A Tiny Spritz of Elements • Quilt Finish • This and That: Nov 2021

November 7, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.19 Comments

A Tiny Spritz of Elements • Quilt #259 in my Quilt Index
21″ square

So my husband asked me if this was another pillow. He has a point, as that seems the size I can manage lately, but no…this is a quilt. A mini quilt. It started in a swap of small 2″ unfinished blocks from the guild members at the Inland Empire Modern Quilt Guild. I made more.

The past few months I seemed to have fallen into a streak of really sad days, bad days, tired days, and one of my friends sent me a meme indicating that October was just about to break her, too. What is it about this phase of covid? Those who will, are getting vaccinated, but those of us who are at higher risk also have to make decisions: how will we live with this disease, since we aren’t going to hit the vaccination rate we need to. A bog, a verifiable, certifiable bog.

Then one morning I was sitting outside in the car, waiting for my perfect husband, and because the angle was right and having just shut the door, I was treated to a sparkling array of floating bits of light, the dust scattering flashing bits sunshine all around me as I sat. So often I’m in a rush, in a hurry, and don’t notice these tiny spritzes of cheer. I held the moment close; Dave got in and we drove off.

So that’s the name of this quilt made from tiny blocks, stitched with tiny quilting, each square representing those elements that come into our lives: sorrow, elation, peace, anger, frustration, happiness, forgiveness, repentance, sadness, love and most of all, hope.

When I finished making all my little elements, I saw a quilt from Zen Chic; I followed her lead in the arrangement. I’m also grateful to my fellow Guild Members for sewing and swapping. This little effort is due the first meeting in December, but I just finished it and wanted to share it now.

Melanie chose a birdie block for her turn as Queen Bee in Gridsterbee this month. Her signature block was my little Teeny Tree block–can’t wait to see what she makes of all these birds and trees. Free pattern for tree is here.

UPDATE: The Bee is filled! Thanks to those who joined us!

The Gridster Bee (#gridsterbee) is going through some changes next year. I’m stepping down from the head of the group, and we are looking for some new quilters who want to sew one block a month for your other bee-mates (check out the hashtag above for our wide-ranging style). We have several slots available; continental US only. We require you to have an Instagram Account and/or blog; those in charge will also vet you to make sure that all of us are at the same level of ability. So if you are a beginner who is just learning her stuff, this may not be the group for you.

But if you’ve happily been sewing for a minute or two and want to meet a few really cool women, as well as get a series of blocks made just for you when it’s your turn to be Queen Bee…~~leave me a comment below~~. I’ve been in over five bees, and they’ve all been great experiences. If you haven’t done a bee, consider it!

Occasionally I do clean up my computer desk. We got our Christmas present early this year (a nearly identical model to this one, but newer), so are passing this one on to our daughter.

November must have known we were anxiously waiting for it, for it came in with this beautiful sunset. We were fixing dinner (see below) and went out several times to admire the color and take photos.

Dinner: Sesame Salmon Bowl. I didn’t have the slaw they called for so we just sliced up another Persian cucumber. We had the leftovers the next night–so good!

The Cape Plumbago is flowering, with its rare blue flowers.

One advantage of covid days…

~~Please leave me a comment, or email me privately (e.eastmond@gmail.com), if you are interested in becoming part of a great group of women in our~~ GridsterBee.

Happy Quilting!

200 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Pillows

Crossed Lillies, Riverside Sawtooth, and Halloween

October 31, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Although the title has three subjects and in a particular order, I’m going to reverse them, starting now.

We need a Halloween quilt and this one, made by Tracy Cox using my Sun and Sea Pattern, catches the mood of the day. I love her use of spooky prints! I have corresponded with her for some time, and met in person at PIQF held before the world shut down. She lives near my old stomping grounds in the Bay Area, so it was fun to hang out with her and admire her prizewinning blue ribbon quilt.

Here’s my version of this…of course! you say. I remember. It’s just so different in different fabrics, which is one of the magic tricks we quilters do. We are really good at this particular trick and don’t even need a magic wand, unless that’s what you want to call our rotary cutters.

The next one is Riverside Sawtooth, a quilt that was featured in QuiltMania in issue #163 (July/August 2020). It’s finally time for it to hit the pattern shop!

I was asked by Brenda if she could purchase the pattern, and I realized I hadn’t put it back up when it was time to do so. And then it was revise revise and spruce up, because I’d also made it in the Before Times — before I knew sort of what I was doing in Affinity Publisher. Both the program and I have made strides, so I updated what I could. It’s for sale in my pattern shop.

Lastly, it’s Crossed Lilies. This is probably the most complete pattern of my Pattern Lite series, and could probably sell for more, but it’s the same price as all the rest: less than a bag of Halloween Candy, less than an upscale chocolate bar when you are sick of eating all that candy, and way less than the price of a good rice bowl, when you are totally sick of eating sweets.

I had many inspirations, but mostly this stems from the pillow series I’ve been doing this year. You know I wasn’t that keen about October’s pillow kit that came in the mail, so I made Mister Pumpkin. And then I kind of liked this month’s kit, but it was a pumpkin (again), so I had to do something different.

