Happy Valley Quilt Finish • This and That April 2024

April 28, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Need some insight into my quilting?

Here it is: the “Insight Table” for the HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen. This table was purchased in another life, in January of this year. I had avoided trying to quilt with it since so much had crowded my personal spaces. But finally, I pulled this quilt top from the closet:

June 2021 — title: Happy Valley.

It was perfect for trying to learn to quilt a new way to work with this machine. The little “eyeballs” on either side of the needle (see above) are supposed to track my movements. It’s all coordinated with a few dials and buttons on the screen, which I couldn’t figure out at first, leaving me with skips in my stitches:

I’d be moving the quilt, and it would stop, skip a stitch, then start again. The stitches were very even, but…sigh. Because this is so new, there’s not much out there on the internet. I finally figured out to up the percentage of my “Cruise Speed” to 18% (I previously had it at 11%). That seemed to fix it. This doesn’t make me go faster, but it keeps up with me when I do. I could always get even stitches when I was going really slow, but now this sensing system gives me more even stitches, a welcome assistant in my world.

I’d started sketching this out (right side, white arrow), setting the grid into the colors. However, that seemed to make the black come forward, when I wanted it to go backward. So I reversed it (left side, blue arrow).

Break for dinner. I knew I was going to be sore the next day, as I hadn’t quilted on this machine for nearly four months. (I was.)

After dinner, laid out on the floor. All the black was quilted, so I could start deciding on how I want to quilt the colors. You’ll have to take my word for it, as the camera was fighting for a proper exposure with all those reds.

I finished it up a few days later. I always have troubles when trying to figure out how to quilt borders; this one showed me as we went along.

This is quilt #250, from when I finished up the quilt top and listed it in my Index, above. Here is another post about the origins, if you are for some more reading. The original block came from my rendition of a Chinese wooden window screen, as I was fascinated by all the patterns that I saw when I went to China about a thousand years ago.

All these photos are from Shanghai. I strolled the streets while my husband was in scientific meetings. All of this was one month after 9/11; the airports were ghost towns, the streets in Shanghai had plentiful police officers. Half the people in the conference had cancelled their travel, but we were so anxious to see China (and Japan, which was also part of the trip) that we went. With great trepidation. I wrote personal letters to all the children, just in case our airplane was shot out of the sky, but the trip was a wonderful introduction to that part of the world. We’ve been back to Japan one more time, but not to China, and I doubt we ever will return.

NYBeauties Update:
I’ve mapped out a schedule for finishing the blocks, for those who are doing this with me. It will also help keep me honest, and keep me on track, especially when Leila has started a really fun foundation paper piecing freebie called Back to Nature (visit her Instagram to find out more). I’ve got to get those going, too.

Leila is incredibly talented. And the flip side is: I wish I had a better attitude for doing all those itty-bitty wedges around the outside. But it’s done, and only three weeks late. I’m so spoiled by using freezer paper on my Foundation Paper Piecing, that going back to paper (and I even used my vellum paper) is driving me nuts. I’ll have to try the next one with freezer paper.

This was a shock: QuiltMania stopped publishing. There doesn’t seem to be any information about this at all, but I do know that they, along with every other magazine, were struggling after covid. I guess they finally just ran out of the ability to go forward.

I feel fortunate that I was able to have some quilts published in their magazines. (I’ve been holding off on releasing one of my patterns, because a variation could be found in their recent Simply Vintage magazine.)
I will miss Carol’s unerring eye for bringing us new and interesting quilt shows and quilts. She made a difference in what I see and what I make. Thank you, Carol and QuiltMania.

This week I had some friends come over for a Sew Day, and one of them brought the new project she was trying out: Manx quilting, which originated on the Isle of Man.

We were all fascinated when she told us the history, and how the measurements and sizes were based on a quilter’s hand. While my friend used a rotary cutter and a ruler to help her get her fabrics ready, in traditional Manx quilting, strips were torn from worn garments. Amy Smart has a tutorial on how to make one of these blocks, typically done in red, white and blue. There are other links, if you want to do a search on this. I like the little tucks that are formed: all construction is hidden and the sewing is done by hand.

