Turning of the Year

December 8, 2024August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New succeed, as former things grow old.
Robert Herrick, from Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve

I don’t know how many more turns this life does hold, but I’m getting better at recognizing them. That’s what living for a while will do for you: give you practice at the painful, help you recognize delight, and deliver the ability to watch calmly as another year turns.

We get our fall this time of year, here in Southern California. We pretend to have colorful autumn arrive with the Northern and Eastern States, putting out our russet and pumpkin and burgundy decorations all through October and November, but really our trees don’t have their turn until December. I gather up a few to rest on my dashboard as I drive around (for we also do that in Southern California), and celebrate the colors.

I made the top to this quilt in December 2020, so it’s appropriate that I finish it when we have turned away from the pandemic, its memory triggered only when we find our cloth masks in the sock drawer, or the junk drawer, or realize that a box of N95s has taken up permanent residence in our hallway closet, a talisman to ward off the unthinkable.

It’s nice to be able to crunch around my “walking” park, the leaves crisp underfoot, finding places that echo the muted tones of this quilt, Pomegranates.

Many of our leaves go from green to brown, a dimming of our usual colorful landscape. It’s as if they say, we gave it all for the year and now are tired, just needing rest. I can understand this. I have times of dimming, as well as times of bright.

Herrick reminded us that “each thing his turn does hold” and I don’t have to have only one season of quiet and rest. I have had many years to watch the days grow shorter, the nights grow longer and then again, and decades to watch the reversal of it all.

I’m lucky that way. Hopefully, so are you–

Quilt # 298 • 42″ square, with a simple single-binding
No label, as I’m sending this off and think they may like the backing of this quilt (a treasured piece from Alexander Henry) as well as the front.

Another post about this quilt

Yes, it is up in my pattern shop and for December, you can choose your own discount if you want to stash it away for New Year’s sewing (another turning for all of us).

300 Quilts · Christmas Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilt Finish · Quilts

Christmas Trees • Quilt Finish

December 1, 2024August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

Biography of this quilt:

Factoid #1: It could be Christmas Trees. It could be Easter Trees. It could be Halloween Trees, even though I posed it in a Christmasy setting in a small town in Arizona.

Factoid #2: Started in a small sewing group swap in 2016, it lingered in a bag somewhere in my closet. I found it again this year, and when my friend Lisa finished hers up and prompted me to Get Going.

Factoid #3: The block pattern has been spruced up into a charming new version of itself. Get it yourself by clicking on the Download button:

Christmas Trees 2024_OPQuilt pattern Download

This free download will also be at my pattern shop on PayHip.

Factoid #4: This is a great quilt for using the shirt from your husband/boyfriend/son that has worn out. Or your Dad (see different trees from different shirts, below–somehow blue checks are popular).

Factoid #5: These make up fast. What takes the most time is picking out the fabrics. I decided a slim border with a fun binding would finish it off nicely.

Factoid #6: This is the second “holiday-ish” quilt I finished this year. I never seem to get into the mood until Thanksgiving rolls around. Next on the list: order the Christmas Cards. (eye roll)

Factoid #7: Label

Factoid #8: (last one) This is quilt number 296. Four more to go to reach my goal of 300. Then what? (I don’t know. Probably not much will change.)

Have fun choosing fabrics and breezing through a fast quilt–

Mercato Square • Quilt Finish

November 25, 2024August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

You’ve seen this quilt in a sketch — before — but here it is finished. In that linked post, I showed all different kinds of ways to color this quilt, and in different sizes, too.

Since this quilter lives far away from me, I can’t show with my hands how big I want the panto to be. So I mock it up on an illustration. (Thanks, Affinity Designer, which is now half-off in price.) I sort of obsess about the right panto for the right quilt; in this one I didn’t want any sharp points, but I didn’t want any curlicues either. In a “what do you think about this quilt design?” discussion, and Carol said “that one works” I felt better about it.

When I opened the box when it was returned to me and unfurled it onto my living floor, I fell in love all over again. In the end, I had the Greek Key design lean to the left, for no apparent reason. You have to call them like you see them.

Last year, I scooped up the backing fabric for a song when our LQS closed (sad sad to see them go), and I ended up loving this bright fresh green against that poppy red fabric.

Many of these blocks were made for me by members of The Gridster Bee; some are missing because of health reasons — theirs or a loved one. I finished up what blocks were missing, and sent it off to my quilter. I started the Gridster Bee several years ago, and when I needed to retire, Patti took it over. This year I joined for one last time. As a thank you, I sent Patti this little badge: she deserved it. (badge from here).

We went over to a favorite place for photos: the exterior entrance of the California Air Resources Board. We had about 6 minutes of sun today and that’s when we snapped these photos. This is quilt number 295 in my Quilt Index. I also get to put it up on my Portfolio of Group Quilts. And I’m thankful for my husband, who gamely goes with me to hold my quilts, and cheers me on.

Twenty-one quilts made with friends: quite a history. Something more to feel grateful for this week.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Crossing the Divide • Quilt Finish

November 16, 2024August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

The phrase, crossing the divide, has haunted me for a while now, ever since my husband Dave and I crossed the Continental Divide twice on our April road trip.

While I was driving, and saw this sign, and knew it was coming, we did not take a photo of the actual moment we crossed. And this is like some recent experiences: somehow I crossed a dividing line and found myself in new country, and was not entirely sure how to behave or act.

Crossing the Divide • Quilt # 294

I long had wanted to make this quilt, using some positively ethereal, painterly fabrics from Shell Rummel, William Reue, and snippets from Deborah Edwards & Melanie Samar. I had to modify the pattern, because it called for an older panel which was now out of print. I sewed it all up. I picked apart every seam and re-sewed it (like Crossing the Divide…again). I got stuck on how to quilt it, and Dave talked it over with me: follow what’s in the fabric. I think that’s kind of like going with the flow, an attitude I am always working on/struggling with.

This quilt has a divide in it, with the soft pastel interrupting the more rock-like, stream-like bars of fabric in the top and bottom.

(see detail at end about fabrics)

Back.

Crossing the Divide waiting to cross.

Crossings are everywhere. Some I’ve recently noticed:

We honored my mother’s death this week, a two-year anniversary.
My father’s one-year anniversary of his death is coming up.
There are no baby grandchildren.
I wake up every day with something aching.
A milestone birthday was celebrated earlier this year, and the further I get from it, the more I realize I have no idea how to behave in this new place. I get many more condescending comments from people who don’t wake up with something aching. Which is annoying.
I no longer worry about flossing my teeth or cholesterol — it’s a different mindset, but it’s hard to explain. That doesn’t mean I’m not aware of those things, but I just don’t freak out about them.
I do freak out about other, more trivial things (you can ask my husband).
I also freak out about the time left to me in this world to do what I want before I cross over permanently, but this post isn’t about that.
There are divides in this life. While I cross over most of them without being aware, other demarkations come blaring at me like a train rumbling through the night, and I scramble across the tracks as best as I can.

It’s also about seeing the line that keeps divided from each other. Sometimes that line is physical distance. Sometimes it is an age difference, or a political distance, or an emotional distance. It’s also about time-as-a-line: there is much more behind me than in front of me, by any calculation. And all this started with a color and texture division in my quilt.

Here’s to making your way across the divide, in all ways–