All Are Friends In Heaven • Quilt Finish

April 12, 2019June 27, 2026 Elizabeth E.22 Comments

All Are Friends in Heaven
Quilt #188 • 78″ square

This quilt, made of 6″ blocks designed by famous Japanese quilter Chuck Nohara, is finally finished. We took it out to the local area for some shots with wildflowers, as it’s been such a beautiful year. My husband was the best quilt holder (thank you, dear). Although her name reads masculine, Chuck Nohara is a woman who taught quilting to many in Japan in the 1970s and 80s.

While I am currently past 200 quilts in the listing, I first posted about this top at the #188 slot. Rather than rework my lengthy listings, I decided to slide it into place where I first wrote about it. I will link it to this post, showing its completion (which is why I don’t like to only post the quilt tops, preferring instead to number the quilts when they are finished).

Why has it taken so long? I had always wanted to quilt it myself. But one bad week during my recent recovery from rotator cuff surgery, I realized (or believed) that I would never quilt again, so had my husband help me box it up and send it off to Darby for quilting.

I chose this meandering loopy pattern for the quilting, and I’m quite happy with it.

The title comes from a poem by Robert Pollock, a religious poet from Scotland. I liked the idea of that line, that we are all friends in heaven, as this quilt was made when Susan from Australia, and I (from California) corresponded and chose blocks to work on, as we both had a hankering to make a “Chuck Nohara” quilt. That seems so far away, although with FaceTime videos, emails and notes, the distance does shrink.

When I first did research on all these little tiny blocks, one blogger called them Friendship Blocks. They were made by the hundreds by Japanese quilters, sent in to teams who would take all the blocks, make quilts with them, which would then be auctioned off with money going to charity at the Tokyo Quilt Show. Now these blocks are pretty widely called Charity Blocks, but because Susan and I, friends across the ocean, chose to make them together, I’ve always thought of them as an expression of friendship. And as we participated in the online groups, we made other friends. So they still remain Friendship Blocks in my mind.

We each chose two per month, and I’d make a little sign like this and we’d put them up on our IG accounts and blogs and get to making. I realize that the quilt photos in this post are from far away, you can head to the link #chucknohara_opquilt on Instagram and see all the blocks that I have posted. We also tagged them #chucknoharaQAL so they’d be grouped with others around the world who were making these tiny blocks.

My first set of blocks, finished in December 2015. Yes, from start to finish, it’s been a little over three years to finish up this quilt. I seem to excel at the long game. Here’s Susan’s quilt:

Such a different, and wonderful, quilt from the same blocks. Here’s a closer picture of my quilt without the quilting:

The upper left block is her signature block. The lower right block is mine. I planned that the outer stars would run from deeper green, to yellow, and back to green as they moved along the edges.

Thank you, Chuck Nohara!

Happy Old Year Ending (Wrap-up) · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Happy Old Year Ending • 2017

December 31, 2017August 2, 2026 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

This year’s main quilting events: Shoulder surgery in January, which pretty much sidelined me for a long time. That’s at the top of the list, because whatever I did after that was like icing on the cake. My achievements — or lack of, depending on your view — can be found under the tab “200 Quilts,” a handy way to navigate the morass of blogland.

But here’s some eye-candy, quilt-style.

and a few more…

So, in spite of a lame start, I did manage to get a few things made. That’s why I do these posts–they are more for me, to say…hey, you didn’t do so bad. So often we only notice what we don’t do, what we can’t make or achieve, as you’ll notice by my language in the intro, where I denigrate my accomplishments.

I did some some traveling, which expanded my horizons a bit, to the European Patchwork Meeting…

…as well as Seoul and Tokyo (accompanying my husband to his meetings). Next travel is to Ontario, California for Road to California, and to Pasadena for QuiltCon 2018. Luckily both are within an hour of my home.

I’m joining up with Cheryl’s Linky Party, because I’ve found it so fun to browse what everyone else has been doing this year. My top five posts for 2017 are:

Mini Sew-Together Bag. I recently moved the pattern up to Craftsy and am happy that it has helped find a wider audience of bag enthusiasts. The rest of my patterns are on PayHip (link to the right).

2. Christmas Tree Skirt. Although there is a brief pattern, there is enough information on this post so you can make your own. It’s a fun skirt and works up quickly.

3. Shine–the Circle Quilt Post is a busy place, as I make available many EPP patterns for free, so you can make a circle block either for a quilt, or pillows or wall-hangings. And this year, the quilt will hang in Road to California.

4. Two posts are virtually tied for the same place: the post on how to convert a Chuck Nohara block illustration to a pattern, and the posts showing the tutorial on my Piggies quilt.

5. Christmas Tree Block Swap tutorial.

I hope you do your own tallying up, and sail into 2018 with the wind at your back.
Happy New Year!

Chuck Nohara · Quilts

Inching through June • 2017

June 16, 2017August 9, 2026 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

So, I really have to get serious about my Chuck Nohara quilt borders, because it’s acting like New Jersey’s Bridgegate: closing down my creative roads.

