Build Me a Cabin of Light

November 9, 2025November 8, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

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.

First Monday Sew-day · Quilts

First Monday Sew-Day • May 2020

May 3, 2020 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

All these Log Cabin Quilts were hanging in a special vintage exhibit in a quilt show some years back, and I think I photographed them all. And while there are a lot of images here in this collage, I didn’t put them all in.

Log Cabin

This Log Cabin quilt, above, was the second big quilt I ever made and it took me four years from start to finish. When the quilting was all done, I brought the backing fabric to the front, folded it over, stitched it down and called it a binding (the quilt police are gasping!). But it was what I knew how to do then. I quilted this by hand through the hot summers of my time in Texas, finishing it up in the mellow spring of the Bay Area in California.

May 2020 Illus

So for our First Monday Sew-day group I chose the Log Cabin block. This group is geared toward new quilters, so I’m trying to figure out the basic blocks a quilter needs in their skills basket, and designing a monthly handout to match. You can get your PDF handout here:

FirstMondaySewday_5_2020

It’s in a PDF form, two-sided. Trying to keep it simple, I only tackled two of the hundreds of variations of Log Cabin blocks. We’ve been doing this for a while, so search for First Monday Sew-day to get the rest of the handouts.

And variations of setting, too. I’ve made a few different kind of Log Cabin blocks. Here are a few:

Christmas Wonky Log Cabin2

A wonky Log Cabin quilt, given to my son.

Amish With a Twist 2 log cabins

A block for this quilt:

Shadow Light Quilt_full1

Eastmond Bubble Log Cabin June 2015MCM

And even a funky round Log Cabin block, made by varying the sizes and lengths of the strips. Yes, Log Cabins are definitely in our heritage, especially our quilting heritage.

harrison-log-cabin-med — Historical Newspaper (from here)

Barbara Brackman provides information on the origin of this name: “In June of 1866, an Iowa diarist known only as “Abbie” wrote that she “went to town, bought Delaine [wool blend] for my log cabin.” On the last day of July she “wrote a letter to Sis and worked on my log cabin.” If you don’t know about Barbara Brackman, a quilt historian, click over to her site and learn. She’s always my go-to source when I have a question.

So, even though we can’t meet together, that doesn’t mean we can’t have our First Monday Sew-day. If like me, you are stuck at home and you make a Log Cabin block, send me a photo!

200 Quilts · Quilt Patterns

Riverside Sawtooth, a finished quilt top

May 7, 2016May 2, 2016 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Riverside Sawtooth, the name I’ve given for this original block of mine, has been finished — or at least the top has. It is a compilation of bee blocks from the Mid-Century Bee, as well as several of mine. I started making these in the Alison Glass blues fabric, but trying to describe what color of blue that was to people all over the United States was a challenge: I finally settled on “painter’s tape blue.” I like this quilt not because of that color and that block, but also because it’s a scrappy two-color block. Have a bunch of greens, or pinks, or reds that need to be gathered together into a quilt? This would work great.

Through the process of arranging and cullling and making more blocks to balance colors, I had enough blocks for another small mini.

The genesis came from seeing a similar antique quilt, but that maker had done a more traditional construction (and sorry–there was no name on that old quilt). I wanted to see if I could make it as a block, the sawtooth incorporated into the construction process. It took me several weeks of working on it, then testing it. I wrote up the pattern and sent it as a test block out to my beemates and incorporated their tips and tricks into the pattern wording. Now thoroughly tested, I tweaked the pattern and at long last, have it available for download in my shops at Craftsy and PayHip (for EU customers). The pattern includes lots of detailed photos and walks you through it the process, so it’s good for anyone’s set of skills, beyond the what-is-a-rotary-cutter-and-how-do-I-use-it barely beginning level.
Riverside Sawtooth_small2

Here’s another mini full of full dotty blocks. I loved working in this tonality of blue — hey, I love blue in any tonality — but the inspiration of Alison Glass’ fabrics kicked me into finding blue fabrics that coordinated with hers. The large quilt (72″ square) is in the line-up to be quilted, and then I’ll probably label it and get it up on the 200 Quilts list, but for now, I wanted to make it available to you, if you want to try your hand at an updated fun version of a block.

