Quilt Finish: Orange Sprite Phenomenon

December 7, 2025December 10, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

The Blue and Cheddar quilt is finished, bound, and sent off to the recipient. If it were to have a name and a label, I would call it this:

This is Quilt #311 in my Quilt Index.

I titled it this because of a celestial event. A rare celestial event.

This is called a red sprite phenomenon, when when lightning flashes above thunderstorms, creating a spikey flash of red light high in the sky. By using cheddar and deep blue, the quilt pays tribute to this transient luminous event: an orange sprite phenomenon. (photo) You can read more about it in this gifted article from the New York Times.

Hawthorne Supply Company was having a sale on Kaufman’s navy blue flannel. I ordered two packs for the back, washed them up. They are so thick and yummy, they are almost like chamois. My quilter, Nancy, did an awesome job on the quilting, with the pattern Diagonal Plaid Bias Cut from Urban Elementz. We used a copper MicroQuilter thread (Superior Threads) on the front and a coordinating thread on the back.

Our wisteria was dropping leaves this week, so here’s the requisite “fall” shot from Southern California. The blue fabrics are just ones I had in the stash, a full spectrum of rich, deep colors. Every so often, I feel like a label would interrupt the quilt back, and not that important (no lectures, please), so I leave it off. This happens like (wait for it) once in a blue moon.

I have long been fascinated by celestial events.

We’ve attended an annular eclipse, a solar eclipse, and a recent total solar eclipse.

When I was first married to my husband, we took our children up and stayed at his parents’ house for a week; one night was a star shower. I spread out a quilt on the grass in the backyard and watched the shooting stars. Since we were pretty much newlyweds (he married me and my four children, saving us all), I wonder what his parents and family thought. But he came and joined me on the grass, on the quilt, and we star-gazed together.

I was fascinated by what Jonny Thomson said this week on his Instagram account about the Korean idea of in-yun. It is not the first time I’ve run across this philosophy, and he described it well:

Imagine you pass somebody in the park and say, you nod, you smile, and you go back to your life. Then, a few days later, you notice the same person behind you in the supermarket. According to the Korean idea of in-yun, something important is happening here. In-yun means fate, but it really means the fate between people and relationships….[E]ssentially, it says that if you see a stranger more than once, it is not just a coincidence. That is the universe trying to tell you something. It is trying to say that here is someone important, they have something to teach you.

The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel argued that we should live our lives in a state of disponibilité, which means that we are ready to be at the disposal of the world.** If you stop seeing events as irrelevant accidents, but as messages, then you start to see the world as an opportunity. If you live your life ready to be helped, and ready to be changed, you will be. In-yun is the philosophical version of the crossing paths theory. It says that if somebody comes into your life, it is for a reason. If something keeps happening to you again, and again, and again, the universe is telling you that there is something to learn.

I’ve had more than a few things that have taught me to stay curious, to live in a state of disponibilité (or availability, as I understand it). Quilting, and the constant rate of discovery that happens in any quilt — from choice of fabrics, to colors, to inspiration — seems to match that idea for me, and I enjoy diving into a new project, and I enjoy finishing up. I also enjoy the quilters I meet, the quilters who teach me, my correspondence with all of you who read my blog, learning from every writer.

And so when my desire to rework my Azulejos pattern kept coming back around, and then I read about red sprites…well, that connection propelled me to this place. I hope the person who receives this gift will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. I had fond thoughts of him (my son-in-law) as I worked on it.

UPDATE: He likes it!!

Stay curious, everyone–

**Availability of mind, thought; state of availability, according to this French dictionary page, which I asked Google to translate into English.

Yes, I once did make, not one eclipse quilt, but two!

And an artsy eclipse quilt:

300 and Beyond · Quilt Finish · Quilts

Tiny Victories are Still Victories

November 3, 2025 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Rookie Mistakes could be another title, even though I don’t consider myself a rookie. Both of these ideas are true for me this week.

