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.
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!
Backside of my husband’s sign. As I was working on this, and having just been in Colmar, the town in France where the creator of the Statue of Liberty lived, I realized I didn’t know what was written on the book she holds. So I looked it up: the date of our Declaration of Independence from the king of Britain. I thought it was a good motif for Saturday.
From an old homework assignment in my Digital Art class. (They were all amused that I would use a quilt.)
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.
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.
I’ve made several quilts with prominent flowers in my tenure as a Quilter Who Just Keeps Making. Scroll quickly and you’ll have a flower show in deepest December.
Daisy Star Quilt (#76) Whoa, that is Early Days (2009). Fabric from Lakehouse inspired this one.
Lyon Carolings (#88) which is kind of flower-like.
Colorwheel Blossom (#140) where I totally riffed on a popular image (on our phones).
Tell me this little quilt (Eclipse, #189) doesn’t look like a giant sunflower…I think it does. But after it was pointed out to me once, I can never not unsee the pair of eyes in the upper right staring out at me.
And then I went big:
Annularity, #203, with rainbow petal-like structures around the outer edge.
Serious little dainty flowers in #217: Field Flowers.
Okay, maybe this is technically not a flower (not even the title says so), but with those yellow petal-like pieces on the outside, I’m going to slip it in here. Choose Something Like a Star (#238) is held by a couple of angels from Berlin.
Sunny Flowers (#246) is still a favorite.
Heart’s-Ease #52 (went backward for this one). Made in a Ruth McDowell class, and if you know who she is, you are fortunate.
Heart’s Garden, #264, from 2022, when I ran a Mystery Block on here, because we were all going stir-crazy from being shut in for a year or two from covid. No worries, we are almost done with the flower show.
Blossoming, which I take naps under because it is just the right size (#267).
Sunflowers for Kim (#268) –guess who that is?
A pattern from Yvonne, which I titled Primula Ballerina (#274); made to keep me sane while we remodeled our kitchen.
Blossom (#276) but you also have to see all the variations together for a class I taught on Zoom, during the pandemic:
I think all of these have been given away.
Lollypop Trees are definitely floral, with all those Kaffe fabrics. This is #132, from 2014.
Coquelicot (Poppy) which is #290, and has an earlier variation in just a simple layout.
Twilight Garden (#292) which I stitched while on the Total Eclipse Trip.
And now, of course, the last flower quilt in the parade: Giant Flowers, #299. It’s about 52 inches square.
I had a fun time quilting this, moving from the radiant design I talked about here, to the lattice work of the garden fence, and then I got stuck on that outer border. I had something really ornate planned, but in a conversation with Yvonne I mentioned that while looking at #fmq and #customfmquilting and other tags, my eyes began to glaze over. I can quilt a thick carpet of flowers and vines and whatever on a quilt, but on that afternoon, considering this quilt, it all just seemed like #toomuch. So I paused. While in a church service a few days later, I began studying the carpet (tell me you’ve done this). I did listen, but was also trying to figure out how to replicate the flower-structures. Here’s my drawing, from when I got home:
Yes, it’s still dense, but it’s a different visual than the tightly packed swirly vines and petals in the interior white section. I like the larger scale, but it was a bit of a leap for me. I have to ask: if our quilts aren’t a place where we can experiment and try something new, then why are we making them?
Giant Flowers, showing its checked backing, is quilt #299. I wanted to make it to three-hundred quilts this year, but didn’t quite hit it. Looks like I have something to look forward to at the new year.
I’ve been playing around with this one on the Affinity Designer artboard. Maybe this piece has legs, and can go the distance? I first heard that saying from a professor, when he commented on my short story we’d just discussed in class. I was getting my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing. That short story, turned into a novel, which is now hidden in my bottom drawer after my father said: Don’t Write About Me.
But we writers mine our lives for ideas, for stories, for the beginning strands of a narrative which will take us where? we don’t know. I should have said to my Dad, if you don’t want to be written about, don’t hang out with a writer, but he was my Dad and it wasn’t a command so much as a wish, so I listened. In the end, it turns out maybe I didn’t have the nerve to bring all the bits and pieces of my life — even if disguised — into a novel. Some of my classmates did, and I admired them. But writing can be hard work, and as you saw from the beginning of this post, I’m very happy to take a walk among flowers.
I can do it literally, or just in pieces of cloth and color. The title of this blog tries to capture this idea of staying curious and seeing where dabbling in pieces will lead: it could be a short story or a poem, or a quilt block, or a quilt.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 