Economy Blocks – OccasionalPiece

The etymology of the Economy Block is — as are many popular quilt blocks — complicated. According to Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, it’s titled Economy Patch by Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger around 1935. It’s also called the This and That block, in the Kansas City Star around 1944 (you know this is a favorite phrase). And more recently, it’s been known as the Thrift Block as when Taryn of ReproQuiltLover hosted the recent #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge. I have mentioned before that this year I had been making things that helped me make things: quilt-a-longs, Block of the Month, group projects, and so forth. And so this one joined the line-up, and I finished it this week.

I needed a title for this quilt, and since in early 2020 I had taught it to a small beginning quilt group as the Economy Block, so I went with that name (although many now call it Square in a Square).

Full quilt title: Economy: Gathering Up All The Fragments.

Economy, as we think about it, means thrift. Saving. Making do with less. The exchange of goods. A dollar is worth something and everything is for sale (as the old saying goes). But the idea of economy, says one wag, is really an enigmata**:

Enigmata refers to things that are puzzling, mysterious, or riddles
OR, a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation
OR, a person of puzzling or contradictory character.
OR, a saying, picture, etc., containing a hidden meaning; riddle.

The title of this quilt comes from yet another riddle: the poet Emily Dickinson’s punctuation and shape of her small poems. Some think it began with this:

“‘Preserve the backs of old letters to write upon,’” wrote Lydia Maria Child in The Frugal Housewife, a book Dickinson’s father obtained for her mother when Emily was born. It opens: “‘The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time as well as materials.’” (from a review by Jen Bervin, titled Studies in Scale).

Like a star is small…but it is its own world.
Or an atom is small… but contains worlds.
Or fragments of fabrics are small…but put them together and they make a quilt.

In pulling fragments for this quilt, I opened bag after bag of small scraps from a decade ago, cut into 2 1/2″ squares or 3″ squares, as it had been recommended to me to do that in order to “use up your scraps.” Finally, I was using them up, so this quilt is as much a record of an era, as it is a complication of “gathering up all the fragments.”

Backing/binding is fabric from Tula Pink, and the quilting is the Continuous Baptist Fan, by Urban Elementz.

Quilt-making is an enigmata, isn’t it? We take our scraps, our fragments, cut them smaller, sew them back together to make something that expresses an idea or a sentiment. And we quilters do it over and over, saving scraps, repeating the process “so that nothing be lost.”

This is Quilt #312, and the last for 2025, as there are no more fragments of time to add to the calendar. I will, however, try to get up another post or two of the beautiful Carrefour quilts, but no promises.

I do promise, however, to make merry the rest of the month and be of good cheer!

Other Posts about this quilt and its process

The Economy Block was in the series First Monday Sew-days, which has morphed to the title Beginning Quilters. There are a raft of free handouts here.

A Life Full of Yes (which includes the free pattern for this quilt block)

If I Do This, Can I Do That?

This and That • August 2025 (and a rant about AI)

This and That • November 2025

NOTE: I put the quilt label on the side, as it doesn’t matter which is the top or which is the bottom. It’s really a great size for naps: 60″ x 72.” I use BlockBase+, which is basically Brackman’s book, but in digital form. I also have her book in paper form, too. I’ve been thinking a lot about my quilt tools, such as the software and book, so will try to note them here on the blog as they’ve been used.

**Apologies to Honkai: Star Rail fans, who see Enigmata as something a bit different. And there is more on Enigmata writings by ancient figures, if you are curious.

If I go to see all my kids, will I be able to recover from the trip? If I buy this, can I buy that? If I choose to sew this project, will I have energy to tackle that other thing? Or, this is all another way to title a This-and-That post for April 2025. First, the mundane and then the sublime. (Hint: an introduction to one of my favorite artists.)

Feeling a lot of the time like a blue-footed booby; this photo was harvested from Bluesky, from the #naturesky tag. Bluesky is also where I have a new account. We need more quilters over there (tag: #quiltsky) so come on over. If you set up an account, I’d love a follow: OPQuilt on Bluesky. (If you need to know more about this platform, search, and research, buy this book, or ask me a question.)

Apple’s Photo app has a new fun toy: Clean-up, behind the three sliders at the bottom of a photo (apparently not on all phones, my husband tells me). I click on that, then follow the instructions. Can you see what I did in this next pair of photos?

