Bee Happy in April 2020

April 18, 2020June 7, 2020 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

While I titled this Bee Happy in April 2020, part of that is a statement: I’m working on my Bee Happy Quilt, started at least a year ago. But part of that is also a question: is it possible to be happy in April 2020? Let’s tackle the first, wander through the second and I promise I’ll leave you with something funny.

Like many of you I’ve been reading — no, gorging — on the news at this time, and one article about how nature is taking back the canals of Venice, the meadows of Yosemite and how we are seeing less pollution in our skies also commented on the amount of bird songs available now to us in our own backyards. So one mopey day, I pulled out my Lori Holt Bee Happy quilt (!) and started anew. I sat at the kitchen table, stitching, listening to the avian calls, and took a break from the chatter.

Hens stitched, blocks sewn and what I’ve finished is all smoothed out onto my design wall, a sort of vertical storage these days. Three of her rows are finished, ending with the clucking hen sisters. I numbered how many I have left: 13 blocks.

I’ve been making a little tip sheet to go along with all the weeks on Lori Holt’s blog, where she has all her photos and pictures. However, sometimes the info is not arranged as easily as I would like, and so I offer these as an adjunct to those working on the quilt who also need a bit more. Click to download the PDF files. They are found on a page up in the tab section, under 2020 Projects, if you need to find them again.

I laugh at those COVID-19 memes that list a full menu for dinner on the first three days then devolve down to cereal and soda by Day 20. I alternate between complete angst at dinner time and diving in to make a cool meal. Here are two of my successes: bibimbap (top) and African Peanut Stew (bottom, recipe on ElizabethCooks.com). My daughter, who lives too far away, has been baking these:

Baking and selling them. She’s really mastered this treat.

Like the rest of you, I spend far too much time scrolling on my phone, I’ve been happy to see the contests sponsored by major museums across the world to have those of us keeping quarantine to mimic famous works of art.

I also follow the hashtag #quarantineart to break up the quilty quality of my IG feed, where I found this image.

Other components of our COVID-19 lives: Zoom conferences (this time with my brothers and sisters and my two elderly parents highly quarantined in their senior living building), memes, walks around our neighborhood in the morning, and finally, peering into the homes of TV newscasters, where I spotted a quilt on the back of a sofa. Hey! A quilter lives there…or at least they appreciate a quilt.

So, can we be happy in April 2020? Possibly. Probably. Often. Sometimes. Always. Occasionally.

In January 2020, way back in another time and place, my local quilt shop asked us to nominate someone who could use a sewing machine in their lives, along with some sewing helps from Olfa and fabric from the store. I wrote about my friend Hayley, a young mom who is in my First Monday Sew-day group, who has really taken to quilting. She’s the wife a medical student, and has a sweet young daughter. I then waited…and waited…and finally heard this week that she had been chosen!

We all wore our masks, kept our social distance, and Janet, the shop owner read from a prepared paper, thanking all those responsible for giving this award. Then the curtains parted to reveal a sewing machine–Hayley started to cry, I started to cry, Janet started to get emotional. I was so happy that someone who is starting to love quilting could get her own machine. Here’s the video on Facebook.

Now a funny video about how to sew a mask.

Here’s hoping you’ll Bee Happy/be happy in April 2020!

Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Hexagon Millefiore Update, July 2018

July 15, 2018July 16, 2018 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Rosette 10b Finished

And with this Rosette (#10b), I finished up The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt-A-Long.

All Rosettes_OPQuilt

Contractually. At least according to the rules of the The New Hexagon Millefiore Game.

But I really hate the crenellated edges. I don’t mind the zig-zag edges on the sides, and have loved what others have done, by appliqueing the quilt down to a solid border.

Millefiore border maybes

But for this quilt, these colors, every border fabric I chose just looked terrible. Clunky. Admittedly they are kind of wild, but really, the quilt is kind of wild.

Millefiore border fillins

Instead, I’m try to fill them in.

