Or, the Almighty Sawtooth. Or the Magnificent Sawtooth. Or the Sawtooth Supreme. But first:
The famous novelist, Joyce Carol Oates, talked about what she turns to after she finishes a novel, as she described herself then as spent, and empty. Poetry, she said. I was sitting in that audience when she gave that talk, and it taught me the value of not abandoning the craft when weary. But it also taught me that it’s okay to take a moment after going full steam ahead, a thousand hours a week, pedal-to-the-metal. This week was one like that, maybe not like writing a novel, but the always On, always Going, and by Thursday, I turned to my kind of poetry: sawtooth stars.
A rendering of a current popular pattern, but I’ve done this before:
“This” being to make an outer frame of the sawtooth’s Flying Geese blocks, and insert a design in the center. Why do we like the Sawtooth Star so much? I think the answer to that lies also in why we like star blocks so much. And it was to this I returned this week, after dancing around with multiple combinations of everything for the Granny Square blocks.
I’ve had this sawtooth star idea floating around my sewing room for probably five years, the how-to sheet pinned to my design wall just to the side (see the free download at the end). It was time. The large block measures 20″ finished.
The handout/pattern is pretty loosey-goosey but after you make the inner quadrants, trim them to 5 1/2″ square, making sure you are centered with your ruler. And maybe also centered in your soul. Kidding.
As I mentioned, these are jumbo blocks, 20 inches square, finished. The one on the left is destined to be quilted and then made into a pillow for — what else? — Flag Day, which is today! (Put out your flag and celebrate America’s 250!) The multi-hued block will probably kick around my sewing room for another few years until I decide what to do with it.
But there is one more.
Yellow and blue are two of my favorite colors.
This came from when I was experimenting with BlockBase+ software and wanted to insert blocks into a different frame than a Sawtooth. Original post is here.
And now I wanted to finish this idea.
Here’s something I sketched up in my Affinity Designer software. That’s a total of 64 sawtooth blocks surrounding my houses, and finishes at about 55 inches square, a nice wallhanging size. I included the info when I revised the Build Me A House pattern. (It’s a PatternLite pattern: cheap.)
This block finishes at 6″ square — after spending several hours on the two jumbo sawtooth stars, this was made in a blink of an eye, it seemed like.
First one done, sixty-three to go. That blue fabric in the center square is from my very first quilt. I try to slip it into my current quilts when I have a chance.
It’s been lovely to spend some time writing poems–
Before I sewed on the top Flying Geese: I thought it looked kinda cool.
If you are honoring the 250 anniversary of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, be sure to visit the Official America 250 website. There are some fun ideas on there to commemorate and celebrate!
Because I’m a traditional American, a put-out-my-flag sort of gal on the 4th of July, with maybe adding a rootbeer float and maybe a hot dog to go along with it, I’ve been thinking about how I want to celebrate the 250th of our founding of our country.
And yes, I want to make another quilt, and thought I’d throw out a couple of red, white and blue ideas for you and your 250th celebration.
It’s a long story, but this is the red, white and blue version of my EPP quilt, made during covid. The title is I Hear American Singing and references all of us, our differences and how we all sing the song that is America (minus the bad guys, of course). Most all of the block patterns are free here on this blog, so have fun downloading them. The page that has all this info is An EPP Quilt: Circles. Each pattern has a corresponding blog post that’s a tutorial, if you need it.
This hot mess was a Friends Quilt, but I like the idea of a bunch of stars. Very cool background, I must say, but this was in the days when I thought a bunch of random blocks equaled a quilt. I mean, it kind of does…in a way.
This is a better example of what a quilt of many blocks can/should be: Carol Gillen’s Sacajawea quilt; pattern by Minick and Simpson.
Carol’s pup on a red, white and blue: pattern is This is Land That I Love, by Amy Smart. If you can’t tell, Carol’s kind of my go-to for red, white and blue quilts.
My friend Susan designed a star quilt using blue and white stars, called Under Southern Skies (she’s from Australia). She has a free tutorial, if you’d like to make it.
I also like wee red, white and blue quilts. The free instructions are on this post.
Erica Jackman just did a Quilt-A-Long on this last year, another pattern I already have.
Anja showed this on her blog, and I love the randomness of this, as well. You can read about it here. If I were to do this, I might throw in a few of my Sawtooth Blocks from my pattern, as I like the different centers:
And of course, there are millions of Quilts of Valor designs out there on the web. I also plan to read a book in tandem with my historian sister Susan, someone who can guide me through understanding about just what our Founding Fathers were trying to get to. The one we’ve chosen was featured in an interview that Judy Woodruff from PBS did the other night.
There are many good books to read about our early history, and of course plays to see, parades to go to, quilts to stitch up.
But another aspect of How Time Flies has to do with the SAHRR 2026 quilt-a-long I’ve been a part of. As always, thanks to the organizers and hosts!
We’ve reached the last prompt, and it was “Quilter’s Choice.” I think Anja has experience in these, because Prompt #6 was just what I needed after a mad smash to get all the words created and stitched on to the four panels surrounding the quilt.
