Oh, Granny! • Granny Square Sewalong 2026

April 26, 2026April 28, 2026 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Head’s Up: Tutorial Ahead!

Just for fun’s sake, I decided to do an Instagram search for samples of the ever ubiquitous and pretty famous Granny Squares quilt because the marvelous Carol Gillen and I wanted to do another quilt-a-long with each other in 2026. (I think this will be our fourth?) Come along if you want. First up: the eye candy. I put a conglomeration of links afterwards, and each image is named with the Instagrammer (right-click on any photo to see it in a new tab, and you’ll see the “name” that way, along with the number showing what slide it is).

I think there must have been a lot of Granny Square quilts made in 2020, as a lot of the pictures are from around then.

A bunch of Instagram links that have the quilt, but which don’t necessarily correspond one-to-one to the above gallery:

jandidean • olieandevie • shesewsseams • satomi_quilts • sugarbeequilts • zbinden6 • prairiequiltco • latimerlanequilts • tiltingplanet • lyrebird_lamb • gina_tell_threadgraffiti • happylittlecottage1 • penelopehandmade • pdxannie • pdxannie (again) • alisongamm (tiny blocks) • quiltingkaro • simplegirlsimplelife • sharonhollanddesigns • sekephart (a new method) • maureencracknell (block) • maureencracknell (full quilt)

From what I saw, there are two basic kinds: the three-squares-across version and the four-squares-across version — an iteration of the original. (Ignore the photo above with six blocks across; that maker may be an overachiever and she freely admits she only made this one block. And while I admire the quilter who did hers by EPP [shown in the top row], we’re doing Old School Piecing.)

The “OG” Granny Square is the block on the upper left. We also call the one on the upper right a Granny Square, but the original name (according to Brackman) is the Garden Patch block, published in Quilt World in the mid-1970s; the color placement does differ slightly.

I saw a lot of posts, and websites, and perused videos, but I never found the source of the urban legend that says that the center of the block represents the baby, the next row represented the mother (the baby had four mothers?) and the next row was the grandmother (now this child has 8 grandmothers?). Wherever that came from it certainly wasn’t on the radar of quilt historian Barbara Brackman. The block in her book (the Bible of quilt blocks) is called Grandmother’s Pride, and hails from around the 1930s, from a mail order source called Home Art Studios.

Another blogger had it the other way: the center is the grandmother, the four surrounding blocks are her daughters, and then on to grandchildren. Okey, dokey. I think the origin of this quilt square might have come from a quilter who was trying to mimic the ubiquitous crocheted granny squares whose first origins are from the 1880s, but I have no way of knowing.

On to the making. Here’s a slideshow with pictures of my first test sample:

Three-square row blocks using 2 1/2″ squares trims out to be 9 1/8″ which is a block size I can work with.

Here’s the test sample for the 4-square block, again using squares cut to 2 1/2″ EXCEPT FOR THE WHITE BACKGROUNDS, which I cut differently (info in the free handout, below):

The dimension after trimming is 12″ square. Again, while it feels counter-intuitive to not know the finished size of a block when you begin, it’s probably easier to figure out what size square you want to work with and cut those, and then figure out the dimension of the final block once it’s all trimmed up.

I give you more dimensions and block sizes in the PatternLite Download, which for a while, is free. After that, it will move to my Pattern Shop and will probablymaybepossibly retail for less than a fancy drink in your favorite restaurant.
So download it now, while it’s free.

Granny Squares_OPQuilt PatternLite Download

Another Hint: color is the thing. Decide what you want in the middle (light, dark?) and in each surrounding row. I did like the quilts that had different colorations, so sometimes you could see crosses going across the block. Two ways to put it together: sashed? Not sashed? A million different tutorials out there in Quiltland. Once Carol and I get rolling, we’ll probably post up our ideas, but for now, let’s just get started on making blocks.