I’ve had Krakow Circles kicking around since Spring, and when I needed a small something to finish, I chose this.

A quilt from Lois Parish Evans (Australia): Mandala 6 • Winter Solstice

After seeing Lois Evans’ quilts at Carrefour I decided to attempt her tiny stipple. Okay, not as tiny as hers, but a reasonable facsimile. Tiny victory, on this one too.

Then I continued the small stuff with swirly-circles. Tired of that, and not wanting a whole quilt to be that way, for the borders I drew on a wavy line, added more lines, then finally, a circle to echo all the others. Cool, I thought, a close-to-the-end tiny victory. Now, on to the binding. I chose to do it from the back-wrap-to-the-front, as for some quilts, I’ve come to love this look of the finished binding being on top.

Trouble.

I didn’t count on/remember/realize that the teensy stippling would draw up the quilt that much. Now those corner yellow circles would be cut off by the binding. I snipped a few threads, releasing them, and finished sewing the binding.

None of my circle templates would work, so I traced the end of a spool of thread onto freezer paper, cut those out and shaped them for appliqué. Except for one. That one I had to make even smaller. Yes, I do personalize my patchwork.

Kraków Circles, quilt #309, 28″ square
I started designing this at the end of May, after our return from Poland, and cut the first shapes June 3, 2025.

I think the back looks cool — it’s an older ombre-type fabric.

Labels are oldies from Northcott, by Deborah Edwards. I found them when we had to pull out the sewing desk from the wall when the new blinds went in. (Hmmm. There’s a lesson here somewhere.)

Finished: November 3, 2025. It’s a little victory to get this one done and it will hang in my sewing room, reminding me of Krakow’s churches and our trip there this past May. I’ll take tiny victories, these days.

Hope you have some too–

This and That • October 2025 • Quilt Finish

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Boo!

This latest finish had a few mothers:

1) a bag of scraps from mine and Leisa’s Halloween in the Vegetable Patch quilt, and…

2) a need to make a quick quilt, which Azulejos is, and…

3) After the Great Computer Debacle and File Deletion Tragedy, I’ve been trying to put back together my pattern files, and Azulejos was the first one I finished. So I needed to test it out, and…

4) This cartoon from one of my favorites (Grant Snider) and a collaborator (Jon Acuff), and…

5) Realizing that I still had the 4th of July redwhiteblue quilt above this cupboard and now it was the orangeblackwhite season.

This is how it came together in two days (click to enlarge any photo below):

I kept the quilting simple. On the back were two leftover panel blocks from the original kitted Halloween Quilt, along with some rando orange dot fabric from the stash. I used the bits we’d cut off to border the panels, so they’d be large enough. And since this pattern — while quick and easy — calls for a template, I put tape on the back so it won’t move around, then I use a ruler to help in the cutting.

Quilt #308 | Halloween Mini-quilt | approximately 28″ square.

This is still one of my favorite versions of this pattern: SeaDepths. I have one more version to try, a deep blue and cheddar combo. Some of this is that I realize that every corner of my room holds the promise of a project/quilt-to-be. I’d been saving the scraps since last year and the bag kept kicking around the edges. GONE! I have been saving the deep blue/cheddar fabrics since 2019. They are washed, and stacked, ready to go next week. And yes, I threw away the scraps from the scraps, as there was so little left.

You know I wouldn’t want to miss America’s throwing itself a party. One of my signs was a cat print-out from Martha Rich’s art (used with permission), and the other sign was my husband’s (Protect Our Freedoms) with the wording he chose. We both wore yellow, as did others.

Bravo to all the unicorns who came out to walk and gather. Lots of flags, lots of good will and as I noted in my Instagram post, we detoured into the Korean chicken place mid-way. It was delicious. Then back to the march. Then home.

Our signs posed together in the Butterfly Alley, near the gathering.

Started the latest Thursday Murder Club listen: The Impossible Fortune.

How does he come up with these plot lines? I am really loving this.