(bad lighting…we are both tired)
My choice right now is to rest, and get ready for the Top/Quilt reveal on March 25th. I have a couple of simple borders in mind to tie everything together. I am so happy you all encouraged me to keep going, go forward in stitching down the words. I love how they look!
This has been a sprint, but to think that just six weeks has passed since we started and there are so many lovely quilts to be seen. I’ll include the final Linky party when my quilt is complete, but for a taste, here’s a couple I loved:
Until then, maybe give a wee thought about how you will celebrate the 250th celebration of our country? Part of it I will endeavor to work to ignore the noise and chaos generated artificially by pronouncements or tweets or truths or influencers. I will think about what I love about being an American, and how living here has shaped me, changed me, helped me. I will think about ways I can help others to see the beauty and joy (and work to change the things that are ugly or that make me angry).
And I will quilt!
This belongs to the quilt at the top of the post. Pretty funny to see what I wrote, since it was during our current president’s first term. I guess turmoil and chaos goes with his presidency!
I used a new-to-me number generator, rolling electronic dice and it came up with number 10. So Karen, you are the lucky winner of the pattern. I’ve already emailed you and we’ll get the pattern sent off. And just like a roll of the dice, we are off and running into this New Year, and I’ll start with a This and That post, as I’ve been saving them up for a while.
There always seems to be a pile of tips for the New Year, whether or not you are one to do resolutions. I prefer to think of these as tips for getting started on a road trip. How about these:
I thought some Route 66 stamps — which will be issued this year in honor of The Mother Road’s 100th birthday — need to join my stamp stash.
And these! Confession: I like small square things, like quilt blocks, stationary items or stamps. Always in our house we have stamps for about 300 letters because I love stamps. I saw some of Harriet Powers’ quilts when I traveled back to Boston, and met Carol there at the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston. Good memories.
Speaking of roads, did I mention I had two quilts accepted to next week’s 2026 Road to California quilt show? The quilts’ split portrait is above, in front of a local modern building I love.
I’ve had some great correspondence with Beth R., and she sent me a couple of her quilt photos, which I really enjoyed. I’d asked about them because she’d done some squircle blocks, and I was interested in her process for her quilt. She wrote:
“One of my favorite new things to do is when I make a more “regular” quilt, like all Log Cabins or all Courthouse steps (albeit wonky improv versions, with lots of scraps) is to make improv blocks at the same time as I am making the “regular” quilt, with the offcut smaller pieces that don’t fit into that regular design, and I just set them aside at the time, each day while I am making that “regular” quilt, to “clean up” the scraps of the day. Then as soon as I get the current “regular” quilt bound, I begin the very next quilt starting from those improv blocks, and add as many more blocks as I need, of the same/similar colors.”
I thought this was a really great idea, and also thought of my stuffed-to-the-max orphan block box, and how much easier it would have been to follow Beth’s ideas. I’m putting this out there for everyone else; thank you, Beth!
In browsing the news, I came across an article about Sue Bender, announcing her death. I still have both of Sue Bender’s books on my bookshelf. As a quilter who has done her fair share of Amish-type quilts (and recognizes that they were the genesis of today modern quilt movement), we quilters owe Sue Bender a thank you for bringing an understanding of those communities we might not ever visit. I have since ordered the third book in the Trilogy, Stretching Lessons, and was happy to see it was a signed, first edition. I hadn’t looked at Everyday Sacred in a long while, and I had forgotten that it was given to me by my parents, my Mother’s inscription on the fly leaf reminding me.
From the New York Times article (gift link, above): “She wrestled with the tension between being a woman who hated housework and defined herself by her artwork and professional achievements, and her desire to internalize the Amish sense of identity that came from community, godliness and manual labor.”
from Plain and Simple: In writing about her To-Do lists: “I never thought to stop and ask myself, “What really matters?” Instead, I gave everything equal weight. I had no way to select what was important and what was not. Things that were important didn’t get done, and others, quite unimportant, were completed and crossed off the list” (p. 7, Bender). “All work is important. All work is of value” (p. 138, Bender). “What really matters?” (p. 148, Bender)
from Everyday Sacred: ” ‘Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.’ Saul Bellow” (p. 2, Bender)
Maybe a little bit too far back into the past for some, but it is lovely to read IN a time where the author wasn’t living with the instantaneousness of social media and the internet, but took the time to think about what she felt, and how she wanted to work. I find so much of the time I’m reacting to what is going on around me; certainly we live in an era of in-your-face politics and news. But the last few nights I’ve immersed myself in her writing and in her thinking, and it’s helped me cope with the terrible news we’ve been having this week (I’m not linking to it; either you know about it or you don’t).
I was struck by what many of you mentioned when you left comments last week. It was your relationships with your people, for one. Others had ways to keep their proverbial chin up and I especially liked Mary’s: “Look for things to be happy or hopeful about instead of focusing on the parts of our world that are going to hell.” Yvonne mentioned “dark chocolate” (a woman after my own heart). Kit reminded me to “Don’t rush. Enjoy. Life is not a fire drill.” These were just some of the tidbits of wisdom and slivers of your thoughts. Thank you all. (And I just appreciate Sharon’s illustration, even if it is from a couple of years back.)