I like the mixing of the fall tones with the deep aqua blues, and these pillows are all fun to quilt, before I back them and bind them. This pattern is also for sale in my PayHip shop, if you need a fall pillow.

But I could wave my quilter’s magic wand, spend an afternoon, and have something completely different for spring, or Christmas, or in red, white and blue for summer.

The magic is all up to you, my pretties!

Happy Halloween!

Other posts about Riverside Sawtooth:
Finished Quilt Top
Finished Quilt, binding and all

300 Quilts · Quilt Finish

Pumpkins • Quilt Finish

October 24, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

My first memory of a Halloween party was the time my brothers and sisters, parents and I all lived in an old home out in Sudbury, Massachusetts. It was rented to us by Longfellow’s granddaughter, who was looking for a nice grad student and his family (my father was in the MBA program at Harvard) to rent it and take care of it, which meant mowing the acre of lawn in the summer. Out back of this old home was an attached shed with a hidden bunkbed, a giant hearth and a large wooden room. We invited our friends, Mother made us costumes, and we had all the traditional things: bobbing of apples, games and carving pumpkins. I was dressed up as a little girl from Holland, and my mother sewed my paper hat on the sewing machine. I was probably this because one of my other older sisters had been this, and I was the youngest girl, so got all the hand-me-downs. But it was a new hat.

I remember some other costumes I’ve sewed: Pirate Roberts for a young teenage son, a giant Hersey Kiss for the daughter, and somewhere along the long linking of Halloween traditions, I’ve sewn (or been): Pippi Longstocking, a Roma (we called them gypsies then), a vampire complete with fake fang teeth and fake blood, Peter Pan, Elsa (from Frozen), a teen from the 1950s (poodle skirt, included), babies, baseball players and an Egyptian princess.

Pumpkins • Quilt No. 258
47″ wide by 57″ high

But now, I sew quilts. While this one is well into the 250s on my index — as I don’t count the quilts until they are quilted (with some rare exceptions) — but it’s only about the fourth or fifth Halloween/fall/autumn quilt I’ve made. I did a #pumpkinquilt search the other night on Instagram and this pattern was rarely seen, as the chunkier, pieced pumpkins seem to be more the rage.

We looked for pumpkin patches to photograph this in, but they are miles away. So this yellow patch of wisteria leaves is the best I can do from my backyard, the first few leaves scattered on our back patio.

The back is from my stash. The label tells the origin.

I didn’t carve this, but am doing a giant project of moving old stuff from my computer, trying to clean up excess files, and found this cool fella’. I don’t really carve pumpkins anymore, and while I do have up my Halloween quilt banner, this year has been more subdued than in recent years. I usually try to escape handing out candy by going somewhere, but this year my husband bought some, wanting to participate in the tradition. Our neighborhood used to have close to 300 trick-or-treaters, but last year we could only rustle up about thirty. Obviously we are not the only ones getting older around here.

I still love Halloween, the idea that we mark the passing of autumn and acknowledge the advent of winter. It’s a holiday of treats and hopefully few tricks, and lots and lots of pumpkins.

Happy Quilting!

Previous Posts about this quilt:
How it started
Top Finished

PatternLite · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Pillows

Mister Pumpkin

October 19, 2021September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Sometimes I really don’t like our season-less world. I walked through Target last week, looking for some orange Halloween lights. Okay, I know some of you are laughing hysterically out there. Halloween Lights? They were gone by the 4th of July! Swimsuits come in February, and it used to be a rule not to put out Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Used to be.

And this year, with the Great Supply Chain Disruption working its pandemic magic (would we expect any less?), good luck. The lady at Target told me they “weren’t getting much Christmas” so if I saw “something you like, buy it.” The section was pretty empty, as they were doing the switchover from witches to elves.

One of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving, I now call the Invisible Holiday: so desperately needed, yet nearly imperceptible. But if you aren’t yet hanging the Christmas garlands and putting up the Santas, here’s one more little fun thing for you to stitch up in an afternoon: Mister Pumpkin.

It all started because my monthly Riley Blake pillow arrived and I was just sort of meh about the design of it. I’d done some shapes for my daughter’s Fall Tag Tip Sheet, and made the pumpkin, and remembered the photo on the lower left, a detail of a quilt I’d seen at a quilt show. I had purchased the little ornament on our trip to Utah last month. I loved them all and combined them to make my 20″ pillow. Which I have now made up into a PatternLite Pattern, but because it’s like…the middle of the month..~~.I’m giving you a coupon to get it for a deal of 25% off~~:

Since PatternLite patterns only cost a tiny amount, you are getting a Mister Pumpkin Pattern Lite for less than a large Coke and fries at McDonald’s. Or a slice of pizza at the mall. And WAY less than a bag of Halloween candy. ~~Coupon good until (when else?)~~…Halloween night.

He’s now resting comfortably on our bed, and I may keep him there for the first part of November, too. So have fun–enjoy your grinning 20″ Mister Pumpkin pillow before you have to nestle it under the Christmas tree. And he doesn’t get made this year, well, there’s always next year! (That old baseball phrase is meant for consolation for the Giants, who lost their pennant race to the LA Dodgers; if you are a sports watcher, you know about this.)