We’ll probably start somewhere in May-ish? We haven’t decided yet. We’ll put it up on my least favorite-which-used-to-be-a-favorite social media, Instagram. Here are our addresses: Carol and Elizabeth. I’ll also post my blocks up on BlueSky, too, and Carol has Threads. Which block am I going to sew? I’m learning towards the 4-square version, although the 3-square version is also tempting.

Final Throught: Hashtags appear to be pretty useless now in Meta’s world However, I will be tagging my posts for organizational reasons: #ohgrannysquare2026 It might be easier just to follow us on Instagram, Threads or BlueSky or type in the words Oh Granny Square and let’s hope for the best!

And just for the record, Granny Squares seem to be making a comeback. Here are two I saw while in France last week:

Happy Sewing!

What Were The Other Sew-A-Longs?

Oh! Christmas Tree was made by several of us who hung around at that time.

Pumpkins, 2021

Posh Penelope, where all three of us (Carol, Linda and I) nearly lost our minds, 2025

300 and Beyond · PatternLite · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilt Finish · Quilt Patterns · Quilts

Pursuit of Craft with Spring Dots & Stripes • Quilt Finish

April 3, 2026 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

One of the challenges in our modern life is to deal with disruptions, distractions, and never letting us have a minute without someone telling us the five steps to a better life, to better breathing, to being a better whatever. Or as tech, culture and political writer Derek Thompson observed on his podcast Plain English, these voices tell you “everything is figureoutable. And if I just listen to these five steps, I can figure out all my life’s problems” (from here).

But for me, I escape to quilting to not figure everything out. I mean, yes, sometimes just cranking out on a pattern and whipping up a quilt is a good time and I like that as much as anyone. But hopefully, as Thompson noted, “you can have intimacy with a craft.” The challenge “is if we are constantly being distracted or interrupted, it’s hard to find that intimacy. It’s hard to get into the slipstream or the pocket of a creative project” (same source as above).

I like my pursuit of my craft. Of taking a well-known-to-me pattern like my Blossom, and seeing what I can do with it that sends me into discovery, of finding a new way to see what I’ve seen before. Because, really, haven’t we all seen it all before: make a cut, stitch a seam, sew it together, quilt it, and don’t forget the label?

For this quilt (Spring Dots & Stripes), I chose to work with just two elements:
• dots and stripes (had to be white dots on bright colors),
• Tula’s Tent Stripes (in only four colorways).

It was this challenge that coaxed me into flow.

What is flow? The Czech psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the word “flow” to refer to the psychological state of optimal performance.

“He recalled in an interview how he would watch painters in their studios and how he was fascinated by their ability to forget everything while working. He was also surprised by what happened when they were done: They’d finish a work of art, and instead of enjoying it…they would put it against the wall and start a new painting. They weren’t really interested in the finished painting. What these artists were after, Csikszentmihalyi realized, wasn’t the finished work itself but the experience of full immersion and absorption in the act of creation” (from here).

To understand it better, I watched several videos online, and liked the one from John Spencer, titled “What is Flow Theory?” He highlighted it like this (click arrows to advance):

Since no matter what I tried, the slides kept getting out of order, the basics are:

The task has to be intrinsically rewarding;
The task has to have clear goals and a sense of progress;
Clear and immediate feedback is critical;
It’s a balance between the challenge of the task and the set of skills needed to complete it; and
The person in the flow state has an intense focus on the present.

I cut out pieces in certain colors — the ones I thought I would want — and started putting them up on the design wall. And then in an a-ha! moment, I could see that I could group them differently to create a pattern of interest. Maybe that came from trial and error, maybe it came from being in the flow? I was able to discover a different way as I grouped the petals into colors, cutting and discarding and pinning up and sewing, as I ignored all that was going on around me.

I took the finished quilt out into the garden for some photos this week.

Side Note: I’ve decided there are two categories of fabric design that I don’t like on the front of my quilts: the first is sharp things, like anything on this fabric. The second is insects, so these often end up on the back. (Cute small bee prints are the exception.)

I needed a mini-quilt of just the right size to fit in a specific space (photo near the end), and it needed to be spring colors.

