Duck Creek • Quilt Finish

February 17, 2025August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

Duck Creek • quilt #302

I know you are really here to see the info on this beautiful mural. It’s by Rosy Cortez, and was done under her guidance by a team of helpers. (Links point to her Instagram page as well as to the website for the mural.) I really love that it’s three different ages/stages of women, honoring our local native tribes. I’ve been two of these ages, and am now in the third (hint: I’m not pregnant).

Sometimes the title of this mural, We Are Still Here, reminds me of all my quilter friends. We cut and piece and hang out in our sewing rooms, studios, basements, garages, spare bedrooms. Every once in a while we pop up with another quilt top finished, the binding on another, and still another in stages of quilting. Dedicated, we follow in the way of artists everywhere: we have the vision. We have to see it through.

Recently an article titled “The Art of the Steal,” discussed the number of original book plots possible. In 330 B.C. Aristotle thought there might be just two: “simple (change of fortune) and complex (in which the change of fortune is accompanied by setbacks and reversals)” (by Emily Eakin, link above should allow you to read the entire article). By 1892, Rudyard Kipling thought there were 69 plots. Between Kipling and our current day, the number fluctuated, and by 2004, Christopher Booker proclaimed there were just seven: “the quest, vanquishing the monster, rags to riches, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy and rebirth” (Eakin, ibid). Not to let the number lay there, another group used a computer in 2016, and proclaimed that the “world’s stories boiled down to ‘six basic shapes‘ (Eakin, ibid.)

So how many original quilts are there in our quilting world? Like the novelists, do we have just six basic shapes?

Two of these are triangles, the rectangle is just a stretched-out square, and the curved wedge is just a segment of a circle. We have rectangle triangles, skinnier triangles, ray-shaped triangles. You’ve used them, I’ve used them. Are we like novelists then? Taking a few basic shapes (boy meets girl, etc.) to make our quilts? I have a child who really likes triangles. Another of mine just likes big quilts, bypassing design altogether. Another likes red quilts, and the last child just wants them all (bless her).

I can satisfy all their requests, for sure. And like my children, some of us are attracted to medallion quilts (my hand is the air), others like samplers, and still others would be happy making intricately pieced quilts for the rest of their lives in a blissful sort of who-cares-about-shapes-let’s-throw-them-all-in-at-once attitude, and come out with spectacular pieces of art. The reality is we take, we borrow, we steal, we adapt, we climb on top of, we turn it around, and then make it ours. Here’s one of my recent favorites, from Linda Hungerford, of Flourishing Palms.

*Feelin’ Groovy*, by Linda Hungerford (used with permission)

So the bottom line is for me, at least, I think there may be very few original quilt designs. No one gets to claim copyright on a triangle, or a circle; we all know that. But where our creativity comes in, and why we are still here, sewing machines humming, has to do with how we use those shapes, those fabrics, and how big we make it and how small we make it.

I have two copies of Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Shapes, and I also have her version of that for Appliqué. Sorry to say that I feel the same about appliqué: most of us are imitating the vines, swirls, flowers, stars and animals of the appliqué world that we’ve seen before. I have twice had famous quilters threaten me with a lawsuit because they believed I was making money off their designs (seriously?). One was well-known for pinching other people’s designs, too. I pulled that pattern, and have made it free for those who are interested, for who needs a lawsuit? The other quilt I never went far with, but I’ve seen variations of it. One last episode of being accused of plagiarism left me shaken, and I lost a good friend over it, even though the design was available freely online. I really hate run-ins with famous territorial quilters, as most of the time I’m just in my tiny world, doing my thing.

The Duck Creek quilt is made of Cat’s Cradle blocks, sashed with cornerstones and pieced rectangles, and it is the design of Lisa Alexander & Susan Ache, from their book Celebrate with Quilts. I saw this pattern at our Guild night, when Char brought her book to show a couple of us. I was hooked on this design, bought the book and went for it.

The subtitle of the Times’ article has the phrase “Copy that” as in, we get it. But sometimes we quilters seem to be the least able to “get it,” I think. I have seen some incredibly original and interesting quilts this last year, and yes, most all used the shapes above. But they are originals because of the way they used the shapes, colors, negative space and so on; maybe we don’t need to get so territorial about our shapes? We quilters can be “original” even when working with those basics, like Linda’s amazing Feelin’ Groovy.

Nobody can “copy that!”

Keep making, keep quilting, keep being here–and have fun at QuiltCon this week, everyone!