I worked on this: a new-to-me collage technique from Emily Taylor, the Collage Quilter. Unlike the Laura Heine version, this one is based on color and value, rather than shape.

My greatest challenge was not cutting out shapes that looked like jelly beans. I’m working on it, I’m working on it.

I’d purchased a roll of parchment paper from the grocery store H-E-B when were there. Who can’t succeed with a name like this (see below)?

(Really, it was just like regular parchment paper, but don’t tell the good folks at H-E-B.)

Local cherry blossoms, not plum blossoms. Here’s why I think so (no leaves, oval buds, multiple blooms on a stem).

(I call this version Summer Snowcone. Same pattern.)

This-and-That

Quilt Your Life, Quilt Your Stuff

March 24, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

For most of her life, Jessie Homer French worked without much expectation or hope of attention or sales or critical acclaim. In a recent article, she said “I paint my life, my stuff. I really, really care about the painting turning out. I’m really upset when it doesn’t. But I don’t feel any need to communicate. I’m sorry. That’s not the point.”

What a refreshing change from the inundation of famous film stars and celebrities and all those fascinating things on social media, which — in the end — draw us away from our quieter lives, or as Homer French says, being “a regular ordinary painter who hangs out in her garage, and desperately tries to make something that she likes.”

While she made this “mapestry” with thread, cloth, and embroidery, her paintings are what she’s known for:

This scene is up in the mountains above Palm Desert, Southern California area. I don’t know why this bio on her drew me in so much. Maybe it was the barren landscapes that she paints, or her focus on her creating, whether in cloth or with paints. And maybe like the stack of paintings that piled up in her garage, sending her out to find a gallery that would sell her paintings, I feel we quilters often toil quietly, with our cloth and thread, imbuing what’s in our hands with our life, our stuff.

Here’s some of my recent work:

Bit by bit, Twilight Garden is taking shape. It’s going to be a hand-work project now.

On the first day of Spring it was warm enough to set out lunch on the patio. Our conversations seem to unfurl at a slower pace out there.

We had our wisteria trimmed; the squirrel’s perch is right outside my sewing room window.

I’ve been photographing my Mother’s few journals. She was too busy to write much, ever, so they are brief and don’t cover much time. But reading them is like having a good conversation with her.

I went on (another!) trip to Utah to see this tall granddaughter come home after an 18-month mission to Argentina.

And to have lunch with my father’s sisters.

My father gave me this book many years ago, and I pulled it out this week. I found little notes tucked in addressed to me, instructing me to place some newspaper clippings he’d sent, into the back of the book. It was poignant to see his handwriting again.

It’s a weighty book, one man’s year of mourning for his father. I’ll have to take it slow, but right at the beginning this caught my heart:

“And when grief is gone? Still one may not speak of one’s parents baldly. After the twelve months of mourning, the rabbis continue, one must accompany the mention of one’s dead father or one’s dead mother with the words, ‘May his memory be a blessing for life in the world to come.’ Modern Jews have abridged this locution of piety. They speak of their dead and say ‘May his memory be a blessing,’ and they mean a blessing here, upon us. But the rabbis meant a blessing there, upon him….I can believe that the memory of our dead is a blessing here, upon us. Can I believe that it is a blessing there, upon them?”

I can only hope so. Really, I want both. As I think about my mother and father, feeling grateful at this Eastertide for their influence in all ways, I hope their memory is a blessing for them, together. And with my needle and scissors in hand, their memories and these blessings help me pass some really long days.

Quilt your stuff, everyone. Quilt your life.

Happy Easter Week!

This-and-That

February 2023 • This and That

February 27, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

I finished all the tendrils and vines and flowers and now just have the center circles to appliqué and so I started thinking, what’s next?

A border with leaves…with flower buds and occasionally not flower buds. This wasn’t my first idea, but it seems to stick. I was hoping my brain would cough up something a little wilder, like Gaugin, or something. I can’t figure out a title for this quilt-in-progress, having gone from Midnight Garden, to Twilight Garden. Which sent me down the rabbit hole of what is twilight?

