Quilts

Sentimental Journey: Bee Blocks for the Mid-Century Modern Bee, part II

June 5, 2015April 27, 2019 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

I’m back to the Sentimental Journey–a round-up of all the bee blocks I’ve made, and the quilts or collections where my blocks ended up. Carla, of Grace and Favour, inspired by Jen Kingwell’s Green Tea and Sweet Beans, asked us all for a sampler block with a texty background.

Here’s mine. Of course, I loved this quilt so much, I copied it for January 2015–now I have one too.

Another year, Carla dreamed up this terrific tutorial for making an arrow, and she combined it with a couple of other blocks, some neutral backgrounds to make this quilt.

Here was mine. This was fun because I was able to use a lot of stash fabrics and it still looks interesting and modern-ish.

A feather block, this time for Susan of PatchworknPlay, from a now-defunct tutorial by Anna Maria Horner. Susan sent us the greige background fabric, and asked us for the two-color combo shown above.

She ended up having some feathers in different sizes (probably because of some printer scaling not set to 100%), but I loved the way she set them all on the diagonal, making this beautiful quilt.

Inspired by a quilt she saw on Pinterest, one round Susan asked us for brightly colored solids with black background; above is my block. It took me forever to get her my signature block (I really miss my mind when it wanders) but she waited for me and added it to the back. Here is the front of her gorgeous quilt:

Linda of Flourishing Palms asked us for strip-pieced diamonds. The tricky part is to get the strips going the right way (trust me on this).

She also asked us for pink and green “bar” blocks, which she has now used to complete her “Strawberry Fizz and Lime Pop” quilt.

A gifted domestic-machine quilter, she has now started to quilt it. These photos are taken from IG, so aren’t that great, but click on the link to her quilt name and see many more!

Mary of Molly Flanders asked us for this set of triangles (above) as well as this set of blocks (below), but is planning on making a larger quilt using both, so doesn’t have a grouping to share.

These two fun pink Cross-X blocks were for Mary, of Mary on Lake Pulaski. She turned our blocks into this quilt:

And this is her collection of the Union Jack blocks she asked us to make for her. I won’t tell you where mine is, because even though I ripped it out three times, I still don’t think it was very good. It looks fine in this grouping, though, proving there is strength in numbers, even if the numbers are quilt blocks.

The final set of blocks and quilts are for Anne Deister, of SpringLeaf Studios. I loved making Anne’s blocks because I always felt as if I were in on a big secret, as she is a pattern designer and we were helping her figure out, and pattern test, her designs. So here’s one set of blocks, above, which turned into the quilt top below:

Which she then refined, and made up in her stash, turning out this beauty, above. She calls it Matrix, and it should be released soon (she gave me permission to post these photos). It was easy to make, and fun to see the finished product.

And then this block turned into this terrific quilt:

Anne calls this Tumble, and again, the pattern should be released soon. We’ll probably do a blog hop/giveaway, so I’ll keep you posted.

She has an artist’s eye for staging her quilts. I love this photo.

So that’s it for the originals. We have had some leave our group, and some newbies join us, which I have written about as I’ve made their blocks. It’s been a rewarding experience working with all these women!

Quilts

Patchwork Blocks and Ennui

March 8, 2015 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

In a recent email exchange with my father, he mentioned the idea of ennui. It’s not quite boredom, nor fatigue. It is more of a lack of interest in what lays before you, a dis-interest, if you will. The dictionary goes one step further: “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest.” We quilters often describe it as “lack of sewjo,” playing off that phrase of “lost my mojo,” which after reading about in Wikipedia, all I can say is I had no idea.

Of course, having a stack of grading doesn’t help the ennui, but with the students dropping like flies (long story) I had fewer to grade and they actually performed really well, so it went quickly. (Bad essays take longer to grade.)

And this lovely distraction also came for a couple of days while the family was moving between houses.

But as Susan of PatchworknPlay and I chatted on Instagram, I noted that sometimes just sewing a block or two can help beat the ennui. Here’s a new one from the ever-talented Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company, from her latest magazine BLOCK.

I get these every couple of months as I signed up for the subscription and I always enjoy reading them. At QuiltCon they gave us all a copy of MODBLOCK in our swag bags.