I’ve been working on a few more patterns and I’ll roll them out one by one over the next several weeks, as I get the typos expunged, the photographs completed and then uploaded for purchase. Riverside Sawtooth_small4

Quilts

From Baskets to a Museum–more quilts in Utah

September 13, 2013September 10, 2013 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

While visiting relatives in Utah, just before I tucked into the new semester of teaching (which would explain why I have been AWOL for a couple of weeks), my husband and I headed to Salt Lake City’s newest museum: The Natural History Museum, high up above the University of Utah. It is a gorgeous museum, complete with artifacts, history and dinosaur bones.

But I was more interested in the woven baskets in the Native People’s exhibit. I guess I’m fascinated by color and pattern, in all forms.

Which is why I found this piece of art, in the Millcreek Library so fascinating. That library, where my sister-in-law Annie works, has a Senior Citizen’s center, a gym, a cafeteria and of course, art.

This appears to make of some sort of plasticized material–almost like a thin linoleum, cut and sewn in quilt patterns. I loved it.

I had brought up my Polaroid Quilt to show my mother, and my dad held up his finger as if to signal a pause and came back carrying this: a genuine, bonafide Polaroid camera. Of course, there’s not any film to be found for it anymore, but I thought it deserved a picture with the quilt.

On the way home, we headed to the Springville Art Museum, which hosts a quilt show every August. I snapped a lot of photos, but here are just some of them. This one is titled Juxtaposition and is by Marilyn Landry Toone, and was inspired by her daughter’s choice of fabrics from her “fabric stash of 40-plus years.”

I’ve Had the Blues is made by Jacque Thompson and quilted by Kim Peterson, and was made “entirely out of scraps using one-inch strips.”

Detail of the beautiful quilting.

Kristen Roylance’s quilt Posy Patch was made using a modified disappearing 4-patch block, and was quilted by Molly Kohler. The dimensional flowers were charming.

I snapped this one without noting who made or quilted it–it’s really beautiful and detailed.

“Look, honey,” I said to my husband. “A Dear Jane quilt!” “Dear what?” he said. The title of this one is Dear Jane Invites Hannah for a Dutch Treat, and is made and quilted by Shirley Olsen. It was a masterpiece and earned an Award of Excellance from the judges.

Marion McClellan’s Bottle Cap Bangles is a fun use of hexagrams and fussy-cut fabric. She also quilted her piece.

This quilt, Zinnia Basket, was made and quilted by Patti Jacobs, from a Kim Diehl pattern. Apparently she used to think that quilters were nuts to “spend time doing hand appliqué when you could sew the pieces on with the sewing machine,” but now is a dedicated lover of appliqué.

I really liked the border.

Kaye Evans quilt, Just One Weed, is named for the dandelion hexagon in the middle of the quilt. It was quilted by Sue McCarty.

The quilt display was merged with a display of giant critters made out of auto body parts, springs, doodads and whatevers.

I liked Tim Little’s Camera Bug the best.

My husband knows just what to do at a quilt show: become like a camera bug and start taking photos. Many of these photos are his–he’s a delight, but was probably relieved that there was no vendor mall here.

Ladies of the Sea was made by Karin Lee Crawford and quilted by Judy Madsen. It was a pattern from Sue Garmen depicting famous rigged sailing vessels from around the world.

Detail. I have to assume that the quilter is really Judi Madsen, of Green Fairy fame, but I could be wrong. It was gorgeous in both the making and the quilting.

And to finish up this little quilt show, a Log Cabin quilt. Megan Christensen made the quilt, but didn’t identify the quilter. The title is A Good Use of Scraps, inspiring us all to get going on our scrap baskets!