First Monday Sewday for March 2020

March 6, 2020March 3, 2020 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

FirstMondaySewDay_March6

We had our First Monday Sewday this week, and the little group grew by two new participants. For those who don’t know about how we started, it began because a young woman in our church wanted to learn how to quilt. Then we found out a couple of more wanted to learn also. I rounded up a couple of capable experienced quilters, and they agreed to teach and serve as a resource, and Beth offered up her home for us to congregate.

Above is Amber, who finished this month’s block. It’s called Tipsy Two-fer, and was designed by the fabulous Simone, shown below giving her little mini lesson.

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Illustration March 2020 handout

Download the block pattern from Simone’s website at simonebradford.com, where you can also see lots of different ways to put the block together. I also have a First Monday Sew-day handout you can download (PDF file; sample above): FirstMondaySewday_3_2020

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Hayley and Caitlin are working on their blocks.

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We had eight children under the age of six here, and Beth was also getting new fences. Vanda’s mother (visiting from the Czech Republic) agreed to keep an eye on the ~~chaos~~ children.

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And it was Beth’s birthday, shown here hoisting up her son to help blow out the candles.

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Since I’m a record-keeper, here we all are together. I’m impressed that Vanda could smile as her son was trying to bolt off her lap to Grandma (who took our photo).

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Since you know what I’ve been doing for weeks and weeks (house painting and trying to cram it all back in my sewing room), it gave me the opportunity to cull through some fabrics; I took four shopping bags of fabrics that quickly were sorted through and taken to new homes. I also brought some magazines, and remembered that I had a quilt published in the back of this Quilty issue. Amber jokingly requested my autograph, and we laughed together — but really it was all about the good mood present. Not a whole lot of quilting went on, but the young moms were able to talk and visit and we had cake and a Simone-block and a really great time.

Other First Monday Sew-day handouts are here:

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This handout is about the basics: rotary cutting, accurate seams and pressing. Simone also talked about how to choose colors for a quilt. That day we sewed four patches together.

Click to download PDF file: FirstMondaySewday_D19 FirstMonday Jan2020 Sample

We tackled half-square triangles and snowball corners on this day.

Click to download PDF file: FirstMondaySewday_Jan6_2020

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Flying Geese were up next, with Laurel teaching the lesson. All the secrets for Flying Geese are in this handout.

Click to download PDF file: First Monday Sewday_Feb 2020

Golden California (Small World) • Quilt Finish

March 3, 2020January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

Golden California (Small World)
Quilt #229 • 55″ wide by 36″ high

I mean, you already know what this quilt looks like, having seen various permutations of this on my blog, on the web, on Instagram. It’s kind of like the quilt that keeps on giving, rolling out forward from the talented mind of Jen Kingwell, and until we all finish up all those My Small World UFOs, it’s likely this quilt will become a quilter’s version of eternity.

[Aside: a cook’s version of eternity is defined as a ham and two people. An old joke.]

I had a Before…back when the pattern was in the magazine and it sold out like hotcakes. Then this quilt languished until I had vowed to make Three Hard Quilts in 2019. It was mostly finished then, but I didn’t have binding sewn on until just before Road to California, where I was taking classes with Ms. Kingwell, herself, and wouldn’t you know it? ~~I don’t have ONE photo of myself with her and this quilt. I thought I took one, but, nope. Can’t find it.~~

Breaking News!! My friend Lisa sent me a photo of the quilt with me and Jen Kingwell, so here it is. Thank you, Lisa!

To keep myself sane when working on a long project like this, I take little snapshots of progress, title and date them, and keep going. It reminds me that quilts — like children — will one day be all grown up.

My photo shoot locator (AKA my husband) suggested we head out to the neighboring town where they had some cool tile murals of different parts of that city. We battled the shadows, however, but he was right: they were cool murals.

For the backing, I chose something that had cities in it, and two pieces that represented quilters.

See that golden sun? One of California’s monikers is The Golden State, so Susan suggested to me that instead of just taking on Jen Kingwell’s name for the quilt (based on the drawings of the Small World ride in Disneyland), I should incorporate something to suggest this quilt’s origin. So I did.

Each of my posts about this quilt have the tag “My Small World” so you can click on them to be taken to other posts about this, if you are still making yours. Carry on! Keep on! and soon yours will be finished, too.

