The Friction of a Hawaiian Quilt Block

July 12, 2026July 10, 2026 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

Occasionally in Adam Mastroianni’s substack there are these fascinating-makes-me-think-or-go-aha sorts of observations. His missive this week happened to coincide with two other events: a couple of days at the beach and the making of a Hawaiian quilt block.

First, the quilt block. I posted I was starting this Hawaiian style of quilting and immediately a couple of quilters commented that it was a total fail for them, didn’t like it, tried and never doing it again. But it was Block Two of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the Indian quilt-a-long and since I already had finished the first block, I was determined to try the second. I also have never attempted a Hawaiian Block.

Second, the days at the beach came about because one of my sons was bringing his family to Oceanside, and I asked if my husband and I could tag along for part of their trip, and then the other son, who lives in the area, also joined us. Their dog Misa is above; she hated their pool when they first moved in to their new house, but now, she loves it. (Misa, too, is a part of this.)

Back to Mastroianni. He writes “The internet gives every social trend a pair of rocket-powered roller skates, speeding it toward its…final form. On Twitter, for instance, memes go from punchy to passé in a matter of days rather than decades. But if we could play culture on 1x speed rather than 10x speed, if we had time to screw around with different strategies before the game reached its cutthroat stage, we might have discovered different paths entirely….Instead, in a hyper-competitive marketplace of ideas, we end up with the same few memes, all done to death” (source is above).

We quilters have also been subjected to this rocket-powered roller skates. How many rainbow-ordered quilts have you seen in the last few years? How many quilts have you seen that really don’t need a pattern because they are so simple — but somehow they are everywhere and we all make one? Sometimes it is because we all read the same Instagram posts, or that the pattern writers are counting on the viral effect of social media to send sales skyrocketing. Fair. It’s a marketplace. But I can’t tell you how many guild show-and-tell nights I have sat through where every quilt somehow resembles the one before it, or the one before that.

Mastroianni calls this “de-frictioning.” He describes it like this: “We’ve forgotten how much time people in the past spent consuming content that they didn’t actually want to consume: the unskippable clunker of a song that came in the middle of an album, the late-night infomercial that you sat through because there was nothing else on, the magazine you read cover-to-cover in the waiting room….Each new media technology reduces this friction…they all allow us to spend more time with the content that we supposedly desire. And what happens when this friction goes away?”

Two Russian artists, Kolmar and Melamid, decided to find out, and interviewed people in many countries about what their most wanted painting was, and what was their least wanted painting. Here’s USA’s (source via Mastroianni):

If you were to interview quilters what their most wanted quilt block was, and what their least, what would we see? We would probably see what they were seeing the most. If they saw a lot of printed panel quilts, they may be looking for their favorite panel. If you were at a modern guild, you might get something abstract or perhaps boldly colored. We tend to go with what we see, what we are used to.

The weird thing was that so many people’s “most” pictures were similar, but their “least” pictures were quite different and interesting. Mastroianni notes that “people are capable of acquiring more interesting tastes, if you give them the chance. This is the work art does for us—it stretches our desires, rather than merely satisfying them.”

And this is the work that the little bit of friction of a new project can also do.

So what to do when a quilt-a-long comes into your view and it is a Hawaiian quilt block? Or you are moved into a house that has a swimming pool and you have never been in one before?

Or you go to the beach and get out of your regular routine and you see a group of beginning surfers feel the friction in the few inches of whitewater high up on the shore?

Then instead of sitting there like a lump, you reach into your bag and carefully pull out the pinned Hawaiian block, and really get going on it. No, it’s not perfect. You probably won’t make it again. But you don’t want to read the magazines you brought, the family is all at lunch and you are guarding their stuff, so you thread your needle and get going, and by the end of the day, and after good conversations and an occasional walk on the beach, the block may have a certain coconut suntan-lotion fragrance and perhaps some sea salt spray, but it’s mostly finished.

Another deviation from my usual.

And here’s where I got my quilter roller skates on and skated right into the sameness, but this time, happily so. More info here, and how to get her free pattern. Audrey is looking for more, so make one and send it off!

300 and Beyond · 300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Red, White and Blue · Something to Think About

Quilter Micro-Seasons • Aerial Beacon Quilts

May 31, 2026May 30, 2026 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

I read recently how Japan has multiple micro-seasons, not just our talked-about four. Some of the micro-seasons are East Wind Melts The Ice, or First Cherry Blossoms, or Great Rains Sometimes Fall. Devon Peticolas has worked out that New York City has 12, and one of my favorites is what he calls “Hell’s Front Porch.” (photos by my DH and I)

Apparently, one of my quilting micro seasons is Make Something in Red, White, and Blue. I know people who have this season year-round (Carol, I’m looking at you), but mine just comes around about every May, right around Memorial Day.

