Blue and Cheddar Quilt – OccasionalPiece

Dropping off the face of the quilty universe has one advantage: you get some sewing done. But first, let me talk about the Carrefour Quilt Show (France) posts.

All discussions of any project begin with this process: throwing out thousands and thousands of corrupted files on my computer. It’s like how you can’t find the evaporated milk to make your pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving until you clear away all the bunches of canned food in front just so you can get to the back of the cupboard.

Same, same. Every time I start to work on the Carrefour photos, Something Computer-Wonky This Way Comes, and it gets in the way. But the pictures are coming, because I want to show you a lot of the beauties that didn’t get all the press.

Soon, my pretties, soon.

I’ve been re-downloading a lot of the patterns I’d purchased on ETSY and on quilters’ websites. Most of it has been a pretty smooth recovery. I’ve been having real troubles with a clothing patterns site, and we’re trying to work it out, but I’m about ready to give up on that one. And a badge site wants me to re-buy the things I’ve already purchased. Yes, I have the real-life badges, but the digital ones were zapped in the Great Computer Meltdown of 2025. (Gee, I should get a commemorative plaque, or something, to put on the desk.) Buying and purchasing is a lot more complicated when sellers can switch their products from one platform to another. [Public Service Announcement: I now have three hard drives at my disposal for backing up.]

And yes, some pattern-writing has been delayed as I’m having to recreate the digital files that were lost (see illustration, above, of all that I lost in my Shine Circles patterns). I’m just glad it’s up online and free for the download if you click on the link.

I’ve been helping a new mother-to-be design her first baby’s quilt. And for those who are interested, I’ll have it on here for a freebie, once I finish (we moved on from that design, just to warn you). Affinity’s digital editing software is now FREE, apparently, so you can get some of that, too, to design your own quilts.

Remember 2020? Haha.

I’m standing underneath my quilt Azulejos, hanging in the gallery at Road to California in January 2020, before Covid-19 and all the Murder Hornets were released and when the world turned upside down. Well, I’ve been wanting to make this pattern in deep blues and cheddars, and I finished it this week.

Just a reminder.

It has been dropped off at the quilter:

I worked on these, while listening to the end of Louise Penny’s novel Black Wolf, as well as this:

It’s not the Thursday Murder Club series, but a new freestanding novel, and I really liked it. I lost track a little bit, of the minor characters, but the main characters are well-drawn and entertaining, and yes, the novel and I and the Economy Blocks hummed right along.

I finished it last night and rushed out in the setting sun to take a couple of photos, such as this stained-glass effect.

I delivered that one to the quilter this morning, too. I had started this #scrappythriftblockchallenge with Taryn of @reproquiltlover on Instagram. I wrote up a guide sheet and shared it (you can find it all on this post); the quilt begins with this blog post. [Note to all the Historians out there: first Instagram post was on March 31]

I’m just kind of ready to finish up a lot of loose-ends projects that I had started at the beginning of the year, when my abilities were hampered by anxiety/depression/sadness and a lack of wanting to do anything. Over time, a lot of those issues have resolved, faded. Sadly, I think I lost a couple of friends during the last two or three years, when the one-two-kapow-punch of my parents’ death really knocked out my creative — and other — lights. As those who have lost parents know, no death goes easily into that great night (thank you, Dylan Thomas), so I should add it was all the swirling around of everything that knocked me back.

So I chose HelpMeMakeSomething projects, like these economy squares, and a Block of the Month, and a reworking of an old favorite pattern, plus squircles (which are still ongoing).

Here we are in the waiting room at the medical clinic, because all that stuff still goes on, doesn’t it? People get sick and husbands and wives need check-ups and gosh, they already have their Christmas Tree up and it’s not even Thanksgiving.

It’s no shame to admit you can’t make it without some help, and all the quilters I know (well, maybe minus one or two…) are more than willing to sit beside you while you figure out a path through the gloom. And somehow, this fall I started to feel like myself again…with Energy!

We were supposed to go somewhere for Thanksgiving, but Life Intervened, so now I’m considering a new roll recipe, and maybe a stab at that Delicata Squash Pie in the lower right corner, but with a gingersnap cookie crust, instead of the recommended graham cracker.

Lastly, I decorated:

Thank you, Trader Joe’s. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this, and/or write something, or maybe just carry a thought or two around in your head. I’m grateful for you all and for what you share; what rich and varied lives we all lead.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Remember this cartoon from a couple of posts ago? Well, I decided to break the secret rules about Blocks of the Month quilt-a-longs and decided to finish up my quilt at Month Nine.

The world didn’t end.

I used a three-inch border, then some snazzy dots for the binding.

That sweet checkerboard on the back is another bit of fabric from Sherri and Chelsi. I’d been ~~hoarding~~ collecting their fabrics from their very first collection, and used only their fabrics in this quilt. The patterns are from the Sherri, of Sherri and Chelsi, and you can find them on her website, A Quilting Life. She’s already talked about her BOM (Block of the Month) for 2026 — lots of fun, there!

I did machine-stitched binding again for this one. My friend Lisa taught me to use two different colors of thread: one matching the binding, and one matching the backing. It went pretty quickly.

The title is from a poem by Kwame Dawes, as I liked the imagery in it.

My quilter, Nancy, did a great job on using one of my favorite patterns, Boujee by Urban Elementz. This is Quilt #310.

I superimpose the quilting design over a lightened image of the quilt, to help guide her on the size I want.

It’s nice to have it done, and hanging on the bottom of the guest bed. Thank you, Sherri!

And I think it’s okay to throw in a couple of other things, here. One is squircles (free pattern on this post). I’m seeing them pop up here and there, especially on Gladi’s blog, where you can see her squares in the background as she shows the basket she won from her guild’s show (which gave me complete guild-envy). She also shows them on her social media. I’m closing in on 80 of these little guys, and I’ll put them all up on my pin wall when I do make it to that milestone.

I’m seeing cheddar-colored fabrics in a lot of places. I have been collecting these for about a decade, and thought It Was About Time. Plus, Gladi has been working on a cheddar quilt, and Barb Veddar has more than one on her IG feed.

I’m using my Azulejos pattern and made some test blocks to answer my burning question: Do I like it better when all the scrappiness of the blues and cheddars are mixed up (the two on the right)? Or, do I like it better when there are only two different fabrics in each block, but the quilt will be scrappy?

I just couldn’t handle the chaos of the blocks on the right. The whole quilt will look scrappy, but it will have some order to it, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Autumn has arrived in the bedroom, with my pillow and the Nancy Rink Amish quilt, Shadow Owes Its Life to Light on the bed. Our weather is so strange — like it’s 82 right now as I type this (Saturday afternoon). In November!

The quilt remains folded on the end of the bed as it’s too warm, and we lift it off at night. Rain is supposed to show up next week, so maybe we’ll put it to use then.

This morning, I helped my sister figure out her artist’s statement for her art, which led me to think about another conversation I had with another quilter, about how she’s more interested in watercolors right now. Another is working hard at learning the flute. It reminded me of this quote, from Todd Plough:

It is not the brush you bring to the canvas but what you bring to the brush.

As long as there is some kind of canvas (quilt, digital screen, thick watercolor paper, clay) and some kind of brush (needles and thread, a computer mouse, a paintbrush), you are good, in my mind. Of course this coupling of canvas/brush could be so much more than what I thought of. It could be food and a dinner plate. Or a bowl and some rising sourdough bread. Or wood and a bandsaw. I’ve scrolled through enough posts in my life to know that there are multitudes. And while you may start in one, you will probably end up with another, even if you continue with your first creative love.

What matters is what’s behind the brush, and that is you.