Here’s how you cut it. She has the measurements in her magazine. But when I posted it on IG, Krista of Poppyprint mentioned that at their guild sew day, lots of quilters were making the same thing into a star block. I found that tutorial online *here.*

Bird blocks which can be maddening, but also fun, once you get the hang of it. I’m using a tutorial for “free-form” birds from my friend Rhonda, which she gave out to her class. There’s also a tutorial online, which is much more orderly, and if you are into the cookie-cutter precision of paper-piecing, there’s also one of those.

The last block I made last night, while listening to my latest Inspector Gamache mystery, was this basket block, also shown at the top of the post. It was late and I was tired, knowing that I’d lose an extra hour of sleep due to the dreaded Daylight Savings Time switch (I need to live in Arizona where they never switch). I found *this tutorial* and modified it the measurements I needed, plus used extra leaves from the Pineapple Blocks quilt border (yes, still working on that) to fill the basket. I needed the block to measure 9″ finished. One detail is those lower snowball corner on the basket: they were 2″ squares that I snowballed on. The rest was done by cutting as I went, loosely following the tutorial.

This is why I’m making blocks to beat ennui. My Mid-Century Modern beemates sent me a whole wall of blocks in January, and I’ve been adding to them, having no plan, but only relaxing fun. I added the Disappearing Hourglass, the Dresden Plate, the basket, the birds and a couple of fillers. I’m still playing, still arranging. Happily, the ennui is slipping away.

Quilts

Keeping the Brain Alive

May 13, 2014 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Yes, my brain is pretty dead after grading a stack of 10-page research papers, but after seeing all the twenty-somethings at school today, I have to say that their brains are pretty dead, too. We had a hard time stringing words together, but we got through it by watching a video of a David Mamet play (Spanish Prisoner, if you’re interested) to go along with our Drama Unit.

Christine’s Philadelphia • see original post for more info

So today, while I held my last office hours at school and the internet went out (Panic in the Library!! Panic in the Library!!) I resorted to that old-fashioned entertainment device: a newspaper (having tucked a couple of sections of my New York Times in my bag). I read from their Education Life issue from April 13th (yeah, I’m a little behind in my reading), about “Ten Courses with a Twist,” where I found this diagram:

This is from a course from Carol S. Dweck of Stanford University whose “groundbreaking research has helped shape current wisdom about success and achievement — that failure and recovering from it are more valuable than sticking with what you already know how to do. Dr. Dweck tells students to tackle something “they have never had the guts to try.” Her research shows that mind-set is critical at times of transition, and those “with a ‘growth mind-set’ see that struggles can be overcome with effort, strategy and good instruction.” Hey, if it’s good enough for incoming Stanford freshmen, it’s good enough for me. By the way, anywhere from 140-200 people try to get in the 16 spots in the class.

Why I do bring this all up, especially at the end of the semester when all the teachers/parents/students want to do is find a good beach, a cold drink and go slightly comatose for several hours? Because after listing to NPR’s report that quilting is good for aging and combating memory loss, I thought could learn something. (LISTEN *here*)

Quilting keeps us on our toes because, as Denise Park, the Neuroscientist who was interviewed said, “people who learned a new skill – quilting, photography – had significant brain gains [in memory] – which held up after a year.” She continues to say: “Quilting might not seem like a mentally challenging task, but try it. If you’re a novice, you’re cutting out all these abstract shapes, you are trying to piece them together in reverse order and manipulate the images. It’s very demanding and complex.”

And now you know what neuroscientists think about what we do all day.

So when I’m stuck on a project and it’s giving me fits, I should remember Dweck’s advice and try to cultivate a “growth mind-set” all the while knowing that the manipulation, cutting and sewing my patches is keeping my brain active and healthy. Or take it from my friend Lisa, who hosts our Summer Quilt Retreats in her home. . .

Quilting! It’s a Win-Win!

Now go cut some abstract shapes and piece them together in reverse order.

Quilts

Friendship Cross-X Block Swap, March

March 28, 2014March 22, 2014 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

Krista and I decided we were impatient about getting these done, so we sped into hyper-quilt-drive and did a double batch for this month’s swap. Above is one set, all stacked together. . .

. . . and the double set all together. As one commenter on Instagram said, it’s interesting how the switch in fabrics can make the block look so different.

This is the other set, with a few Mirror Ball Dots worked into the mix (I still have LOTS of those scraps left).

And the foursome, all in a row. Looks like I was on a blue kick here, doesn’t it? I didn’t get everyone out of their bags for an overall progress shot, so that will have to wait until the next round. Come and see us on our Flickr Group where Krista has put up a picture up all of our blocks together.