Catching Up, Keeping Myself Honest

May 11, 2025May 6, 2025 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

You could skip this post like you might want have to skipped Weight Watchers checkins back in the day…it’s a post that charts progress, keeps me honest and helps me admit my defeats as well as my successes. I watched a well-known recipe developer on Instagram bake her own wedding cakes last week, and I was like…I think I need to go and lie down for a while. It all looked amazing, and I wish I knew her personally so I could taste all her layers and fillings and crumbles.

Is making a quilt like that? We have layers and pieces and threads and in the end, we put a binding on it and call it a quilt? Those who aren’t quilters are amazed, but we just smile and pick the threads off our sweaters.

One of the Important Things is to get your machine serviced once a year.

So I drove out to a neighboring city, and dropped off my machine which caused me some grief (it’s how much?).

To recover, I went across the street, where the delightful ladies of this shop made me feel welcomed. They are in the process of moving, and I look forward to their Grand Opening in June, in a new location. With better parking.

The strawberry quilt was in their back room. Some red, white, and blue fabrics came home with me, and then I popped them in a mailer and sent them to my daughter who is making lots of small, very cute flags. That link will take you to some Stories, and I really like what she says in the last one, that sometimes we have to do a lateral move to keep the creativity flowing. Truth.

Yes, it cracks me up that she still has the wrapping on her ruler, but if that’s how she rolls, I’m happy. She confessed on another story that she purchased some fabric and then her eyes got really wide and she said, “Fabric’s a mood right now!” Translation: It’s expensive. (I’m loving this.)

Mary, of Zippy Quilts commented on her Tony’s Chocoloney Bar. Here’s ours. We buy it at Whole Foods, when we go there (rarely), sometimes Sprouts. Sometimes Walmart, but check the expiration date. We chunk it up and keep it in a covered container for an after-dinner treat.

Sherri dropped her free BOM block for May. I’m using an old line of her fabrics, but I love them, so I’m happy.

Here are the first five. They are giant blocks, like 18″ big.

A new Molly arrived…on her Vespa. The price has jumped about 20% in case you were wondering what girls-on-Vespas-from-China cost now that we are having a tariff fight. I’m sadder about the chaos, the destruction, the cruelty — why NPR? Why PBS? According to a poll about the bias in news sources, they come down just about in the middle of the range from right to left. And why the National Parks? Why are they savaging the science funding? The arts funding (including the Quilt Index)? Have we lost our minds? (Yes.)

I fear for my grandchildren’s world.

(a childhood book)

Starting on this to keep my mind off the news. It’s my New York Beauties quilt.

If you are on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve seen that I’m on a trip in another city, so yes, I did all this before I left. I’ll be home soon. No I didn’t visit EnergyLandia, but I’d like to bottle what they have and bring it home. My brain is most likely overloaded with new sights, new sounds, and all the quilt projects are waiting for me back home.

Well, all but one.

I read this one post on Bluesky where a quilter she said she would just stumble around until she figured out what direction she was going in, and boy did that resonate. I started sewing hexies because I was on a car trip; yes, that’s the whole reason. But this week, I stumbled into the next idea, and what colors I want to use.

I cut some squares a bit bigger than my hexies. I’m using Painter’s Palette solids in lighter colors. Then I creased the fabric square lightly to get them centered, put a small appliqué pin in the center to hold it, and stacked them up.

I cut a manila paper folder to size, as I have to be able to transport them and use this set-up in a small space, like a seat-back table on an airplane or a train. The mini-folder fits right into that blue bag. I’m taking this for a hand-work project on trains and planes, and to help me keep my sanity when everything I own is in two small bags and I’m trying to shove in more. (I modified this idea from Becky Goldsmith, who uses a slightly different folder set-up to transport her pieces for appliqué. She explains it thoroughly in this video or more simply in this post.)

Just so you know it’s me, here’s what I went through to cut hexies to sew:

I exploded my scrap basket, but in the last photo — having gone through it all — I stowed it all nicely back in the bottom drawer where I keep my scraps. I’m cutting one last yellow, below (and no, I’m not taking the tin box — too bulky for overseas travel):

See you in a bit–

If you are in the States — Happy Mother’s Day!

300 Quilts · Free Motion Quilting · Quilt Finish

Field Flowers • Quilt Finish

July 7, 2019July 7, 2019 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

Field Flowers_1

One of the challenges of finishing a quilt is figuring out where to photograph the thing. So one night last week my husband and I went over to University of California-Riverside (UCR) to find some places that would set off the two quilts I was toting around.

I’d originally thought about the Botannic Gardens, with all their lush greenery and wooden benches; I’ve snapped photos in this place before, and Field Flowers, with its scalloped edges is so old-fashioned looking I wanted to head there. It was closed. As we walking back to the car to leave, I spotted this old greenhouse. UCR is noted for its agricultural emphasis, as we breed a lot of the oranges you are eating now (Cuties, anyone?). This greenhouse seemed the perfect place, for my husband, with three broken ribs, to be able to hold up the quilt. (By the way, he has a Qh.D: a doctorate in Quilt Holding.)

Renaissance Figures Holding Ladybird

I also recruited two bystanders from the museum in Berlin to help me show off Field Flowers. Although their expressions are a little wooden, they held it in place without moving, so I was able to get a good photograph.