So when I turned to the Blossom pattern (which in turn has it beginnings in the traditional Flowering Snowball block), I didn’t have the right size. Because…

…last spring I discovered that over half of my computer files were corrupted. Not a virus. Just gone (it’s complicated). And 50 percent of those were my more recent pattern files. So many patterns that I’d written could never be updated. Unless…unless…I recreated all the missing, corrupted files to revise the pattern. Like this one:

So I have been busy re-drawing the files I lost, and while I was at it, adding a new size (7″ block), and re-writing the pattern. If you’ve purchased Blossom from me before, you can go to the email you received with the pattern and re-download it. And for those who haven’t made one of my patterns, and want to try it, I put it on sale for a few days if you want to grab it now in my pattern shop.

This a photo of another quilt, Aerial Beacon, that is stuck in re-write-land. I was about a month away from the release when I discovered the corrupt files. Talk about a way to stop the flow! I’ve slowly been re-creating this one, too. (Slowly is the operative word here, but it’s coming.)

Yes, I should have had it done by now, but this is what I call a “reverse flow” task. All those glowing ideals in the list in the beginning have their counterpart: discovering and ferreting out and crying inside over lost work and then redoing the lost work, I would say are just about the opposite of the bliss of being in the flow.

Since I was in the Blossom flow, I re-made the larger 12-inch block version as well, especially since I found that outer border fabric at Road to California this year. It’s in the needs-to-be-quilted stack.

Quilt #316 • 28″ square, shown in that space where I needed a quilt

I’ll let this paragraph from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book, flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience, close up this post:

In the course of my studies I tried to understand as exactly as possible how people felt when they most enjoyed themselves, and why. My first studies involved a few hundred “experts”—artists, athletes, musicians, chess masters, and surgeons—in other words, people who seemed to spend their time in precisely those activities they preferred. From their accounts of what it felt like to do what they were doing, I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. (from here)

I wish you all a week of flow, of enjoyable quilting, and a most happy Easter–

This and That • October 2024

October 28, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This month last year I saw an eclipse and cranked out not one, but two quilts to the quilter that month.

And this year?? A slog through covid, which still lingers with the double whammy of cough and fatigue.

So what a difference a year makes. Oh, maybe I’ve got a triple whammy with the brain fog, which is real. But at any rate, here we go with a This and That, which I haven’t done in a while.

Because I was just hanging around a lot, coughing, I read one book (Orenstein) on my digital reader, and one (Garten) in Real Book form. I learned a lot from both, including the tidbit that Garten and Martha Stewart at one time were friends. But mostly I loved a lot of what Orenstein wrote when she was making “the world’s ugliest sweater.”

“We hang by threads, we lose the thread, we pick up the thread, we have common threads, we thread through crowds, our reasoning is threadbare—and that is not even starting on metaphors involving sheep, wool, fabric, weaving, sewing, knitting. Textile analogies loom large in our world” (Orenstein).

and

She quotes Catherine McKinley, a writer and curator: “This idea that the end product is more important than anything [is] an erosion of something fundamental, of that intense combining of the spiritual with all the other aspects of our lives (McKinley, qtd. in Orenstein).

It was too hot in October, bookending our summer that began all the way in May, which was also too hot.

As you might suspect, this word appeals to me. I’m an autumn-sort-of-girl. (TIL=Today I Learned)

Have I sewn anything? I participated in a bee, and just about half the blocks were unusable. So with my fever-covid-fog (FCF) brain, I unpicked some that were too small and re-sewed them, I was happy I purchased more fabric than I needed, so I could make-from-scratch a handful more. One quilter had eye surgery and I was happy to make hers for her. I was sent some blocks half-finished, and finished them. Some blocks were a couple of weeks late, which gave me angst because of my FCF-brain: I’d grabbed a slot with my quilter so I could have this back for the holidays, and time was slipping away. I decided, in the end, that maybe I’d picked too complicated of a block for some of the quilters, or maybe it was just a bad-karma month for a lot of other people. That happens. But in end, as with most quilts, Mercato Square was finished. I sent it off, after agonizing about which quilting panto to use. Stay tuned.