Here is The Kid Sister to Aerial Beacon, a quilt finished some time ago, but the when the Computer Ate My Homework (aka, my Patterns), it took me two more years to redraw and re-write to get the pattern out.

But now I have.

The pattern, Aerial Beacon, is now my PayHip Shop.

But there’s another there, too: Santa’s Night Ride, which was published in Simply Vintage Magazine, December 2023. The copyright restrictions are now past, so now you also can get this in PayHip, my online pattern shop.

Why didn’t I combine them? The publisher wasn’t interested in the larger quilt, but did like the smaller version, so I wrote that up and it was published. When I went back to finish up the original Aerial Beacon quilt — because I included so many photo illustrations and variations of the pattern (FPP, EPP and regular piecing), as well as three different border treatments — the page count became quite large, and I didn’t want to freak anyone out with the size of the two combined. But I’ve got them both on sale for a couple of weeks (no coupon needed) and combined it’s about the price of one pattern. (So you don’t have to choose, if you don’t want to.)

If your quilty micro-season is calling out for a red, white, and blue quilt, here’s my recipe for this one. Make the four blocks, then add a 1″ border. I added cornerstones in that border.

I tried a new-to-me half-square-triangle method when I found a small baggie of already cut blue and red/white print triangles, cut off from some other project (I have no idea what). I had recently purchased the Quilt in a Day Triangle Square Up Ruler, and I laid the 2 1/2″ marking on the stitched line, then trimmed. Then I pressed to the dark side, as always, and trimmed the dog ears. I was only lacking 7 half-square triangles for my outer border, showing that truly, I am in the right micro-season and the red, white, and blue gods are smiling down on me.

I had a bit of fabric leftover from making these center blocks, so I used that fabric in the corners of my two outer borders.

I’d originally made these red, white and blue blocks to test the Aerial Beacon pattern using the cut-out-the-pattern-pieces method, rather than using the foundation-paper-pieced method. I do think it’s easier to do the FPP method, but take your time with the first block to get the hang of it.

But since school is out in some places, and going-to-be-out-soon in others, maybe you are in your Go To The Beach micro-season, and need something seagreen and sunny. Then maybe make it up in these colors.

All three together in the garden, showing their relative sizes: 26 1/2″, 36 1/2″ and 65″ square.

I’ve been trying to think of other micro seasons for quilters. Certainly the Sew Until You Are Too Tired To See Straight could be put on the calendar somewhere around October and end the night before Christmas. There’s also the New Fabric Lines Drop, which happens right after quilt market. I can think of also think of seasons for Make a New Tote Bag (right before a trip somewhere), Clean out the Stash to Make Room For More (when you see a new group of beautiful fabrics). And I just noticed ads pushing holiday quilts: I detect another micro-season heading our way!

Whatever season you are in, savor it–

Some Real Aerial Beacons

I wrote about Aerial Beacon here, if you want to read about the genesis of it all, and here, for the early signposts, the large concrete arrows, and how airplanes navigated once upon a time (scroll down in the post to get past the Ladies’ quilt). Here are some more images.

From Underwood Archives: UIG5450625 Chicago, Illinois: July 13, 1928
The new Chicago central aerial beacon atop the Roanoke Tower will begin operation on July 15th. It will be lit by the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, and will be visible for 100 miles in every direction from LaSalle & Madison Streets in Chicago.; Photo © Underwood Archives.

This one is in the hills overlooking St. George, Utah.

Yep. I planned those airplane contrails in the background.

Creating · Quilts · Something to Think About

Yes, and…

March 29, 2026 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Yes, and… was a phrase that came tumbling into my life from two different sources, one of which was a podcast. Yes, and… is the idea that to move an idea along, first you acknowledge that idea, and then add something to it. It can work in creating. It can work in setting up your day. It can work in relationships, in collaborations.

Some related excerpts from the podcast were also about creativity, so let me just throw these here, too, at the top of this post:

“[A]n important part of creativity is that it’s joy experienced in the present, and you have to be fully present to be able to have that experience and to be there. If you are distracted or you’re not fully in it, it is not the same experience.”

“Andrew Hooverman defined creativity as two phases, divergent, which the wider you explore things, the better. Nothing’s wrong there. You are exploring everything. And then the convergence, when you look at it and go, not all this is great, you know, and editing out, but you don’t get to the one without having volume and mistakes and figuring it out. I think it’s important to keep, you know, open to possibilities, at least early on.”

And finally, “[S]ome creative pursuits are outward facing, and some are in solitude.”