I probably wouldn’t use it to clean up everything, as that can give your photos (this one, of my neighbor’s cactus flower) a sterile and weird look. Life is messy, life has hoses in the foreground and angels in the background.

Early warning notice. I did none of those when the earthquake came, but did decide to hold off on getting in the shower. Just in case.

I sewed up my next batch of 25 Economy/Thrift/Square-in-a-Square blocks. In my first post about these, I noticed that one of the quilters I mentioned had sewn each of hers to a background block, so I decided to do the same. Eventually I will sew them into blocks of 10-patch units, as suggested by Taryn, who is running this (9-patch units? 12-patch units?).

To make all my economy blocks, I opened my drawers and just used up old scraps, cut nearly a decade or more ago. It’s a lovely time-travel experience. Most centers are not fussy-cut, but this one spoke to me, as my heart aches a lot for what is going on. Other centers of other blocks also hold meaning, but I won’t detail them here.

I can’t work if all my projects are stacked up around me, calling me to come pay attention. So after completing this batch, I carefully put them away until some time in May, giving me some mental space. (Fun video, here, with a perky little tune.)

So, March’s 25 blocks are done.
April’s 25 blocks are finished, too.

This came out next. It’s Sherri’s BOM for 2025. April’s block is finished, and now I’ve tucked that away, too, until May.

Posh Penelope blocks are up next, but I’ll wait to work on them until after Easter. (It makes a big happy mess in my sewing room.)

Every April and October, our church holds their Semi-Annual General Conference, which we listen to via streaming broadcast. Through all the talks, I sink deeply into thinking about ways to better my tiny life, but this year I also enjoyed the sights of this young choir, dressed much as I did back when I was their age: hair streaming down from a middle part at the top of their head, their dresses all smocked and ruffled and gathered and puffed sleeves, too! I didn’t have a camera when I was 17, nor were many photos taken of me, so you’ll just have to trust me that I looked like them.

I also like to sew while I listen (hence making good progress on the economy blocks!). I tried sewing them without paper, but it was harder to keep them square. So, here I’m using the freezer paper method. Here’s a free handout, in case you missed it on the last post:

Two Sizes Economy Blocks_OPQuilt Download

My husband Dave and I took a trip up to see grandchildren and family, as I mentioned.

We also had a chance to visit some of our siblings. My sister showed me the wonderful tree of life weaving she purchased on her last trip. I love all these birds perched on the branches, with companions flying all around.

Another highlight of the trip was to see a mid-career retrospective of the artist Brian Kershisnik at BYU’s Museum of Art. Kershisnik’s exhibit began with a video of him working and talking and interspersed in between were snippets of his TEDx talk, which is worth watching, ending with something to think about. Kershisnik has long been a favorite of mine; he paints the quirks and slivers of human life that we are all familiar with, but don’t seem to see in traditional paintings. He also has a sense of humor about things, so valuable these days.

In this trio of paintings of women, the titles read (left to right):
Holy Woman, 2001
Climbing Mother, 2013
Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist, 2003. Yes, the infant Jesus is poking young John in the eye.

from title card: “While not undermining his holy nature, the baby Christ (still with a visible halo) acts more like an actual child than most traditional versions. Kershisnik humanizes saints and holy figures, suggesting that perhaps they are not as different from us as we might have previously supposed.”

I found so many paintings that echoed into my life. As my father would have said, it was a peak experience. Since this is the week before Easter, here’s a few more.

Even if you aren’t religious, Christ’s palpable straining to let the souls of hell escape their awful fate helped me understand the whole idea of sacrificing for others in a most visceral way. And Christ gesturing, says, “Go.” Get going, get doing, make something of yourselves. Below is a link to a video clip of Kershisnik below where he says he is reticent about “explaining” the meanings of paintings for others, not wanting to limit them. I also don’t want to limit you. This is just my take, after standing there gazing at this enormous painting, a couple of weeks before Easter.

Death has hung around my life in a significant way in the last couple of years, so yeah, I lingered at this painting.

Are we like these little ones in Kershisnik’s painting, Jesus and the Angry Babies (2014)? Maybe. The angels in the background are there to help. (video clip of the artist discussing this painting) Last one, with a theme pertinent to our sewing experience:

The morning after we arrived home, I took a walk in our local park. Right after that photo I saw that some children (not angry babies, not angry adults) had decorated up the sidewalk with all colors of chalk, including a hopscotch diagram, which I most definitely took time to jump through, before continuing. I conclude one of the artist’s names, below.