Curves take Stay at Home Round Robin #4 by Storm!

February 16, 2026February 17, 2026 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

This is where I left Round Three of the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR 2026), our last round. The new prompt for Round Four was “curves.” I’d been writing up my posts from the quilt show I attended in France last year, the Carrefour European Patchwork Show, and kept seeing some curvy eye candy from 2025 and 2024:

And I’d also been working on a new quilt (my Blossom pattern):

And these two borders (from earlier quilts) were running around in the back of my mind, too.

And if you can throw a rainbow in somewhere, why not? This was the sketch I drew up.

I am a fan of cutting my leaf/petal shapes out of freezer paper, putting the shiny side up, then ironing the seam allowance up over the edge.

Sometimes, if I cut the paper too liberally, I have to shave off the points to get them to fit. You can see the cuttings from this pair. I learned that it’s easier to sew all the background squares together, then appliqué the shapes.

Finished, and putting away my recent birthday present from my husband: red scissors. I often carry around a small image of what I’m working on, as I sew in many places. This round it was my son’s home, a long car ride, and a doctor’s office where invariably someone asks what I’m doing.

SAHRR Tip Sheet Round Four Download

Here’s the handout from this week, with the size I worked up (3 3/4″ petals) and a 3 1/2″ size (more common). Click on title to see the handout, and click on download to get one for yourself, free.

Even though I measured and measured, I still had to add on a coping strip on two edges. I think it looks okay, though. (Update 2/17/26: a daytime photo, plus two detail shots.) Dimensions: about 43″ square.

Making Curves is the theme for Round Four of the Stay at Home Round Robin. I’ve seen some pretty terrific curves this round,

Many thanks to the hosts and organizers of this fun experience. Only two more prompts to go!

The SAHRR schedule:
*January 14: Center Blocks, led by Gail and shared by each co-leader
*January 21: 1st Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs
*January 28: 2nd Round: Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
*February 4: 3rd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
*February 11: 4th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 18: 5th Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 25: 6th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
[An asterisk* means I finished that section.]

Referenced Posts

Carrefour European Patchwork Show Index/Main Page

Sunny Flowers Quilt (Blockbase+ Launch)
Sunny Flowers Quilt: tips on making a leafy/petal border

Twilight Garden

Clothing · Sewing

The Sublime and the Mundane

January 15, 2023August 31, 2025 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

The Mundane

That is, if making a Wild Geese quilt block can be considered mundane, which makes me think back to the Days of the Babies, when the only time I could find to sew was about a 45-minute block once they went down for naps (and only if I weren’t taking one, too). But those minutes might be considered sublime, don’t you think?

You can read my Instagram post to find out why I was trying to beat the blahs, but in a nutshell…it’s January. Need I say more?

73 years ago. *Nice to know I’m not the only one — thanks for all your nice comments on IG.*

Because I was inspired by this beautiful quilt made of half-square triangles, and because I’d promised a grown grandson a quilt long ago in blue and white, I drew this one up in EQ8 and thought “Gosh, I could do a block a day and have it finished by the end of January.”

Yes, that goal is a far cry from barely being able to drag yourself out of bed, but it’s that thing about small steps, about sticking with a task, about creating. I listen to most episodes of the Ezra Klein podcast and found that a recent one, on “Sabbath and the Art of Rest” contained so much great advice for me personally. I learned a lot about the idea of the Sabbath, of taking a rest, of leaving space, of joyfully getting together. The guest, Judith Shulevitz, was fascinating, the conversation sublime and at one point she said this nugget:

“[I]t’s like anything else. It’s like writing, for example. You sit down, you don’t want to write, but you got to write. And there will be three hours when it’s a slog and that one hour when your mind opens up, and you’re in the flow, and you get it. You get why you’ve created the schedule where you have to sit at your desk from 9 to 1, or whatever it is, as unpleasant as that may be, as many conflicts as there may be. And nothing good is easy….You have to work to get to the experience of flow, to get the experience to the experience of God, to get to that what Émile Durkheim…called effervescence, which is that collective joy.”