Even though there are technically three more blocks to this A Quilting Life 2025 Block of the Month Quilt, I’ve using Grant Snider’s advice #6 — getting rid of rules — and calling it done here. It’s been a fun project and hats off to Sherri for her creativity and for sharing these free blocks with us. Now to figure out a border, and get it quilted.

Finally, Squircles will finish this edition of This and That for October 2025. The hashtag we’re using — #backtosquircle — showed up with two more squircle makers: Lisa and Betty, both from the mountain west.

Mine are on the above left, and Gladi has some that are shown on the above right, out of beautiful brocades and silks.

On the train to Strasbourg.

On the train to Colmar. I must admit that I looked out the windows a lot.

Now, with a new sewing box, courtesy of a run through Le Grande epicerie in Paris (where I purchased some cookies just.for.the.tin), this is me stitching in the airplane on the way home. In the dark (again). Why do we never put up our window screens anymore to see the miracle of flying through the air? Nevermind. #screensrule

I’m almost to 60 squircles finished, one-third of the way there.
Keep stitching, keep stitching!

Last Look

Kraków Circles

June 7, 2025June 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

I have this line of patterns I call PatternLite. Usually they start out as just a block I’m kind of doodling around with and want to share. Then I decide I want to make it, and take a lot of photos, and work out some helps and aids and tips and tricks, and before I know it, it has blossomed into a full-fledged — or at least partly-fledged — pattern.

Kraków Circle started out as a free block on the post about my visit to that city, and touring all the churches. Then I thought it might be interested to try out Sharon Keightley’s circle method, since there are bunch of little circles in this design. And then I added a different view, different color way, and so on. Here’s my first stab at the little circles:

She has you use a long pin as your handle, and then using the shiny side of freezer paper, you ease up the fabric, ironing to make it stick (Iink is below) I usually do the gather-stitch around the outside, and then slip in a plastic circle and press, with some spray starch. That just did not work on these little orbs:

You can see how over-full they are. The first try with this, it took me about five minutes and the circle was a bit of a mess. But after about 7 or 8 tries, they were nice and round, so I re-did the gather-circles.

Here’s my one-minute video and I hope inserting the video works! (I’m trying something new.) I know there is a little bump on the circle’s outside, but when I appliqué that, I can ease it in with my needle.

Here’s Sharon’s version of making circles. And she also has a version for the petal shapes, too, found on her page of Appliqué Video Tutorials.

I use Painter’s Palette Solids, purchased from here. This has been my go-to color scheme for years, ever since this quilt, but I was happy to see that it also drew on the stained-glass windows from Krakòw.

I bagged the pieces for the blocks, so I wouldn’t get lost.

I made a placement guide for the block, which is included in the pattern. I also added a print-a-ton-of-circles-at-once page, at the end.

I printed that page onto freezer paper, the how-to shown on this post. Sometimes, I chunked the 12 circle sections together, layered them up carefully, stapled the pages together, and then cut them out.

I also folded the freezer paper into smaller pieces, layering it up, then traced on a petal. Staple the layers so they won’t shift, as shown.

In the pattern, I give the tips for tracing the placement guide, and here, I’ve slipped the block underneath, taping it into place. (The placement guide is pinned to a board, but you could also tape it to a workspace.)

One all pinned into place, and another ready to come off the pinboard.

I was listening to a book, so I can’t tell you how long it took me to appliquè these all in place (maybe 90 minutes?) but it didn’t feel tedious, as the circles had been prepared.

I flipped over the block when I was finished, and cut out a small circle from the back — and slipped the paper out. Sharon Keightley suggests that cutting it out in a circle (instead of just cutting a slash) will keep the quilt back more intact.

I slipped out the freezer paper from the larger pieces as I appliquéd them.

Here’s the thumbnail of the pattern: it grew from 3 pages to nine. However, I’ve still priced it as a PatternLite — less than a slice of pizza, a pot of basil from Trader Joe’s (ask me how I know), or a Kouign Amann pastry from a bakery in Kraków.

If you like to make circles, here you go–