I sewed my October blocks and November blocks for the bee. One more month to go. I put a tip-sheet on how to make the strawberries and it’s a free download. The block on the right has been around for a while and pops up in different iterations.

Here’s the first example I have for you, from 2013, and I screen-grabbed some of what this quilter wrote:

The above is from a blog titled D & D Adventures (it’s defunct now).

I did a version of cut-block-insert-strip, Criss-Cross Quilt, that uses larger blocks, some with the insert going diagonally and some, vertically/horizontally. I don’t know if you remember, but there is a 31%-off coupon for any one thing in my pattern shop, so if you want this version (or something else), grab the coupon and get it (it expires on Halloween).

This time around, the Queen Bee sent us to Amber of Gigi’s Thimble, where she has a free tutorial, and her quilt (shown above) is so beautiful. I’ve used Amber’s tutorials before and they are solid. Speaking of quilt patterns, there was a recent kerfuffle online about a pattern maker who resisted the idea that other people could make patterns similar to hers (not copied…just similar). I think, unless it’s a direct plagiarism, ideas get recycled and re-worked. I also check Barbara Brackman‘s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. If it’s in there, it’s been done before.

And I don’t think I posted about these blocks?

These were spools blocks done in April, and I made a tip sheet for those, too.

Lisa Spool of Thread Download

from here. Lisa has all the blocks arranged from the Gridster Bee. These are large blocks, not tiny, and what a good way to use up all those long skinny scraps of fabric!

For silliness’ sake, I opened one of my Molly blind-box toys. It was one of those days when FCF-brain was in abundance, I was tired, oh, and about a billion other things, and it was only lunchtime. I make a big deal out of opening these little toy boxes (Baby Molly stands about 4″ tall) by taking it in to sit by my husband in the office and asking him to watch. It was love at first sight with this version, but the motto on the card told me everything: “I can handle it.” (Like, get a grip on things.) The Molly store is far away from us, so I bought two and saved one for Bad Days. Or Good Days.

I have been a collector of political trinkets for ages, even buying one for George Bush from a vendor on the street when we travelled in China in 2001 (after the fact, I know). I have a tin in my trunk holding badges going back to Nixon, the first President I ever voted for (my generation was the first batch of 18-year-olds to get the vote). So when Carol sent me these, I am quite happy to wear them to wherever I go, trying to put country over party, having voted both ways in my life. But won’t we all be happy when these interminable election cycles go away next week!

Please notice I am wearing my Halloween vest in the photo above. I get to wear it about 3x a year, and it makes me smile.

Last October, I was also in Bologna eating persimmons with nuts for breakfast. My husband, Dave, found some more persimmons here at the street market, and we’ve been enjoying them. We peel them, dig out the giant seeds (some varieties have them, some don’t), cut them in half and add a few nuts. Be sure to wait until they are really really soft. If you have a tree, here’s some info and then my version of Persimmon Bread.

I had to look up when my mail-in ballot would be counted. It’s been counted! We’ve used mail-in ballots for a while, and they are so convenient. Last cycle we took them to the drop box at our county building, but this year? The mailbox in front of our own home was so appealing to this FCF-brain. But on balance, we have stupid stickers. After seeing other states’ versions online, our state needs to step up its game.

This year I’ve seen several quilt-a-longs (to get the free patterns you have to agree to sign up for the mailing lists of all the people involved). This one that I’m interested in right now, the #sweaterweathersampler, led me to the QuiltScouts, where I found these badges and stickers. They have more badges, but they ask you to be “on your honor” in buying only the ones that apply. I qualified for most of them, which is what happens when you’ve been quilting for a bazillion years.

On a day where I was feeling better, I opened up my bin of painterly fabrics that I’ve been collecting for a while. I had wanted to make the first pattern (below).