I made the 5″ finished triangles from my stash, using the 8-at-a-time method, then made one more HST to get nine. This quilt will finish as a large lap size. The first two large squares (white and blue) were cut at 12″ square, then marked as shown. I sewed on either side of the diagonal lines, cut on all drawn lines, then pressed and trimmed to 5 1/2″ square. It went very fast. Just what I needed for January. Was I in the flow? Did I experience effervescence? Not really, but it was a mood lifter, for sure, to see my progress pinned up on the design wall.

The Sublime

My husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and after we crossed off the yacht, the furs, and the jewels from the list, I said I wanted to go the Bowers Museum in Orange County and see Guo Pei’s exhibit of her couture clothing. So who is she? If you remember back to the Met Gala in 2015, when Rhianna wore that gorgeous yellow dress…that was Guo Pei.

Many of these dresses took thousands of hours to make, and are heavily embellished. The shoes can be outrageous, too. This is not the clothes you wear for schlepping around to the grocery store, but they are the clothes that are admired, that ideas come from, maybe even a bit of effervescence. Enjoy. {Click on an image to enlarge it.}

So many of the clothes were made from man-made materials, a huge departure from our quilting world insistence on natural fibers. I loved this fringed dress.

My sister Susan came down for my birthday weekend, and she, my husband Dave, and I all liked this grouping the best. This was from a collection she titled Chinese Bride 2012. These were made of silk, with gold and colored threads used for the embroidery of “standard and shaded satin stitches.”

I’ll put some video up on Instagram and link it in a couple of days.

A movie was made about her (here’s the trailer):

Thank you, Guo Pei, for your beautiful clothes.

Look what we found when we came out: a very fancy quinceañera dress!

P. S. This was fun to see. It’s all my Instagram monthly markers for 2022.

300 Quilts · Sewing · Something to Think About

Little Bits

October 17, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

“Human beings are creatures made for joy. Against all evidence, we tell ourselves that grief and loneliness and despair are tragedies, unwelcome variations from the pleasure and calm and safety that in the right way of the world would form the firm ground of our being. In the fairy tale we tell ourselves, darkness holds nothing resembling a gift.
“What we feel always contains its own truth, but it is not the only truth, and darkness almost always harbors some bit of goodness tucked out of sight, waiting for an unexpected light to shine, to reveal it in its deepest hiding place.”
by Margaret Renkl, from her book, Late Migrations

I have spent the better part of the last two weeks working with my daughter on her Fall 2021 Lookbook on packaging for mac makers, published Tuesday. She purchased Affinity Publisher and took a stab at working in it, her first time using some sort of design software. (Good for her.) We used all her photos of all her macs (she had over 400, but we winnowed it down to about 70); however, I was quite entranced with Page 19 of her book: it was about little bits, and how these ends of ribbon bolts or tiny clips, or shaped pieces of paper could embellish a package.

The artists above (L) Alayne Spafford and (R) Anna Mac are making art with a gallery of tiny things.

All my life I’ve been enamored of little things. As a child, I once shaved the wood off the tips of 7 colored pencils with my father’s discarded razor blade, broke off the tips, and made a teeny set of colored pencils, complete with their own paper case (also handmade). I have collections of tiny things, in jars, in boxes, in drawers. Obviously I was drawn to the sewing world, with all of its collections of tiny bits (thimbles, needles, wee scissors and of course, scraps).

So when our Inland Modern Quilt Guild decided to host Berene Campbell, showing her idea of a Mini-mod Block Swap (they are all 1 1/2″ finished), I was all in. Earlier this year, I helped make advertisements for the guild’s blog, and I put together all those shapes using Affinity Designer. (Again, I mention this software so you know you can buy an excellent digital design software for about $55. That’s $55 once, not a monthly fee.)

