week, looking for some orange Halloween lights. Okay, I know some of you are laughing hysterically out there. Halloween Lights? They were gone by the 4th of July! Swimsuits come in February, and it used to be a rule not to put out Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Used to be.

And this year, with the Great Supply Chain Disruption working its pandemic magic (would we expect any less?), good luck. The lady at Target told me they “weren’t getting much Christmas” so if I saw “something you like, buy it.” The section was pretty empty, as they were doing the switchover from witches to elves.

One of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving, I now call the Invisible Holiday: so desperately needed, yet nearly imperceptible. But if you aren’t yet hanging the Christmas garlands and putting up the Santas, here’s one more little fun thing for you to stitch up in an afternoon: Mister Pumpkin.

It all started because my monthly Riley Blake pillow arrived and I was just sort of meh about the design of it. I’d done some shapes for my daughter’s Fall Tag Tip Sheet, and made the pumpkin, and remembered the photo on the lower left, a detail of a quilt I’d seen at a quilt show. I had purchased the little ornament on our trip to Utah last month. I loved them all and combined them to make my 20″ pillow. Which I have now made up into a PatternLite Pattern, but because it’s like…the middle of the month..~~.I’m giving you a coupon to get it for a deal of 25% off~~:

Since PatternLite patterns only cost a tiny amount, you are getting a Mister Pumpkin Pattern Lite for less than a large Coke and fries at McDonald’s. Or a slice of pizza at the mall. And WAY less than a bag of Halloween candy. ~~Coupon good until (when else?)~~…Halloween night.

He’s now resting comfortably on our bed, and I may keep him there for the first part of November, too. So have fun–enjoy your grinning 20″ Mister Pumpkin pillow before you have to nestle it under the Christmas tree. And he doesn’t get made this year, well, there’s always next year! (That old baseball phrase is meant for consolation for the Giants, who lost their pennant race to the LA Dodgers; if you are a sports watcher, you know about this.)

Happy Quilting!

Guild Visits · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Blossom Quilts • Santa Clarita Quilt Guild

September 19, 2021September 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

I had a great visit to Santa Clarita Quilt Guild this past week, presenting a new lecture: Exploration Through Modern, Art and Traditional Quilts. I then taught a Workshop on 9-11 (!) using my Blossom pattern. I’ve worked with this Guild before and they are delightful. I thought I would share (with their permission) some of the quilts they made for our Follow-Up meeting about a week later.

The pattern has three sizes of blocks, and some quilters chose the smallest size, and some chose the largest, but the impact is great with whichever size was used, as the basis — the Flowering Snowball block — is really adaptable to many different fabrics.

Carol C. used the smallest size, wanting to make a quilt in autumn colors. I think those oranges fairly glow against her dark border.

Jean C. chose dark tone-on-tone batiks for her petals, and backed them with brights. I love that grayed aqua border. While you can’t really see it here, she used a flanged binding, so outside the burnt orange is the dark color again.

I think Joan used the small block again, and I love how the bright cranberry background is balanced by the soft floral petals and the muted green border.

Kristeen D. started out with a white polka dot fabric at our workshop, but by the time we met again, she’d swapped all of that out for the black/white polka-dots. That was a really great choice, along with that border.

Melissa N had pieces of three different black florals, which she combined to great effect for the backgrounds and border. Several quilters finished their quilts completely and she was one of them.

Vickie R used the smallest block in a limited palette of yellows and blues. But she finished hers into a pillow–a great use for this mini-mini quilt.

Usually we have a full week in between, but we shortened the interval to five days. Sue B. was able to get her quilt pieces cut out and arranged on the wall — I am happy to see quilts in progress in our Slide Shows, as that reflects Real Life. I love that border she chose, and it’s a perfect foil to the bright colors in the center.

Robin T. was at the Guild Meeting and once she heard that I have several videos in the class materials, she realized she could sign up even though she couldn’t attend the Workshop. She used autumn tones again, and then brought the center petals forward with her bright pop of yellow. We all liked how she stepped down from that to the polka-dotted half-petals, then out again to another muted floral fabric.

And this is my mini-mini, made in the smallest size. I had decided I’d better try the quilt myself, in preparation for teaching. I loved using the subtle stripe in the border, and rotated the corners 45-degrees so the pattern would continue around the outside. I also demo-ed on this fabric, so this is the front and a large version of the block is the back. Note: the tiny lavender flowered fabric in the outer border is one of the oldest in my stash, as I think it’s about 25+ years old, and was used in a quilt for my then young daughter.

Thank you to the women in the Santa Clarita Quilt Guild for their creativity and imagination and quick work. Hope you enjoyed the Blossom Quilt Show!

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Summer Snowcone • Quilt Finish

September 5, 2021September 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

It’s mostly photos, today. Enjoy!

Summer Snowcone, variation of Sun and Sea Pattern
Quilt #251
48″ wide x 56″ high

Advent, previously shown but what a cool backdrop of flowers. It was in the women’s bathroom, but I couldn’t resist. (I propped open the door and we were in and out in under 60 seconds, and no one was there.) And yes, I have the best quilt-holding husband on the planet.

The drive to meet our son for lunch was about 90 minutes, and I wanted to finish sewing down the hanging sleeve on Advent and the binding on Summer Snowcone, so we had them along. When I saw that painted hallway, I grabbed the quilts out of the car for photographs.

Photographed in the hallway at City Tacos, Sorrento Valley near San Diego. Since my son’s a working man, we drive to see him and his girlfriend. A good day out.

Website of Interest: A project to make a kimono representing every nation was recently completed. The website groups the kimono by continent, and then you can navigate to the country you want to see. Of course I went to see America, then copied and pasted the text into Google Translate.

Their caption, translated:

The image of a country consisting of 50 states called "United States" is expressed by "state flowers". Designed with the national symbol "President" as "American Eagle". Baseball, American football, Hollywood movies, and the goddess of freedom, which Americans love, are studded in the state flowers, and the great presidents Lincoln and Kennedy are represented by statues and Apollo programs.

I love that Abraham Lincoln is right up there with the “goddess of freedom (which Americans love) as well as baseball and Hollywood. When they say “goddess of freedom” I think they mean the Statue of Liberty. But so cool that they included all the state flowers.

I’m now going to go waste a lot of time thinking about how I should get more stuff done. But hey! it’s Labor Day Weekend and we honor the concept of Labor by relaxing, barbecuing and not doing anything.

Happy Labor Day!