I found the downloadable chart to be informative. Here’s the link. Thanks, Bob!
Zeitgeist is one of my favorite words. It’s that description when something is just all around you, and you see it different places, but they are not the same thing. Technically, it refers to history, but I use it more colloquially. Like the following two things. First, mine, from our Covid Year, 2020:
and then what I did with the rest of my ideas:
Twenty-three different types of Sawtooth Stars.
Now one from 2025:
Same idea, different execution. It’s in the zeitgeist.
I called mine Sawtoothmania, because it was kind of a like a celebration of Sawtooth Stars. (And weren’t we all a little manic in 2020?) I just put my pattern on sale and you can get it from now until the end of January for 25% off. I had a very nice birthday last week, so consider this my gift to you if you want to make some fun stars. And if you want Leila’s pad of stars, well, you have her name and will be able to find it. (She’s very nice.)
In other construction news, I finally made good on my threat to dump the 50-year-old “workbench” table (left) and replace it with something more modern. Of course, my timing was great as we don’t use much more than a screwdriver and a hammer these days, but hey: we’re equipped. The bulky item trash people have already been called, and will be here shortly to haul a lot of that junk away.
Found this message from the Workbench Gods while cleaning out.
New Year’s service at the local car place. Still working on my squircles. It’s fun to see these on Gladi’s blog, too.
I’m getting together some lists of blogs I like to read–starting to write a post about that. If you have a blog you enjoy, drop me a comment with the name of the blog, and maybe a link to one of your favorite posts. Thanks.
Truly, it was only a matter of time until AI found me; I love how the system just makes stuff up. Hope they enjoy hoovering up all of my blog and creativity! (I am working on my Aerial Beacon pattern.)
For my birthday, I asked for three things: a trip to IKEA to buy bins, a stop at Tokyo Central to have lunch, and a final check in at Whole Foods. All of these are about an hour away from our house. Do I like Hokka biscuits? (shown above) Can’t say they are my favorite, but since I am a box sort-of gal, I loved their tins.
Happy Birthday! Happy New Year! Happy Great Food at the Tokyo Central Food Court!
All the signatures of the Gridsters, who contributed blocks to the quilt top.
the label
All photographs above by my husband or I, taken from a frontage road on the 680 freeway, to the west of Grizzly Bay and the Cordelia Slough, off Lopes Road near the Bay Area in Northern California. We just can’t resist those Northern California hills, as he and I have significant history there.
He went to UC Berkeley for his doctorate in Environmental Health Sciences (aka Toxicology), and when he wasn’t in the lab or studying his brains out, he was out in his vintage Dodge Dart exploring the Bay Area, Muir Woods and other areas. I, on the other hand, spent my teenage years in Portola Valley on the other side of the Bay, my father a professor at Stanford. We’d just come back from two years in Peru (and how we got there is another story about the life my charmed parents lived) and instead of returning to the mountain-west states, our family landed here. That was when houses were dear, but not astronomical, and somehow they pieced together a way to get a house on a professor’s salary. I grew up in the wooded hills, the large California Oaks standing alone in the the golden grasses in autumn, just like they were this day, when we went hunting for a place to photograph my quilts.
One of my children was born not too far from this place; however, my husband and I didn’t know each other then. As we drove down to my brother’s house from the Sacramento area (where this same Mr. Claus took this Mrs. Claus to get her Christmas present…more on that later), I narrated where I used to drive this child to the orthodontist, where he went to the surgeon to correct his cleft lip and palate, where I visited the attorney for my divorce. Then my husband took his turn in narration: the place where he used to go to school, his tale of arriving for grad school on a Friday, then heading to San Francisco on Saturday, to see what was there, all before beginning his studies on Monday. We drove by the Oakland Temple, of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints, where we first met on a hot July evening, and gradually fell in love, sitting on the low stone wall around the property on summer nights, just talking, and watching the shimmer of lights from across the bay as we figured out how a newly-divorced woman with four children could fall in love with a single, brilliant young man, and about how they could take the leap together into a new life, the fertile ground of the northern California hills under their feet.
And so we did leap: into a life of raising children, of tracking the academic life, of quilting, of learning. It’s been a good journey, with lots of love, a few intense discussions, a life of forgiveness and kindness, a happy and creative life together…all of this reminiscing while finding a place to photograph a few Sawtooth Stars.
Other Posts with Sawtoothmania: Sawtoothmania! – the beginning of this quilt Some Thoughts on Our Nation’s Milestone — where Sawtoothmania makes an appearance at the end stars shining brightly — a sister to this quilt The Ides of March — where a few blocks show up after we build a new design wall, and I write about possessions, and an old recipe held together with a straight pin Tiny Envelope & More Blocks — where I wrote you a free tutorial to make those very cute signature blocks on the back of the quilt
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 