Orphan Blocks – OccasionalPiece

This is an Emergency Post of the Eastmond Quilting System (with apologies to the radio emergency broadcasts we get occasionally). But I just realized that the deadline for the:

Stay At Home Round Robin

is tonight, and I had to get this posted so I could link up here. I first read about this last year, on Janine’s blog, Rainbow Hare, and loved following along on her progress. She’s doing this again.

And then Yvonne, of Quilting Jetgirl, put up her center block, and it is perfectly wonderful — an Yvonne block through and through.

Just last night, as I was wandering into walls, thinking I should just give the quilting all up and become a geneologist or something, this morning, JOIN THE SAHRR! came as a flash of lightning. Or something. Here are my two options:

— OR —

One has a vision for the future, clear, crisp, with the color scheme decided upon. It’s like a supersonic plane flying through the clouds into the distance, or to quote Buzz Lightyear: to infinity and beyond!

The other one is slightly misshapen, duplicating shapes and colors, with a mix of prints that actually might just allow for more freedom. It’s more of a meander through the meadow, the woods, and possibly, the shopping mall. And it will allow me to interrogate (in the academic sense), the orphan block box:

Sadly, I have another box of orphans, too.

So I’m going with the second one, the four blocks made in a Jen Kingwell class. (Well, started in the Jen Kingwell class and finished at home on my sewing machine.)

Thank you to the hosts and organizers of this Stay At Home Round Robin. It’s the best of all worlds, where we meet new friends, create our own bits for our quilts with their prompts, and no trips to the Post Office. Gail, of Quilting Gail, has more details on her post.

The details, from Gail’s blog:

Here are my blogging co-hosts in the order of what we will be doing and the linky parties we will be hosting each week. (There will only be one linky party each week … and we’ll direct you to it …)

January 14 Each of the co-leaders will be sharing their centre blocks (you will have to visit each of their blogs to see them). I will host the first linky party where you can show your centre block.
January 21: 1^st Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs
January 28: 2^nd Round: Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
February 4: 3^rd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
February 11: 4^th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 18: 5^th Round: ME!!! @ Quilting Gail
February 25: 6^th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
March 25: Parade: showing all of your finished SAHRRs!

Now that I’m decided, I’m off to link this up to the beginning post, The Centre Block for the 2026 SAHRR. Deadline is today, Tuesday, January 20 at midnight Pacific Time.

ACK!! It was 93 degrees today!!

My snow-covered Orangeman (or Snowman, made of oranges) has his arms thrown up in amazement/horror. While Rachel and Carol show snow days on their IG feeds, we are already burning up out here. My newly planted zucchini and spaghetti squash plants are wilting, and it’s only April.

The origin of this mini quilt (tutorial is here) started when I first moved here, and commuted an hour to the Orange County Quilt Guild. We had a block swap, and the theme was snowman, and since I was a newbie, I think I got all the rejects. Except this one…which was my own (I made one for myself). One snowman block was a zig-zagged stitched pair of stacked circles, with two hot-glue-gunned twigs for the arms, and dots of makeup for the coal and eyes. Yes, I threw that one away. But in looking for another project in my Orphan Blocks Box, I found this one, and turned it into a Mini-on-a-Frame quilt.

I bordered it with those fabulous swirls, quilted it and trimmed it up).

I backed it, and slipped it on its stand. Now I’m up to four of these mini-quilts-on-a-frame. Given the success of this one, I may turn other orphan blocks into bits of art to be displayed!

PS: Swirl fabric is by Valori Wells, “Marks,” design #16354–by Robert Kaufman. A young mother in church yesterday asked me if I bought fabric for a single project, or if I bought it when I feel like it. This purchase was obviously the latter.