All Rosettesbeginning fillin

You can see what the first two look like. There are 9 crenelations on the top and 9 on the bottom, so two down, 16 to go. This is actually not as hard as I thought, as the fabric choices have already been made, and it’s just sort of filling in and figuring out how the pieces will work. I am trying not to use just one-fabric half-hexie blocks, but instead, create interesting seamed fill-in pieces. I figure the sides will be faster–just a sort of background fabric from the nearest rosette.

Stay tuned.

Research photos (culled from the web, from Instagram and from the Facebook page):

Millefiore v5 — This one looks great with the appliqued-to-borders treatment.

Millefiore v12 — Not technically a Hexagon Millefiore quilt, but those borders!

Millefiore v2

Millefiore quilt again — Another that is not a hexagon-based EPP, but I love the way they broke the borders.

Millefiore v4 Millefiore v1 Millefiore v3

Millefiore v8 — This one filled in many edges, and moved a lot of the rosettes around.

Millefiore v7 Millefiore v9

Many of these quilts turned the design on the its side, or upside down. I should note that I also changed the lower edge of mine, melding 4 different rosettes into one gigantor rosette, plus I tweaked a few more places (there is NO star in the middle of my quilt, for example).

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Millefiore Quilt July 18_2 — My leftovers (paper pulled out that was still in good shape). I’m using them to build the edges.

200 Quilts · Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilt-A-Long

Oh! Christmas Tree Quilt

December 5, 2016April 30, 2017 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

Oh! Christmas Tree Quilt
Quilt #175
Began January 2016 • Finished December 2016

It’s finally finished. I started this once I saw the QuiltMania magazine it was featured in. It is a pattern from Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits. I had a companion in the making of this, in Wendy Welsh from New Zealand. She was about a month ahead of me in construction and was such a great help, especially in untangling the borders dilemma. All of the posts about the making of this quilt are referenced in the Quilt-A-Longs tab, up above.

I did finish it by my goal of December 1st, but had to find the right ~~locale~~ accessories, like the lumber-jack looking guy above. (By the way, the most important man in this photo is unseen, holding up the Christmas Tree quilt. Thanks, dear!)

I had written about how I quilted the center: a meander with tiny stars here and there.

As usual, I printed out my quilt with partial transparency and doodled and doodled, coming into a dead end always. But finally, inspired by an idea from *here,* I chose to do swirls around my stars with a spiral in the center, linking them all together.

I quilted the cream background fabric around the wool felt appliqués, then in around those red triangle points, leaving them unquilted. I did outline them in a straight stitch, helping them to stand out from the background.

My husband Dave and I went out for a photo shoot as the sun was dimming, first hitting the tree lot at Teen Challenge (below), a charity near our house.

And then we went looking for more evergreens for backdrops, a near herculean task in Southern California. We finally found these pines in the university parking lot. I told my husband that Marsha, in Vermont, could photograph hers out in the woods amid the snow, but that typical to our climate and locale, we have to pose in an asphalt parking lot.

The back is a series of panels and fabrics from Cori Dantini from her Merry Stitches line, purchased at Quilt Market this past May and available now. It’s fun to use them on the back.

This quilt (or parts of it) have gone to Spain, all around my town, and then finally tucked in at home to be finished with the quilting. I took inspiration from all of those who followed along on the Quilt-A-Long and on Instagram, but am indebted to my husband for his love of my quilting and constant support. Lastly, the design for Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus are found here on the blog. Uusually we say that what’s important about Christmas isn’t found under the tree.

But in this case, it is.

I hope your Christmas season is merry and bright and filled with the love of our Savior.

Halloween QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Hallowe’en 1904 QAL–Step Six • Final Post

July 13, 2016January 12, 2017 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

First up, some business to take care of.

I recently had a post about creativity/uniqueness/Uppercase/Collaboration, where I had a giveaway with two Uppercase magazines and a charm pack of Uppercase Fabric. So many of your comments were incredibly thoughtful about the process of creativity and the quality of being unique. Several were very encouraging to me, which was quite appreciated and touched my heart. Of course, I’ve pasted them in my journal for those less-than-stellar creative days. Thank you all so very much.