I wanted a title for how flowers look when the sun has gone down but it’s not yet dark, and it turns out I have three different descriptions: civil twilight, nautical twilight and astronomical twilight. I think I was trying for nautical twilight. Stay curious and read about it here.

What else?

I used to be paranoid about releasing my ideas before they were a pattern [coming soon!], but I know whoever is looking at this won’t steal it, right? But this is how it looked in my head and this is where we are today:

Inverted Log Cabin. Yep, I sewed that last seam, raced downstairs, grabbed Dave and we snapped a photo in — what else is on my brain in this post?–twilight. I’m thinking Civil Twilight.

Now to figure out how to quilt it. I’ve been highly influenced by Christine Perrigo‘s ideas (took a class from her at QuiltCon once) about how to think outside the lines. On the left, last night’s attempt. On the right, this morning’s. I just worry that it may all obscure the center floating square. And what color of thread? I try never to start with my first ideas, but let them jell a bit.

I received this amaryllis from a friend for Christmas, and on the left is how it looked when it bloomed in December. On the right, is the flower now, nearly DOUBLE the height. Is it because it’s a low-light window? When it is on the countertop, it’s taller than I am now and almost taller than my husband. Should I stop watering it? Let it go dormant? Does this blooming ever stop? I’m looking for tips from all the amaryllis experts out there.

And it’s awards season so we get to see what all the stylists dress their clients in, as well as see Fashion Week’s street fashions, as well as things that in the shows. Mostly, I think: “There’s no way I could ever wear this!” And the Fashion Person replies, “Made you look.” Although I do like some elements of all the fashion shots above, remember, they are highly curated. By me.

That pocket is black check, sewn on in a non-factory method, on a navy-checked shirt. I think Dad sewed it on at one point, because his shirt didn’t have a pocket. Or he took it to a terrible place that had terrible machines. And where did he get the square of fabric? (He was highly resourceful, all the time.) I only took two shirts from his closet when we cleaned out, and we donated the rest to a group at the local university who lets students “shop” from the selection to look spiffed up for interviews, etc. I am pretty sure they wouldn’t be needing this one, or another worn one. I cut off collars/cuffs/buttonplackets and will use them in a project I have in mind. In the background are couple of my husband’s old shirts, too. Now if I could just find the bag with the other blocks from this Project I Have In Mind, I’d be really happy.

I have since distributed these, but I also brought home his paintbrushes. Several members of my family wanted some, and it’s nice to know he’ll be thought of, whether they are put to use, or tucked into a pencil cup. All of this is a way to re-integrate parts of my life together.

I had been feeling this way, for a bit too long. (I’m going to start calling things on my To Do List “Mysterious Activities.”) But this week I had a whole free day without anything scheduled and pushed forward on several fronts (like finishing the appliqué at the top of this post). And a quilt showed up from my quilter:

Halfway there on getting the binding on my 2023 Temperature Quilt. I am aiming to finish it by February 29th because how cool to finish a quilt on Leap Day, right?

And the last thing in What I Dragged Home from my Parents’ House Category is this reading stand. No, I didn’t get it from the parents, but it has to do with them. I borrowed my mother’s journals back from my niece and am slowly reading them. Having this, helps.

Almost done here, hang on. This is the set of trees, made for the Gridster Bee, for February. It’s from someone’s pattern, but it kind of drove me nuts, because…the center seam on the tree. (Why?) But the game in online Bees is they choose the block they want. And we make them one, or two…or three.

I went to pick up my friend to take her to her Birthday Lunch, and this gorgeous hibiscus was blooming in the rain on her front patio. Couldn’t resist snapping a photo.

And even though it’s still February, I have already put out March’s St. Patrick’s Day girl, because right before that holiday is the Dreaded Daylight Savings Time Shift on March 10th (hate it because I like morning light, and NO, DST doesn’t give you “more light”), and right after THAT ignominious day, we will have St. Patrick’s Day, then dance in our gardens for the First Day of Spring (March 19th), and and then after that we drag out the bunnies and eggs and stuff for Easter, which is the last Sunday of March. Couldn’t we have spaced these out a little more?

