Tiny Victories are Still Victories

November 3, 2025 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Rookie Mistakes could be another title, even though I don’t consider myself a rookie. Both of these ideas are true for me this week.

I’ve had Krakow Circles kicking around since Spring, and when I needed a small something to finish, I chose this.

A quilt from Lois Parish Evans (Australia): Mandala 6 • Winter Solstice

After seeing Lois Evans’ quilts at Carrefour I decided to attempt her tiny stipple. Okay, not as tiny as hers, but a reasonable facsimile. Tiny victory, on this one too.

Then I continued the small stuff with swirly-circles. Tired of that, and not wanting a whole quilt to be that way, for the borders I drew on a wavy line, added more lines, then finally, a circle to echo all the others. Cool, I thought, a close-to-the-end tiny victory. Now, on to the binding. I chose to do it from the back-wrap-to-the-front, as for some quilts, I’ve come to love this look of the finished binding being on top.

Trouble.

I didn’t count on/remember/realize that the teensy stippling would draw up the quilt that much. Now those corner yellow circles would be cut off by the binding. I snipped a few threads, releasing them, and finished sewing the binding.

None of my circle templates would work, so I traced the end of a spool of thread onto freezer paper, cut those out and shaped them for appliqué. Except for one. That one I had to make even smaller. Yes, I do personalize my patchwork.

Kraków Circles, quilt #309, 28″ square
I started designing this at the end of May, after our return from Poland, and cut the first shapes June 3, 2025.

I think the back looks cool — it’s an older ombre-type fabric.

Labels are oldies from Northcott, by Deborah Edwards. I found them when we had to pull out the sewing desk from the wall when the new blinds went in. (Hmmm. There’s a lesson here somewhere.)

Finished: November 3, 2025. It’s a little victory to get this one done and it will hang in my sewing room, reminding me of Krakow’s churches and our trip there this past May. I’ll take tiny victories, these days.

Hope you have some too–

Twilight Garden • Quilt Finish

September 8, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

One summer night when we were sitting out in the garden, the year before all the mosquitoes arrived, we watched the bats dip and speed away, the tiny bird dash in to alight on the fountain. The night was calm, the sunset was unfurling in the background. We lingered, talked, until the stars blinked on and the twilight had slid into night. This quilt is about that kind of night, that feeling of letting the chatter of children, and friends, and a loved one float around you, when time is…timeless.

Sometimes ideas have to percolate a while in my brain. I’ve learned you can’t hurry them, anymore than you can recapture your sew-jo, as quilters like to say. Creative time comes on its own schedule. (This is Quilt #292 on the Quilt Index, above.)

I was also inspired by a trip in 2016 to Copenhagen and Stockholm, where I learned about the art of Poul Gernes, an artist who used strong colors, and simple shapes that expressed a wild traditionalism, if there is such a term.

(from here)

So somewhere between a summer night and a trip long ago, I started playing around with flowers on strong stems, then threw in the center tendrils to focus the eye. I’d been given a stack of Tilda’s polka dot flowers, which are not a typical palette, and I found some linen-look fabric for the background and leaves.

This was all I’d envisioned, but it just didn’t look “done.” So I ordered up more fabric–difficult to do when designers don’t label their colors (well, Kaffe does…)–and got to work.

It was during my New York Beauties project, so I kept going back and forth between the bright saturated solids of that quilt, to these inviting, musky deep colors of twilight.

I pinned everything together with short appliqué pins, and took it on the road — traveling to see grandchildren and the total eclipse in Texas.

Yes, I cut out the background of the flowers, and lined the centers of the flowers for a flat, solid look. (I glue-dotted the lining into place, to hold it until I would get it quilted.)

A couple of nights ago, I grabbed Dave and we went out to the side garden just as the light was dimming, so as to photograph the quilt. This light makes the details soft, the dense quilted foliage falling into the deep blue background, letting those simple Danish-inspired flowers rise to the front.

I wrote the pattern as I made this, and decided to add in three different sets of instructions, in case you were making it with raw-edge appliqué or needle-turn or machine appliqué. And then I added that outside border, so it’s thorough, with lots of patterns and words. But hopefully you’ll find your own design when you make it, and will add another garden to our world.