Field Flowers_2a

The center of this quilt was quilted by my regular quilter, Cathy of CJ Designs. She left the basting in the borders and then turned it over to me to finish up those scalloped edges. Since the pattern is by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life, I knew she’d have good ideas of how to finish the quilt, so I pretty much mimicked what her quilter did. More information about the pattern can be found on *this post.*

Bias Binding.jpg

I followed Sherri’s directions for cutting bias binding, but used a 20-inch square as I’d added more hexies to my quilt. I needn’t have, as her directions would have provided enough length.

Field Flowers_2b

The single fold binding went smoothly around each curve, and didn’t add too much bulk.

Field Flowers_2c

Earlier that day, we’d gone over to Gless Ranch, a local purveyor of oranges, as they had old farm equipment around their property, and lots of (newly trimmed) orange trees:

Field Flowers_3a

When we got home, I noticed it had gotten dirty from traipsing around, so threw it in a cool-water wash with a couple of color catchers (first invented in the UK, by the way), and dried it until almost dry on a low heat. Like all other quilters everywhere, I love how the washed quilt looks (although I also like unwashed quilts). Lay flat to dry, so there is no transferring of ink to other damp spots. (As me how I know this.)

Field Flowers_6 Field Flowers_6a

Field Flowers_5 — Me, standing with *Field Flowers* in a field of ferns.

Happy Photographing!

Quilts

Field Flowers • Top Finished

March 20, 2019March 19, 2019 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Field Flowers_1

Field Flowers (quilt top only)
69″ wide by 74 1/2″ tall

I took it out in the backyard for some photos, easily done with my new quilt stand. It’s very satisfying to look at this, noticing scraps of fabric here and there that remind me of different quilts and times.

Field Flowers_4

The pattern is Flowers for Emma, by Sherri McConnell, and like a true A Quilting Life pattern, it’s easy to follow and a lovely design. [You can also buy it at Fat Quarter Shop.] I’ve already tucked the completed quilt top away in the closet, awaiting its quilting (at some time in the future). I added a couple of extra rows and a couple of hexie blocks to lengthen out each row, wanting it a bit bigger. Field Flowers_start.jpg

Here’s where I started, a year ago on April 25, 2018. Nice to be at the “finished top” stage.

Riverside Flowers_1

I’m calling this Field Flowers, as each petal of my hexie flowers is small, and contains visual treasures, like this vista of wildflowers in bloom on the hills around our city.

These are all closeups of small flowers at my feet: pops of color that delight. So instead of a “Field of Flowers,” I chose “Field Flowers,” a different connotation entirely.

Field Flowers_being photo'ed — *Backstage, after the fans have gone home.*

The spring equinox supermoon is tonight. Don’t forget to look!
(You can also see it tomorrow night, too.)

Quilts-on-the-Bed

Northern Star update

August 5, 2018August 3, 2018 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

The last time I worked on this, Neanderthals worked on chipping rocks for tools.
The last time I worked on this, Bing Crosby was crooning White Christmas.
The last time I worked on this, I had straight cut bangs and was in fourth grade.

Kidding. But it has been a while.

This is the fantasy version, done up in my favorite quilt software, Quilt Pro.

The next ring was a series of Flying Geese. I got the geese done and they didn’t fit.

Typical Medallion Quilt nonsense.

Those solid-color bands in between the pieces sections have many names, but Melanie, of Catbird Quilt Studio, also calls them Spacer Borders, and has a great blogpost on working with your pieced border and spacer borders to put the quilt together. Another post of hers talks about designing medallion quilts in general, and is another great reference.

I wrote to her for advice (she really does know EVERYTHING about medallions and her blog is full of wonderful writing), and sent me a tiny example of how to do the math to figure it out:

$Spacer Border Math.png$

I did follow her instructions, trimmed some of the blue adjustment/spacer border, and the geese fit perfectly. I also pinned them on a flat surface, working to keep the quilt square and not make any bubbles in the surface.

Northern Star2_3 — Lovely night shot. It’s always late, lately.

As per her advice, I cut the next border larger, and am now working on trying to get that last border to fit.

But this process this week has not been without some angst, as I first thought I was so smart to make a HST, cut that in half and then half again. But that won’t work, as these last blocks have the colors in very specific places.

So I pulled out my triangle maker from Bonnie Hunter and started making the size I needed (I learned how to use her tool when I made her En Provence quilt in 2016-17). Never let a new skill go wasted, or at least use it once in a while to keep it from totally slipping out of the old brain.

In looking at the unit, I thought I would make the four-patch center, then adjoin the larger top/bottom triangles. No. It worked out better to create the unit above and sew them together.

I splayed the back seams so the joins weren’t so bulky.

Now I’m auditioning adding another teal border on top of the green, or cutting down the green adjustment border to fit the pieced border. I’m leaning toward the second one.

I thought these last sections would go more quickly, but I was quite bogged down the other night, trying to figure the dang thing out. I’m back on track now, I guess. Medallion quilts are one of my favorite quilts, but they can be tricky.

Last weekend we spent a few days up in the mountains of Southern Utah, feeling a bit too hot in the day, but blissful at night as we enjoyed the quiet and the breeze and a rare double-rainbow. I also taught Free Motion Quilting to some of my relatives, as well as how to sew hexies. They were receptive, and it was a weird thing to be sewing out in nature, but the cabin had electricity, and they wanted to learn.