Time Flies Whether You Are Having Fun or Not

February 27, 2026March 3, 2026 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

250 years have flown by, to be exact.

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.

Free Pattern and How-Tos

Two links on this one: Head here to get the Free Worksheet to make the quilt, and a look at the final quilt finish: Betsy’s Creation.

I have two quilts for this 250 Celebration I’m dithering between:

I saw this at Carol’s “Celebration Station,” a little display she changes out every month. It’s from Timeless Traditions, and is titled Flag Day. It finishes at 36″ square, so not-too-big. And I already have the pattern!

Another idea is just making a ton of star blocks in different sizes and arranging them.

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.

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!

The Stay At Home Round Robin 2026 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 that prompt has been posted.]

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:

Left is Emily, from The Darling Dogwood, and on the right is Wendy from Pieceful Thoughts. Many more, later.

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!

Quick Quilt · Quilts · Tiny Quilts

Teeny Quilt for St. Patrick’s Day

March 16, 2022September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

May your pockets be heavy, and your heart be light;
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.

And may you have a few a minutes to stitch yourself up a little Teeny Quilt on a Frame for St. Patrick’s Day. Pattern is a free PDF download:

st.-patricks-teeny-quilt Download

I’m adding this to the Main Page of Tiny and Teeny Quilts on a Frame, so you can always find it there.

This teeny quilt on a frame was inspired by two things: this March pillow from Stash Fabrics (from Riley Blake’s Year of Pillows).

And because a dear friend of mine, who is by all rights and purposes is Irish (even though she was born and raised in the United States), has had a bad dose of it this year, and I didn’t want her to be forgotten on her favorite day. She’s the one who would hand out pots of shamrocks to her friends on St. Patrick’s Day. She and her husband have also gone to Ireland about a dozen times, and I never tire of her bopping out with phrases in the way they say them in Ireland. She gardens like no one else, loves saints and sinners and babies and her family with a fierce love, including her friends in that welcoming aura.

While I machine appliquéd the hearts on the pillow, I decided that for such a small project, I would fuse the hearts on.

I put a light crease at the halfway mark — both ways — to get those hearts perfectly centered.

A simple topstitch with green thread, then a white echo, then stipple everywhere else. I’ve learned not to get too “over-the-top” on the quilting with these tiny quilts: the design is the most important, not the quilting.

I cut my binding strips 1 1/2″ wide and use the single-fold binding technique (post is also found in the Tutorials, Techniques, and Freebies, above). I use a glue stick to get it into place, then topstitch down the binding 1/4″ away from the edge and no farther. This ensures that you can slide your picture frame into the pocket on the back.

Happy Making to you all–

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Free Quilt Pattern · Something to Think About · Tiny Quilts

Weary | Hopeful

November 26, 2020December 24, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Blog-writing for other organizations can sometimes make me weary. I’ve been the blog-writer for a local guild here, and the other day — Blog Writing Day, as I like to call it, when everything stops and I won’t do one more thing before writing out the news and stuff for the organizaion — I sat at the computer, my mind blank. I wrote the usual paragraphs, then wondered if I should delete some of it, as I am turning everything over to a new person in a month, and would she want to have to write this in her tenure? It all became very complicated, trying to write what’s in someone else’s head, in someone else’s world.

When I write for this blog, on the other hand, I try to find some space and some quiet — a recent challenge during covid-time and we’re all shut in our houses together.

The conditions of these two aforementioned things may explain why you haven’t see a post from me in some time. But here goes.

Part of the title of this post, weary, might describe us all at this time. We’ve been covid-ing since March (wearying), made it mostly through an election (wearying), our energy levels are low, and now we are all putting up our Christmas lights early, trying to bring in some light into this weary world of ours. Ours went up last Saturday, and since we celebrated Thanksgiving early — a social distanced, outside on our patio, meal with local family this past Sunday — all our Christmas decor is creeping in to the house, well before the end of Thanksgiving Day.

It feels right. We need something to celebrate, to rejoice in, and I am looking to the familiar warm-hearted feelings that the Christmas season can bring, and if that means early tinsel and lights and nutcrackers, bring it on. If that means putting out the Christmas quilts, and pillows and table runners, I’m in. Christmas tunes? Now on the playlist.

I was trying to think of ways to help lift the weary and wondered if you were interested in a quilty make to up the holiday cheer. If so, here are two possible ways:

This is a teeny little quilt (4″ x 6″) that can be slipped over a frame. These make cute gifts for friends, for shut-ins, for people you visit but who are still fretting about their gain of the Covid-fifteen-so-no-more-chocolates-please. Directions are found *here.*

This is my field of Christmas trees, made so long ago from *this free tutorial* and which needs to be finished. What always stops me in a project is that I get plans which then complicates everything to that something perfect in my mind, which then shifts me to never-getting-it-finished. Keep in mind that just participating in the act of creation (like our quilts and blocks –and even wooden blocks on barns), can help us feel better about life.

Example of Complicated (work in progress):

Example of Uncomplicated:

Pumpkins quilt top, finished Tuesday night

Maybe December 2020 is the season for simple, for easy, for uncomplicated. Maybe it’s the time for bringing light, for sharing our lives, for writing holiday cards, letting people know we are still here. And next year, when we’re all vaccinated (my Christmas 2021 wish) and we’re out and about and full of vim and vigor and excitement, and even in spite of all the recovery work that will be around us, we’ll not be weary.

We’ll be hopeful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Free Quilt Pattern · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Red, White and Blue · Shine: The Circles Quilt · Tiny Quilts

Happy Fourth of July Block!

July 4, 2020July 3, 2020 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

I decided to give my Shine: The Circles Quilt blocks another run, prompted by a backdoor agreement that won’t be mentioned at this point, but when/if it happens, I will be more than happy to splash it all over.

This time, the blocks will coalesce into one pattern, which will soon be available up on my pattern site, PayHip.

I remember my Clothing and Textiles teacher telling me that the inside of a garment is where the real story is. So here is the inside of this circle. Carol showed me her Red, White and Blue stack of Mackinac Island prints from Minick and Simpson, and yes, they arrived at my house probably only a day after they arrived at her house. (Quilt friends can be quite wicked that way.)

They, of course, are last year’s treasure, but I’ve been finding other prints that have been joining the stack growing to the side of my cutting table. And Minick and Simpson do have a companion collection coming out later this year, so we’ll see if I need any more.

I call this first block Swirlygig, but it floats a different direction than the original block.