(from a podcast conversation about creativity and spirituality, with Lisa Valentine Clark and James Rees)

Which led me to explore some art galleries online, a very “yes, and…” experience as I see one piece of art, and say oh yes, and…I want to see more. Here’s one example:

Rebecca Klundt, in her artist statement on the David Ericson Fine Art website, talks about using the unusable, and that “I believe that when you are driven to create, you begin to see things around you in a different light.”

Perhaps Klundt takes the yes, and… approach, and in looking at her art, filled with squares and bits and rectangles, it reminded me of our drive to take our squares and bits and rectangles and try to see them with new eyes.

*Pep*, by Caroline Hadley of geometriquilt

Where is the yes, and… in the quilting you do? Perhaps I am just in the divergent phase (as described by Hooverman above, but sometimes after finishing a big project like last week’s SAHRR 2026, I like to clean up the sewing room, tuck away the remnants of a project, evaluate how it went, what I might change.

Or maybe I’m feeling the “resistance to premature closure,” something tested for in the Torrence Test of Creativity, and I don’t want to close it down or wrap it up. Is that the source of a quilter’s UFO? Haha, I don’t think so. [For more yes, and…on this test, head here.]

All I know is that this week I:

sanded and varnished and sanded and varnished a stair rail bannister (and it’s still not done)
finished prepping the rest of my squircles, after putting them all up onto a wall to try and get some sense of the color and value shifts.
visited San Diego (husband’s scientific conference) and while there, hit three different fabric shops and kept squircling
hosted a daughter and granddaughter for a “flash visit” (less than 24 hours)
celebrated a significant birthday of someone I love, with other people I love.

Even though I’d spent a lot of the last few weeks in “keeping the closure open,” thinking a lot of yes, and…. while working with the different SAHRR prompts, I am still using the yes, and... approach to figuring out what I want to do next.

Stay tuned.

(The art in the featured image at the top of the post, which some may see, is also by Rebecca Klundt. Head to the Blog Index — listed in the header — to see all the featured images in this blog.)

300 and Beyond · First Monday Sew-day · Quilt Finish · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts · Something to Think About

Gathering Up All The Fragments • Quilt Finish

December 14, 2025December 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

The etymology of the Economy Block is — as are many popular quilt blocks — complicated. According to Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, it’s titled Economy Patch by Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger around 1935. It’s also called the This and That block, in the Kansas City Star around 1944 (you know this is a favorite phrase). And more recently, it’s been known as the Thrift Block as when Taryn of ReproQuiltLover hosted the recent #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge. I have mentioned before that this year I had been making things that helped me make things: quilt-a-longs, Block of the Month, group projects, and so forth. And so this one joined the line-up, and I finished it this week.

I needed a title for this quilt, and since in early 2020 I had taught it to a small beginning quilt group as the Economy Block, so I went with that name (although many now call it Square in a Square).

Full quilt title: Economy: Gathering Up All The Fragments.

Economy, as we think about it, means thrift. Saving. Making do with less. The exchange of goods. A dollar is worth something and everything is for sale (as the old saying goes). But the idea of economy, says one wag, is really an enigmata**:

Enigmata refers to things that are puzzling, mysterious, or riddles
OR, a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation
OR, a person of puzzling or contradictory character.
OR, a saying, picture, etc., containing a hidden meaning; riddle.

The title of this quilt comes from yet another riddle: the poet Emily Dickinson’s punctuation and shape of her small poems. Some think it began with this:

“‘Preserve the backs of old letters to write upon,’” wrote Lydia Maria Child in The Frugal Housewife, a book Dickinson’s father obtained for her mother when Emily was born. It opens: “‘The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time as well as materials.’” (from a review by Jen Bervin, titled Studies in Scale).

Like a star is small…but it is its own world.
Or an atom is small… but contains worlds.
Or fragments of fabrics are small…but put them together and they make a quilt.

In pulling fragments for this quilt, I opened bag after bag of small scraps from a decade ago, cut into 2 1/2″ squares or 3″ squares, as it had been recommended to me to do that in order to “use up your scraps.” Finally, I was using them up, so this quilt is as much a record of an era, as it is a complication of “gathering up all the fragments.”

Backing/binding is fabric from Tula Pink, and the quilting is the Continuous Baptist Fan, by Urban Elementz.

Quilt-making is an enigmata, isn’t it? We take our scraps, our fragments, cut them smaller, sew them back together to make something that expresses an idea or a sentiment. And we quilters do it over and over, saving scraps, repeating the process “so that nothing be lost.”

This is Quilt #312, and the last for 2025, as there are no more fragments of time to add to the calendar. I will, however, try to get up another post or two of the beautiful Carrefour quilts, but no promises.