Happy Whatever!

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Temperature Quilt · This-and-That

This and That • January 2024

January 14, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

Sometimes the title for these posts can nudge toward the trivial, but the first thing I want to talk about was anything but trivial.

My family.

Our four children do not live near us, for some, the far-away is very-far-away, and for others, it’s a bit closer. My husband proposed taking me out to dinner for my milestone birthday, but to “prepare for photos.” And “maybe don’t wear your sneakers.” We went to our local Fancy Dining Place, The Mission Inn, which was still decked out in holiday lights. When I rounded the corner to our table, the kids were all sitting there. Oh, My! I was quite touched that they would come to celebrate with me, and they spent the next day with us, too. Quite the loveliest of birthday surprises. By Sunday, they had all gone home, and the house was very quiet.

When an opening became available, I rejoined the Gridster Bee. It was one I’d started several years ago, but I’d bowed out last year. Patti, ever capable, took over and has been a steady hand in keeping it going, as many bees dissolve after a short time. We had our kick-off Zoom call at the beginning of the month (one positive from the 2020 pandemic is this technology):

I loved seeing Carol’s Christmas quilt, one done in an earlier iteration of this Bee.

I finished this. It’s a free pattern, here on the website (keep reading). I’d started writing it ages ago, but who knows where time flies? Inside is the color key for both this 2023 (softer) version of Painter’s Palette fabrics, as well as the (bolder) version used in 2019:

I haven’t yet finished the 2023 quilt; for one, I’m still embroidering the temperature range numbers onto the Circle of Geese block that I’ve used for a key.

And about this geese pattern. It was originally made by Kelly Liddle of JelliQuilts. If I could find her again, I’d link to it. She seems to have vanished without a trace, and it’s a pretty good pattern for this sort of thing. I’ve even written to the last email I have from her, when I paid for and downloaded the pattern: Zip. Nada.

Which brings me to the podcast I listened to this past week, where Ezra Klein and his guest, Kyle Chayka, talk about how the internet isn’t fun anymore. Boring, too. And part of it is what Chayka calls the SEO-ification of the algorithm. Everything resembles everything else, as we use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get a wider reach. While this can have benefits, Chayka and Klein argue that we seem to be homogenizing our world, as every website looks like another as the robots send you to whatever you’ve liked before, and assume you will like again.

I’m fine with that, especially when I do a search on Temperature Quilts on Instagram. But I’m also not fine with it as it seems to have flattened out what we see. Like hashtags used to be an interesting way to get a range of images, from temperature quilts that began as crocheted blankets to the most recent version of houses, leaves, and birds. Now we just get the “TOP” images. Are they the top “eye-ball-getting” images? The most colorful? The most interesting? And how will we ever know what the robots, aka: algorithm, have come to choose what they are showing us.

Chayka says he misses the curated web, where various people wrote random things, like a writer went flying through a rainbow and put the colors up on a blog. A blog!?! Who writes those anymore? Well, I do. Maybe that is why I also write about quilting, but also more-than-quilting, trying to avoid being boring, and maybe to avoid having to clean up my sewing room:

(*from 2020, but it still looks the same*)

One more thing: this week is Road to California, a local, national quilt show. I’m signed up for two classes: one from Lori Kennedy (FMQ on Monday) and one from Annie Smith (Design Your Own Appliqué on Thursday). I’ll also go one more day, Saturday, so I can stay to get my quilt that is hanging in the show: Aerial Beacon.

I would take a closer photo of this, but it will have to wait until next week, when I get some pictures of it hanging in the show. If you are headed there, find me and say hi!

Here’s the Temperature Pattern download. It will stay here on my website for a bit, then move over to my Pattern Shop on PayHip. Enjoy!

UPDATE: The pattern is now over on PayHip, so head over to my Pattern Shop to download your copy.