But since they didn’t have any of that panel left I improvised, still using fabric from Shell Rummel (along with William Reue, and snippets from Deborah Edwards & Melanie Samar). I just noticed they’ve updated the pattern (on the right) to accommodate the newest panel and line. My only advice is to lay it out on a large flat surface when stitching everything together. I just sewed, like normal, and when I finished, the left side of the quilt was about 6″ longer from the right, and I still can’t figure out how that went wrong (FCF-brain?). But I fixed it, and have finally figured out how I want to quilt it.

This is me, on the patio of our City Hall building on the Saturday where I went from “being over covid” to feeling crummier and crummier by the end of our tour and rebounding into covid, a ~~surprising~~ frustrating experience. But at least I have this cool photo of this inset medallion, because you know us quilters: always looking for pattern and color wherever we can. And I’m happy to have covid in 2024, not 2020, when we all suffered through the horrific pandemic. And interestingly, that’s the time period of Peggy Orenstein’s book, which brought to memory how awful it all was, and to what a debt we owe so many who took care of us all.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Orenstein, when talking about the mortification of being judged (often harshly) for what we make, which often discourages us:

The alternative, and the best defense against those potentially psychologically lethal blows, is to focus more on experience than evaluation: to resist “good” and “bad” altogether and instead ask questions, identify what works, wonder what can be improved. It’s recognizing that the gift of creativity is in the way it challenges you, allows you to make meaning, enriches your life.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Cozy Winter, from the journal Les Nouvelles, published by France Patchwork, issue 160. Seen at the Carrefour European Patchwork Quilt 2024 show.

300 Quilts · Quilt Patterns

Eclipses: Aren’t we so lucky?

October 7, 2023December 6, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Way back in the darker ages, eclipses were thought to run the gamut of Should Never Be Looked At, to fear and terror. Nowadays, thanks to NASA and all the people like me who love the heavens, eclipses are a big deal, and rightfully so. Way back in the day, I made this quilt and titled it Annularity, never dreaming I might be able to see an a real-life annular eclipse, but it’s going to happen in a week!

And. . . I made another quilt to celebrate. This one is called Eclipse, and is an easier –much, much easier — quilt to whip up to watch the Real Annular Eclipse. Next week! (Have I mentioned that before?) Here’s proof:

Yeah, I’m pretty interested in this.

I missed the big one a few years ago, and I’m determined not to miss these two, and am hoping that the weather in Southern Utah will cooperate. Historically, we have a good chance:

(Who makes up these charts? I don’t know, but I’m all in.)

Scenes from the Missed Eclipse in 2017:

We stayed in Southern California, and I doled out glasses and made eclipse cookies and friends came over. I hear libraries are passing out the solar glasses this year, but you can also rustle some up on Amazon, if you hurry. You HAVE to have them to gaze heavenward. If no glasses, then look at shadows:

Even the shadows in a far-away eclipse are cool. I’ve read advice to take colanders or steamer inserts to hold over white paper to see all the quirky shadows. Yes, I will. Okay, back to threads and fabrics and eclipse patterns.

This was my first thinking: to have the narrow sashing do a dance of colors, too. My husband helped me decide, and yeah — it’s fun, but you lose the eclipse blocks.

So I took out all the colorful bits in the sashing, and then put a narrow black border on it.

I will send it to the quilter when I return home, and get it ready for April 2024.

And because you might want a dedicated eclipse quilt, too, I made you two patterns. The Eclipse pattern you will have done in two days. Anularitywill be finished by the next solar eclipse. These sales are on until the end of the Annular Eclipse — like in a week. So head to my pattern shop if you want either a quick and easy — or many pieces, but beautiful — pattern. {Note: Sale has expired.}

And in case you aren’t the least bit interested in the heavens, but love a field of flowers, I illustrated this version just for you. All you Kaffe lovers, those centers are calling out for some fussy cutting. All info is on the pattern.

I hope you get a chance to wander outdoors next Saturday, and either with your glasses, or a sheet of white paper, take a look at the dance in the heavens.