She uses this concept–of going around and talking to Guilds as a charity fundraiser, but the guilds will sort out how to set up the swap, and she gives good support. Her series of YouTube videos help anyone make tiny bits of a block.

Three of my four batches of bitty blocks (2″ unfinished) have arrived.

All arrayed in rows.

I made a bunch to send out but I got confused and made too many. They joined what I had received.

An afternoon of playing with solid scraps yielded this bundle of wee blocks.

The challenge from our Guild is to make something for our December meeting from all our blocks. I have an idea, but it’s a bit of one, so I’m holding onto it and letting it grow. I did pretty well in the last challenge, winning the vote at the Guild Meeting. That made me more than a bit happy. Thank you, Guild Members.

I read many bits of happiness when I read all your comments on your Happy Days. From start to finish, they were all wonderful, inspiring. I loved how often they included family and friends, fall traditions, and near misses with disaster. My husband and I read them together, commenting on how often you epitomized the Renkle quote from above, finding how “darkness almost always harbors some bit of goodness tucked out of sight” and I love that you shared them with me, with others.

I did choose a recipient (Pat A.), and have sent her a note to arrange the mailing of the jelly roll. Thank you again to Sherri McConnell for donating this so I could host the giveaway.

But most of all, thank you for sharing your Little Bits (and some Big Bits) of Happy Days. It was a treasure.

Fall leaves, Alexandria, Virginia: I lived there for a year and ended up scanning so many leaves on my flatbed scanner, as I loved them all and wanted to capture them forever!

Gridsters · Sewing

April Flowers

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Gridster Bee April 2020

We had our April showers this week, and while the verse says that the flowers aren’t supposed to show up until May, Nancy of Patchwork Breeze, our Queen Bee for the Gridsters this month, asked us to make these giant blooms for her block…so I made her two, just because at this time of Being Shut In, why not? It’s the Totally Tulips Quilt from Missouri Star.

Yellow Quilting Tools Block

I also am attracted to happy, yellow posts, and this one from Karolina fit the bill. She brings string-pieced blocks to a new level with her photo styling.

Roz Chast Cartoon April 2020 COVID — Roz Chast says it best.

Oliver Meme

More Instagram memes, which also remind me to be grateful that I’m esconced in a house with a sewing room with all that I need to sew.

April Masks_35 — Beauty Queen in an Face Mask

I chose to put a little dart at the nose and chin of my accordian mask with ties. I had run out of elastic when I made this batch. Then the universe, and Elin, smiled on me, providing more elastic for more masks. While I am choosing to serve our country during this critical time by making a few masks, I think there are very many ways to serve. Maybe your best way is to stay home, or take care of your children, or bring a neighbor some groceries, or put something in the mailbox for your mailman (I usually put treats, but yesterday I left a mask), or treat the people with who you live with a little more patience, or call up someone who is alone and have a chat. We can all do our part.

Somewhere in this mess of a house, or in my garage somewhere I have a whole box of black pipecleaners that could be used for shaping in a face mask. Can I find them? No, but I found a box of my grandmother’s large silver hairpins, given to me upon her death several years ago. Thank you, Grandma, for doing your part in donating wires for face masks!

I updated my Face Mask page, after getting the official names for masks. I found another version on the Washington Post website, so now you have your pick of what you can make — if you need to for your family/friends/health care workers. Our county put a “wear a mask” mandate out there at the beginning of the week, the neighboring county did it yesterday, and Los Angeles will adopt this as well. If you don’t have a mask made of batik, then good-quality quilting cotton will do, and in a pinch, a bandana.

Why are you doing it that way Meme

This hit a little close to home.

Our church is inviting everyone to fast and pray with us — or just think on it, if you aren’t affiliated — this week on Good Friday. Our main ideas are “that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized.” I personally can’t do much for the caregivers, health workers, scientists who are scrambling to find us treatments and vaccines, but I can pray and fast that the suffering may end soon, and that those who are on the front lines, supported.

Discouraged Sailors Advice Meme