So here it is where I left it. I think it looks really fabulous, but as I said, it’s beginning to haunt me. So I’ve tried about four different versions of borders, but here’s just two so you get the idea of how hard this is:

So, now I’m thinking: pieced border. I went back to the Chuck Nohara book and found a block that I think will work, but I took off the center circle. Here’s my sample:

I decided also to make all the background in this one different from what I have in the center of the quilt, as this quilt — an idea I scoped out from looking at “Partnership Charity Blocks” from Japan:

In fact, after looking at all these (found here on my Pinterest Board), I wondered if the Chuck Nohara blocks were an outgrowth of these quilts made by quilters in Japan (or did her work come first, and then the quilts?). Those who want to participate all make small six-inch blocks, submit them to the chairperson, who organizes then to be sewn into quilts which are then auctioned off for charity.

In her quilt in her book, Chuck Nohara sashed with small plus blocks, and I followed her lead. But I liked, how in the quilt above, hexagon circle blocks (which look like signature blocks) created a border.

So I borrowed that idea of using a single block all around in the border. Here’s my mock-up, done in my Quilt Pro quilt drawing software. I had to include two smaller inner borders to get the right dimensions, but that’s okay, too. It will help stabilize all that piecing. (The back is as fun to look at as is the front.)

I cut a lot of pieces, but since those star points are alternating and directional (and I wrongly cut some fabrics back-to-back) I’ll have a lot of “extras.” Oops. Maybe I’ll make some more stars for another project.

Here are the blocks I’ve finished, residing next to the “quilt middle” on my design wall. I decided to try and do a ombre-style effect with the block middle, moving from yellow to yellow-green to green to yellow-green back to yellow as it goes around the edge. We’ll see if I can pull it off.

I’m listening to this, as I stitch away. It took me a bit to get into it, but now I’m in the groove. We could use a few more gentlemen and gentlewomen in the world these days; guess I’d better start with myself, learning how to seat people at dinner parties.

I can think about this as I make my 48 blocks.

200 Quilts · Chuck Nohara · Mini-quilt · Quilt Patterns · Quilts

Early-May Accomplishments

May 10, 2017August 9, 2026 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

I finished my Gridsters Bee block for Rachel. She asked for buzzy bees, as she is a beekeeper in the Midwest. Her tutorial is *here,* as well as links to her pattern, but I didn’t cut apart the pieces. I just straight paper-pieced the thing, then joined the head section to the body section. We blew up the basis 6″ pattern to make 10″ finished bees. I can’t wait to see what she does with them all.

This is beginning to feel like the never-ending quilt.

I’m making small (2-1/4″ finished) plus sign blocks to go in between all the Chuck Nohara blocks that Susan and I made together last year. Our blocks are 6″ finished, so after I worked out the measurements, I drafted a pattern for the sashing. Here is the PDF: Chuck Nohara SashingFinal

I started the plus blocks by cutting strip sets (2 low-volume and 1 bold), then seaming the two low-volume onto the bold on either side. Cut those across the strip set into 1-1/4″ wide strip pieces. These pieces are both the a) top and bottom of your plus block, and b) the center of the “dot” block, shown in the intersection of the sashing, above

I then cut matching pieces of fabric into 1 -1/4″ x 2-3/4″ bits. I sewed a matched set of two strip-set-blocks, one on top, and one of the bottom to make a “plus.” Then I sewed 1 -1/4″ x 2-3/4″ pieces of low-volume on either side of a “dot” to create the mini block that is at the intersection.

Then the low-volume center piece, in between the two plus blocks, measures finished at 2-1/4″ by 1-1/2″ (so cut 2-3/4″ by 1-3/4″).

The “plus” and “dot” units finish at 2-1/4″ square, so trim them to 2-3/4″ square (size before sewing).

Sew two “plus” units on either side of the low-volume center piece. Arrange them all around, then sew the row with the blocks and plus-units first:

Then I sewed the “dots” and plus-units together:

And then I finished sewing them all together:

I’m now trying to figure out the borders. After all the piecing I did for the sashing, I can guarantee you it won’t be like the borders Chuck Nohara showed in her book:

I’ve finally progressed to the place in my physiotherapy (I like the way the Australians say it, as we just call it “PT”) where I could try out my Sweet Sixteen quilting machine again. After 3-1/2 months. It took me a while to get the thread tensions balanced, but then was I able to get going on my quilt from the Traveling Threads Bee, made of Alison Glass fabrics (with a few others).

Bliss. This block, from Toni of HoosierToni, is coming along nicely. I’m limiting myself to 30 minutes/session so I don’t break my surgery (my one big fear in life).

Lastly, you are all invited to our Raincross Guild Meeting this coming Tuesday, May 16th (6 p.m.), where I’ll present a trunk show of my quilts–well, only 25 of them. My husband helped me get them from our closets, walls and cupboards, so I can decide the order and what to say. I just clicked over to the Guild’s website, and in true humbling fashion, I’m not even listed. But Latifah Saafir is, on the day I’m supposed to teach a class for the Guild, too. What will I be teaching?

My Home, Sweet, Home mini quilt. I think they have a few openings, but I’m not sure. I’ll be emailing the class members prep instructions, that if they complete them, they will finish their quilts in class. That’s June 3rd, from 9 a.m. -2 p.m., with a 30-min lunch break (bring your lunch).

Last time I taught this class, I was able to snap a photo of three Home Sweet Home quilts. They look awesome! Patterns are for sale in my Craftsy shop, just in case you aren’t able to attend that day.

Happy Quilting!