I went back and forth between Intermediate or Experienced Beginner, but in the end, decided that if you knew something about appliqué, it would go better. But other than that, it’s not a difficult quilt. I do have an extensive guide for laying it out, but it’s okay if you just want to use your own eye. I do reference a couple of quilters in the pattern, who I thought explained things well. One is Gladi Porshe, who writes about making vines and mixing appliqué styles.

Pattern is in my PayHip Shop here. Usually my patterns are $12 US, but I decided we all need more flowers so I have it for an introductory price until mid-November. Sometimes I post a coupon for a percentage off when I put up a new pattern, but this way, you won’t have to enter in a code, and can just grab the deal if you want it. All my patterns are downloadable PDFs.

Enjoy a night in a twilight garden–

Reverse Course

January 7, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Wait. I thought we had just gotten started on this New Year’s thing, you say, and now you want to reverse course? Yes, because I am saving you from taking on too many things. And saving me, too. In some circles it’s called a “chuck-it list,” the reverse course of a “bucket list,” which we’ve all heard of way too much. I’ve also been reading about a parallel concept to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), which is JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), another way to not plow full speed ahead into Everything. For this is the week that resolutions get made, lists of quilts get written, projects get detailed. I’ve seen Way.Too.Many quilt-a-longs this week, too. Some new quilt ideas are genuinely tempting, like this one:

Lindlee of Plains and Pine has designed this, and it really looks wonderful. So many are doing it, so your feed will be filled with color and beauty all year long. I must resist the urge just this year. I’ve already made up my list for 2024, and am doubtful I’ll even get those done (one of which is one of my own patterns, long-lingering on every list I’ve written these past few years, but I want to make it in a different colorway).

What is driving this focus? My Index of Quilts: I’ve made 285 quilts. I count only the ones that are completely finished, which slows the pace a bit. But I’m really close to 300 quilts which is where I turn into a pumpkin, or something. (Stay Tuned.) But in order to get to that 300, which probably shouldn’t be a goal, I have to edit My 2024 List pretty tightly, not letting in other great ideas until I’ve reached that number.

I say this with some caution, knowing that “Focusing on pursuing our goals often leaves us running on a treadmill of desire and frustration,” as Valerie Tiberius writes in her article, “Why you should swap your bucket list with a chuck-it list.” She goes on to say, “Discarding goals that we really care about is difficult; failing to complete them can elicit sadness or regret.” Like me, with the above Temperature Quilt.

If I hadn’t just finished this one, there’s no way I wouldn’t be jumping in. (But there is always 2025.)

And I pinned up this appliqué mid-December, and have finished the two sides. Now to tackle the middle, with those vines. The dots were a birthday gift in 2022, and it’s taken me this long to figure out what I wanted to do. Working Title: Twilight Garden. So right there, there are two projects on my New Year’s List, along with seeing the Total Solar Eclipse in Texas (April), a trip to La Jolla, California (end of this month) with my three sisters to celebrate my recent milestone birthday, traveling with my DH this fall, and a list of quilts to be considered.

In days long past, I’d splash those goals up here — a way to keep “myself accountable” — or something like that. But given the tight real estate on the birthday cake (more candles than cake to hold them), I’ll politely decline that course of action. I’ll consider the best days the ones where I can work happy and contented, able to call out across the hallway to my husband, answer a phone call or take a walk, or pause to watch the bees attack the wisteria blossoms with gusto just outside my sewing room window — interrupting all evident progress.

Sometimes reversing course is the best way forward–

200 Quilts

Liberty USA Mini Quilt, 2

February 19, 2017March 14, 2017 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

I’ve made some progress by getting the first (left) side sewn down.

It’s pretty wonky, but I’m leaving it as a testament to this wonky time in my life.

In my pain-killer-addled brain the day I mapped this out, I resorted to doing the freezer paper appliqué method, so everything looks pretty 3D-ish when laid out. In hindsight, I probably should have done it differently, but the quilt will still get done this way. Better to move forward, than to take too many steps back.