UPDATE: Some truly unique and original quilts were hanging this year at QuiltCon 2025. Here’s a post that will show them off. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here.

PatternLite · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Flowers!

October 23, 2017August 12, 2024 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

Since this link is out in the universe for a Poppy Block, and a lot has happened in those intervening years, let’s cut right to the chase.

The pattern has been updated, and the links below reflect that. Now you can find the pattern in my pattern shop on PayHip here.

While the original poppy block is in the pattern, I’ve also given different ideas for setting your blocks, so it’s not the same old thing:

I wrote all about this quilt on this post.
Here’s some more flower/pattern information.
The Poppy shows up here, along with Sunflowers.

Okay, back to the originally written post.

Original Post

My nephew’s wife, Grace, wrote to me and asked for help. She is a young quilter, who makes awesome gooseberry jam (she shared a jar with me), so I wanted to help. The quilt was for someone close to her who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she thought a quilt was needed. I agree.

She sent me the screen shot you see above, and since it was on Pinterest…and you know how much I LOVE their search engines (NOT), I thought it was easier to draft it on my computer using QuiltPro than try to find the original design (I tried…and failed…but kudos to whoever dreamed it up). Besides, that was one of those “barn” quilts, painted on wood, not a cloth quilt.

This is what I came up with. But I knew Grace wanted to move quickly, and yeah–all those pieces?

I thought about my Home Sweet Home mini quilt, and how she could make fewer blocks, but bigger blocks?

UPDATE: There is now a pattern for this sunflower quilt.

Grace wrote back. She loved what I’d done, but now they were thinking poppies. She sent me a sample of a quilt she’d seen. I drafted it up in my quilt software and drew up a quilt. But I thought I should test out my own pattern, so I made a Poppy Block:

Poppy block constructon1 — trimming snowball corners

I think it will be cute quilt.

It can be made in reds and greens and be thought of as poinsettias for Christmas. Or made to commemorate Anzac Day in April, for the Australians. Or red and white for a bouquet of posies for Valentine’s Day. Have fun, and if your friends want a poppy pattern–send them to my pattern shop to get their own PatternLite pattern. Thanks. PatternLite patterns were developed as they were simplified, and cheap — less than your drink at Starbucks.

Making that block added to my collection of red and white triangles (ignore the interlopers in the upper right corner). I trim them to whatever measurement’s closest, without it being a weird number, and save them.

Every once in a while, I sew them into four-patches.

I haven’t decided yet what to do with them, but a couple of questions arise: do I include the Christmas prints? Or do they get their own collection? (I think so.)

Do you ever quilt with “rules”? It’s about all I remember from my beginning art classes, ages ago in college. The assignments laid out rules to create by — an edge to the sandbox — if you will, and went something like this:

Take an old piece of clothing, adhere it to a canvas and paint it like something else.
Use three shapes only.
Create a composition by taking a square of black paper, cutting out some shape and using the negative and positive pieces.
This assignment will use only two colors, but you may use any range of those colors.

And so on. There are many books out there in the marketplace for guided creativity, but they all start with a rule.

Sometimes I find little bags of treasures in my sewing room, with pieces inside that have been collected according to some rule. Like the red and white triangle rule. Or the 3-inch square rule, but I kind of think that last one’s a bit of a cheat.

Several years ago, I saw this on Jan Burgwinkle’s blog, Be*mused, and fell in love with it. Maybe that’s why I started making little HSTs. (While she doesn’t seem to update her blog much these days, it’s still amazing to read through the archives.) So that’s my rule and I’m sticking with it: red and white triangles, although seeing this quilt again does make me wonder if I should break it.

Round up of some recent patterns:

All the PatternLite patterns can be found here.

Creating · Sewing

Half-Square Triangle Trick

April 20, 2012October 1, 2022 Elizabeth E.3 Comments

So, I’m pinning along on Pinterest, chasing down Crossed Canoes, checking out boards (it’s the after-lunch slump) and found this tutorial for a new way to make half-square triangles.

The drawback: all the outside edges are on the bias. Like the video says, squirt them with some sort of spray starch.

The benefits: about the easiest way to make half-square triangles I’ve even seen. I found this on WhipUp.net, and she included a chart (WhipUp is no longer available):

Now I’m going to go and dig up about a hundred HST (Half Square Triangle) type quilts and make them all tonight, just like I usually do (cough, cough). I love the one below, found on QuiltBarn’s website (and titled Rainbow Zig-Zag).