I used the True Random Number Generator (I like to spread the love around the random number generators), and it picked Mary, of NeedledMom. Email is on it’s way to you, Mary, and I’ll get the treats mailed off to you this week!

Okay, back to Halloween 1904. This was our schedule:

Step 1 (Preparation): February 13, 2016–buy all the fabrics and find the pattern. Patterns are available from Primitive Gatherings. The quilt measures 90 by 90, which is too large for me, so I’m only doing nine blocks. Each block is 20″ square, and with the outer borders, that should come to roughly 65″ square. I may change my mind, but this looks good from here.

Step 2: March 13, 2016–Cut out the quilt: the tan backgrounds of the squares, the border triangles, the smaller half-square triangles, strips for the wonky stars, but save the piano key border for later.

Step 3: April 13, 2016–Assemble four blocks and add large appliques; use Thelma’s method (of Cupcakes and Daisies) for adding the curlicue stem. Make and add half-square triangeles (HSTs) around these blocks, using the 8-at-a-time method of HSTs.

Step 4: May 13, 2016–Cut and make the wonky star blocks from templates and strips. I’m doing five blocks, so will need to make twenty wonky stars and true them up. Add on the large outside triangles.

Step 5: June 13, 2016–Assemble the rest of the star blocks, by adding their HST borders. In the pattern, they are mixed up and varied, but also harmonized (some have a mix of orange and black, some have just black, some have just orange.) Make your own rules and go with it.

AND NOW! WE ARE AT Step 6: July 13, 2016–Arrange the blocks on your design wall and stitch together. Cut the pieces for your borders. Make the four corner pinwheels. Sew borders together and attach them to the quilt. Ta-Done!!

AND THERE IS AN UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS POST, added December 2016

We finished up here last time, with the center of the quilt put together, the blocks placed and sewn together (and yes, I fixed the lower sawtooth edge on the right). Leisa and I are making a 9-block quilt; the pattern calls for 12 blocks.

Make more HST blocks: there are four blocks per pinwheel, so this time I didn’t use the eight-at-a-time method, but instead, followed the pattern’s recipe for two-at-a-time (check there for dimensions).

Trim each HST to 3″ using your favorite method, then stitch four together to make a pinwheel.

Press, as shown, with all seams to the dark, popping a few stitches in the middle to allow the seam allowances to make their own tiny pinwheel. Halloween6_1

True the corner pinwheel square to 5 1/2.”

You’ll be making four corner pinwheels.

Cut your pieces for your borders, following the pattern directions. For the smaller nine-block quilt, adjust down to 24 total per side. I tried to randomize the sewing of the oranges in between the black pieces, as I had many more different types of orange. Just do your best.

Press the seams going one way. You’ll notice that you begin with a black and end with an orange piece (or visa versa). I chose to press my seams toward the orange, from the black, doing the same on all four border strips.

Matching all the seams, pin and stitch on the borders: I sewed on the top border and the bottom border and pressed the seam away from the quilt top (towards the border). Then I sewed the sides on, but I left one inch free on the beginning of that seam and on the end of that seam, which would allow me to stitch on the pinwheel blocks later. You can kind of see where it’s not sewn down, above.

Now, audition your pinwheels–you’ll like them going one way or the other, or swap them out to get the look that pleases you. But please don’t overthink this step. When you get them how you like them, stitch them on the side borders at both ends. Press. Then finish stitching the side seams.

Halloween6_5 Now press those seams away from the quilt top, towards the border. You are done!

I went outside in the sunset and took pictures of the completed quilt top.

I know when you were deep in wonky stars and then deeper in making millions of half-square triangles, you wanted to quit; however, this last part is easy-peasy, so you should come roaring into the finish line.

All Hallows Eve
Quilt #174
68″ square

Update (December 2016): I finished the quilt, taking it over to my quilter. She got it back to me by the end of November and by December, the binding and sleeve were on.