Betsy’s Creation • Quilt Finish

September 1, 2019January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.19 Comments

I found this 1920s vintage park with a grandstand in a small town just to the north of me and took my husband and my most recent finished quilt there, so we could do some photographing. And some reminiscing.

It’s a sweet little small-town-built-long-ago park that for some miracle has remained. Named for an officer of the local cement company at the time, it’s known as the Thomas J. Fleming Memorial Park, built circa 1922-1925. Why is this important?

I grew up in a small little town (not so little anymore), but it had that feeling of walking downtown on a hot summer’s evening, catching the fireworks on the 4th of July after seeing the parade that morning. It had the feeling of being able to drop your school bag at the door, change in to your “play clothes,” and head over past the Muehlstein’s home to send this and that sailing down their irrigation canal until you knew it was time to go home for dinner. (And did I mention that my childhood nickname was Betsy?)

We’d walk up to Heber’s house and offer to find the eggs in his chicken coop for him. He’d let us. We would wind crepe paper in our bicycle spokes and all show up for a local parade. This was also a place where I was smallminded at times, like when I teased Marlene in fourth grade over something dumb, and then used up all her Scotch tape. It’s a place where others can also be mean, like when I got beat up by the Mitchell boy, and cried all the way home. (Later my mother saw him on the road, rolled down her car window and gave him a talking-to like I’d never heard.)

This small town in America was my place, where I learned to behave myself so no neighborhood mother would ever have to lean out her car window and give me a scolding. And how I wish I could go back in time and find Marlene and tell her how sorry I am. It was a place to be small, to grow up, and to leave behind.

But I catch glimpses of it when I think of it as a land of red, white and blue, where we love flags and fireworks and the Fourth of July. It’s a land of learning to get along with your neighbor because you never know when that person with the different name would give you a lifetime memory. Like when I needed to learn to ride a bike and Joan Muehlstein gripped the back of the seat, ran alongside me, and hollered, “Turn towards the wobble!”

It’s mountains and vast plains, it’s small towns and big cities. And America is where I like to be the most, even though now I’ve traveled and love Berlin and Bologna and other different places with wonderful people who’ve gone themselves through nice and mean, dark and light, thick and thin. It’s when I return from far away and see that flag on the wall at the airport with a sign that says “Welcome to the United States,” well, I get a misty-eyed, just like in those movies from the 1940s.

It’s my home, this America. And to me, it’s a pretty great place.

Betsy’s Creation • Quilt #225
Pieced by Elizabeth Eastmond • Quilted by Cathy Kreter
72″ wide x 86″ tall

Quilt began on Flag Day: June 14, 2019
Finished August 20, 2019
More info and a free worksheet for making this quilt can be found here. I also made a companion smaller flag:

etsycreation

Gridsters · Guild Visits · Mini-quilt · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilt Patterns · Quilts · This-and-That

Happy August 2019 • This and That

August 16, 2019May 20, 2026 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

When I looked outside in my garden today, the zucchini plant had wilted from the heat, mirroring how I felt inside. However, unlike my spectacularly unproductive zucchini plant [we’ve only had ONE], I’ve been pretty productive. Just not on quilts.

I’ve been working on prepping my upcoming Guild Workshops, getting the kits together (in wax paper bags instead of plastic, given my attempt to cut down on plastic where I can), and cute touches like place cards, so I know whose spot is whose once the class gets going.

Spectrum Pattern Revise — *The pattern cover with thumbnails showing the pattern pages and revisions. Now it’s a pretty good guide to EPP.*

I also revised a couple of patterns, the first one being Spectrum. Inland Empire Quilters Guild contacted me for a program for their evening meeting, then they got together a group of women for a workshop who wanted to learn English Paper Piecing. So I changed some things up in the pattern, added more content, and put it back up for sale up on PayHip.

One thing I made for a sample was this tote bag, splitting the main pattern in half and placing it on either side of the bag. I wanted to show that a person can do more with a pattern than simply make a quilt. That version of Spectrum is one of the variations in the pattern (bag pattern not included; I used the one in the October 2019 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting by Kristyne Czepuryk).

I also made a mini-mini to show them how to do the basics. I’ll be passing out this pattern for a Kansas Sunflower block in class, show how to “batch-cut” pieces, glue and prep them. They can then move on to Spectrum, or stay sewing up their mini-mini. We’ll also do one hexie flower, because what’s a class in EPP without a hexie flower?

Hexie Flowers July 2018 — (We’ll only do one; these are from my Field Flowers quilt.)

Another class I have coming up is Merrion Square and Far Away Doors, teaching it for the Pass Patchers Quilt Guild nearby. For ages, I’d hand out the instruction sheet to Far Away Doors when the class was taught, but adding it to the original Merrion Square pattern was one of the revisions I wanted to make, in order to get all the variations in one place. I took it offline, revised it, and now it’s back up for sale on PayHip, if you want all three versions in one pattern. [Note: If you’ve purchased Merrion Square and haven’t received Far Away Doors from me in a workshop, please contact me and I’ll get it out to you. Proof of purchase is required.]

Of course, all this is made easier by the fact that I’m getting the hang of the three pieces of Affinity Serif software that I purchased last fall: Affinity Photo (replacing Adobe’s Photoshop), Affinity Designer (replacing Illustrator) and Affinity Publisher (instead of InDesign). I’m getting quicker at each one, knowing where the tools are and how to use them.

I also made three batches of low-sugar strawberry jam, after I tasted Laurel’s. Laurel and her husband grow their own strawberries, but the ones from the market in our neighboring town worked well for us. To go with it, I made a batch of zucchini bread with cranberries and left out half the flour (!).