Golden California_9 — Show and Tell at our Guild’s February Meeting. Now this quilt will go for a long rest, while it waits for me to put on the label.

Small WorldMagScreenShot — *Original magazine layout of quilt, from the QuiltMania Special Spring Edition, 2015 (now out of print). Kingwell sells the patterns on her website.*

Next week, March 10-11, I’ll be at the Orange County Quilters Guild, giving my Abecedary of Quilts lecture, and teaching a workshop. Here’s a screenshot from their webpage (kudos to the Communications people for this nice display).

This week I’ll be giving a hands-on lecture at the Inland Empire Modern Quilt Guild, teaching them an abbreviated version of my all-day workshop on English Paper Piecing. Excited to teach and meet new quilters!

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

Azulejos • Quilt Finish

February 16, 2020January 11, 2026 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Azulejos • Quilt #227
61 1/2″ wide by 75 1/2″ long

It was a rainy, wet day in Lisbon, and we’d made our way by bus to the Lisbon National Museum of the Azulejo, or the Tile Museum. We were rewarded for our efforts as I began to call it the Quilters’ Resource Center. If you are a grid enthusiast, as I am, it was heaven to walk through, with all sorts of interesting ways to think about what’s in a grid, as well as how to use color and negative space to make a design. And so, from a small sketch on that day in 2016, I created this quilt.

I was also inspired by a beautiful fabric created by Alison Glass from her Handiwork Collection. It was just so….azul (or blue, in Portuguese). I filled in with other treasures from my stash, and got to work trying to make it easier to construct.

Cathy Kreter, my quilter, did a nice tight design for the quilting.

So why if I finished it in November, have I not put it up here until now? Two reasons: one is I was seeing if my favorite magazine was interested (not this time, they said), and secondly, it was slated to hang at Road to California with a collection of modern quilts made by my guild, the Inland Empire Quilt Guild. We were honored to be able to have our quilts hung in the atrium as quilters entered, so I kept it quiet. There are more pictures on our Guild’s blog, taken by our President’s husband, a professional photographer.

On Sunday after Road was over, I had to wait like forever to pick up the three quilts I had at Road. My husband snapped this as we were leaving, Ladybird in my hands (well, the backing for Ladybird — a stellar print by Jane Sassaman).

Today I took some more photos of Azulejos, laying it down by the tools of the painters who were working at our home that day, scraping popcorn ceilings painting. It’s nice how a quilt can brighten any corner!

Quilt Shows

Scrappy Quilts from Road to California 2020 • Road to California, Part II

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

Road to California had several special exhibits and the array of quilts in Sisterhood of Scraps reminded me of what the great architect Mies van der Rohe so exquisitely said: More is More. Oh wait, did he say Less is More? But I do know he did say “God is in the details,” and boy, do these scrappy quilts have some details. Enjoy.

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And my favorite:

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Right after this I walked up the aisle and purchased a big stack of 5″ charm squares of shirting fabrics, inspired by this quilt. If Primitive Gatherings had stocked orange 5″ squares, I would have bought them, too. Now if I could only find them, but our house is a bit of a disaster, as we had five painters here for two weeks, scraping icky popcorn texture off our ceilings, and repainting nearly everything that didn’t move.

First they spray the ceiling with water, let it soak in, then start scraping. Let it dry overnight, then “mud” or spackle all the divots, then spray on a light texture (I would have liked flat ceilings but that cost more). I tried to sew in the kitchen the first week, but by Day 3, when I could draw a heart on the top of my Featherweight Sewing Machine case, I knew it was time to give up that idea. So I gathered up some hand-sewing and retreated to the garden, even though it was 65 degrees outside. The lower left photo shows the progression of the mess in the front/living room by the end, and the the last photo on Day 11 shows them spraying my sewing desk in my bedroom, which by now looks a lot like the living room: a disaster. My painter brought in a house cleaner for that last day, when they finished everything and took away all the plastic; I helped her get the initial cleaning finished, but I can tell I’ll be doing a lot more of it, as scraping the ceilings brings a LOT of dust.

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This is currently the sewing room. Right.

I have to the let the paint cure for two weeks before I can put things on shelves, and of course, it’s appalling to see your fabric collection All At Once and in Boxes, so it become apparent that there will be some culling of the collection going on as I put things away. I plan to be fully finished before we start on our kitchen remodel.

Oh, just kidding.

Heart Qult Goldsmith