My saintly husband declared it just fine, and takes chunks of this incredibly dense bread in his lunch every day. He makes me look good, even on my very bad days (of fighting asthma), wilting in the heat (like the zucchini plants outside), and trying to get all the guild workshop stuff lined up from here to eternity. I have to remind myself to take it one Guild and a time, and enjoy the process, which I genuinely do.

I finished The Night Tiger (I can recommend highly) and have started Little Fires Everywhere (so far enjoying it, but don’t give a recommendation until I finish).

I decided I was done waiting to start on this Halloween Banner project. I layered the panel (if your store doesn’t carry it, it’s available here), quilted it, and cut out the flags. I cut 1-1/4″ strips of stripey fabric from this line (called Costumer’s Ball by J. Wecker Frisch) cutting it across the stripe and bound the edges of the flags, sewing the strips first to one side of the flag, then the other. After trimming the bottom edge, I folded it up and glued it all down with my trusty friend, a regular old gluestick. Then I pressed and folded in the binding on the sides, again using my gluestick to keep it in place. (Be sure to press after gluing in order to distribute the glue).

gluesticks — *Hit those back-to-school sales, people!*

I top-stitched down the striped binding, and am now waiting for the fabric to arrive to make the top part so I can get the banners all ready for October 1st.

Lastly, I finished up August’s bee blocks for the Gridster Bee, using an original pattern designed by my talented beemate Kelley. She’s getting ready for Christmas early!

I think my holidays are all mixed up, because I’m working on Christmas blocks, Halloween Banners, and my Fourth of July quilt just came back from the longarmer, needing binding. I hope you are able to keep your days and events and sewing projects straight. Happy Quilting!

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

Far Away Doors • Quilt Finish

July 21, 2019January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

Doors opening, closing on us
by Marge Piercy

Maybe there is more of the magical
in the idea of a door than in the door
itself. It’s always a matter of going
through into something else. But

while some doors lead to cathedrals
arching up overhead like stormy skies
and some to sumptuous auditoriums
and some to caves of nuclear monsters

most just yield a bathroom or a closet.
Still, the image of a door is liminal,
passing from one place into another
one state to the other, boundaries

and promises and threats. Inside
to outside, light into dark, dark into
light, cold into warm, known into
strange, safe into terror, wind

into stillness, silence into noise
or music. We slice our life into
segments by rituals, each a door
to a presumed new phase. We see

ourselves progressing from room
to room perhaps dragging our toys
along until the last door opens
and we pass at last into was.

Far Away Doors
Quilt No. 216 • 49 1/2″ wide by 43 1/2″ tall
Some blocks sent to me by the Gridsters Bee

Finished!

I originally named it “Home-keeping Hearts” but that was just its milk name as it had just been born and I was in a cheezy mood of Hearts and Deep Meanings and All That. Marge Piercy said it best about doors, even quilty ones inspired by far away doors from Dublin, Ireland:

“the image of a door is liminal, / passing from one place into another / one state to the other, boundaries // and promises and threats. Inside / to outside, light into dark, dark into / light, cold into warm, known into / strange, safe into terror, wind // into stillness, silence into noise / or music.”

The photograph on the truck? It went like this: on our way to get some Vietnamese bùn châ for lunch, we trekked down to our newest neighbors’ home to ask if we could please pose the quilt on their cool car, and so I knocked on their door and it opened to a crying baby in the other room and a smiling baby in his father’s arms and good-natured parents, owners of a new-to-them truck and the mother’s name was Genesis and the father’s name was Nate and we introduced ourselves and they said yes, of course, and then they headed back inside because it was about a hundred degrees outside, as they smiled and waved and shut the door behind them, the lovely music of a home with a young family and a Ford Ranger just made for quilt posing.

And so, this variation of Merrion Square is finished. I pass out the how-to sheet as a freebie when people take my Merrion Square classes, so hopefully you’ll be in one soon. Check my schedule to see if there’s a workshop near you.

And finally, many thanks to all who entered the giveaway for the ruler. The winner has been notified by email and I’ll get the ruler off to her this week. I am leaving the post up because there are so many great responses to my question. You are all a significantly talented and experienced group of quilters — thank you for your ruler advice!

300 Quilts · Free Motion Quilting · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Ladybird • Quilt Finish

June 30, 2019January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Ladybird is finished.

Ladybird, the name a shortened version of ladybird beetle (or ladybugs as we call them in the States), has a rich folkloric history, with allusions to religion, good fortune, death, and old rituals. This original quilt, with its split block design, evoked the tiny beetle, a godsend to gardeners everywhere.

We’d had a bumper crop of their babies around the yard when I started this, little crawly things that my husband identified as the early stage of ladybird beetles (the official name).

I don’t know how I came up with this original pattern, but the colors and the accents just sort of found their way to this quilt. I also don’t know how I figured out the quilting, but like anything in my life, the starting is the hardest.

Finishing is easier.

Ladybird_3 — Background fabric is from Jane Sassaman.

Of course you are familiar with the rhyme:

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, and your children will burn.

There are multiple, maybe even a hundred, versions of this rhyme in many different languages and countries. The one I quoted above is dated to 1744, and is often thought to reference the burning of stubble in the fields after harvest, a practice discouraged now because of air pollution, but common in early times.

My husband found the photography site for us at University of California-Riverside. It’s the artwork on the front of the Genomics Building by Jim Isermann, the sculpture influenced by geometric shapes of molecular structure and its illustration. Yeah, I’m in love with this. And did I mention my husband broke three ribs last week? Yet he still helped me schlep around the quilts (and holding one up for me in another upcoming post), even clamping on one side where I couldn’t reach. (It was a small household altercation with a huge yard waste container; he will be fine in about six weeks, but for now I do the trash.)