300 Quilts

Sing for Joy • Quilt Finish

November 10, 2019March 8, 2020 Elizabeth E.20 Comments

Sing for Joy_3

Sing for Joy • Quilt #226

This is the second of my Three Hard Quilts to Make for 2019. It’s a lovely day now that Sing for Joy is finished.

Here was my recipe in four easy steps:

I decided I wanted to make a quilt with words, so I bought every quilt book there was on words.
Then I decided I wanted mine a bit wonky and NOT paper-pieced. I posted the how-to’s, one by one on Quilt Abecedary.blogspot.com, where they still live.
I sent around an email to see if anyone else was interested, and some colleagues in a former online bee jumped in, so we ran the Spelling Bee ran for one year, all of us making words for each other.
I follow Kviltstina on Instagram, and she has the sweetest little creative shapes on her feed, so I put some of them in this quilt.

Sing for Joy_4

The back, showing the signature blocks of my beemates. I had to remake one, when the ink started running down the block when I pressed it; I guess she grabbed the wrong pen. (It’s always something, right?)

Sing for Joy_1 Front

My husband and I went out for some photos in our neighborhood park, and several of the walkers asked about it, wondering how long it took to make it? (Why is that always the first question, when people talk to us about our quilts?)

I began in 2016, and finished it this year (some early photos, above). I had to remake some of the words and cut down others, so I could fit them evenly on the quilt. I hand wrote a label and pieced it in with the signature blocks, but if I printed one out it would say:

Sing for Joy label screenshot

My brother and I had an active discussion last week about whether or not there is such a thing as a soulmate. I said I believed there is no such thing, as it was the stuff of movies and greeting cards. What is possible is that you find yourself a partner and you work to build a relationship and sustain each other and the family. Soulmates are ephemeral, I said. Of course, he disagreed with me, as so might some of you.

But what I think I do believe in is a cheerleader, someone who has your best interests at heart, who encourages you, listens to you when you’re sad, upset, cheers you on in happy times and is steady and consistent. Someone who is always on your team, and for who you’ll do the same.

This quilt is a tribute to my cheerleader of a husband, who 30 years ago married me and my four young children, raising us all.

He makes me Sing for Joy.

Sing for Joy_holding a quilt.jpg

First Hard Quilt of 2019

Second Hard Quilt of 2019

Third Hard Quilt of 2019

Quilt Bee

Spelling Bee 2016 Wrap-Up

December 31, 2016 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Last year I had this idea that I wanted to try, and so I rounded up some willing participants and we made ourselves a Spelling Bee.

I started it by creating a blog that was dedicated to free tutorials to make these free-form letters, without the use of patterns or papers. Some were pretty wild, but it was a great challenge. And then we all started by choosing a phrase or a poem or a group of words and entered them into a Google Spreadsheet (we were all tired of trying to use Flickr). This is the wrap-up post, showing our collective work of The Spelling Bee ( found as #spellingbeequilt on Instagram, where we posted our photos).

This is my phrase, done in reds, creams and pinks. I do have plans for it.

Lisa (aka Nymblefyngers on IG), a first-time bee participant, decided on lots of bug words for her quilt, and people carried out the theme by making them in bug fabrics.

Mary, who writes the Needled Mom blog, made fun sewing-themed blocks to add to the words in her quilt.

Carla, of Grace and Favor, recently opened a yarn shop in her town, and requested knitting terms.

Susan finished her quilt the first, showing it off here and on her blog, PatchworknPlay. This truly typifies Susan’s attitude towards life!

Just to keep us on our toes, Kerry of PennyDog Patchwork, decided she wanted us to try her “digital” alphabet, and we made up the names of the provinces of Canada, her new country. While the how-to’s for the regular alphabet are free on the blog Quilt Abecedary, this style is Kerry’s own.

Simone, of Quiltalicious, tried to make us all go crazy by asking for color names, but in different shades. A couple of us dutifully cranked out our word, only to realize that we sewn it up in the wrong color. We were all getting pretty good at this point.

Mary (aka maryonlakepulaski on IG) wanted the names of her family.

Since bee-keeping was a new passion for Rachel (The Life of Riley), we all sent bee-words to her.

Brenda (aka brendaandblue on IG), requested words that describe all those things that make her happy: “comfort words.”

Cindy of LiveAColorfulLife, is doing the words to one of her favorite songs; unlike her name, she went with black, white, cream and grays to put together her phrase.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this wrap-up of our word adventure! If you ever jump in and make a word or two, drop me a note as I’d love to see them.

Coming soon: a new bee!

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Quilt Bee

Final Bee Blocks for 2016

December 4, 2016December 2, 2016 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

And….that’s a wrap!

The Mid-Century Modern bee began four years ago, and I recently sewed the final blocks in Anna Maria Horner fabrics (as per the Queen Bee’s request). We were supposed to do the blocks we’d requested for her, but I didn’t think mine would translate, so I obtained permission to do these: some Chuck Nohara blocks, writ large.

You’ve perhaps seen this logo, nestling down on the side of my blog for a while. Cindy (who had the idea for this bee) and I developed it one night while sitting side by side at this computer. I do think we collaborate well.

And…that’s a wrap for The Spelling Bee, too, although some members are still cranking out their words. This bee ended officially November 30th, and I hope that everyone has their words by the end of the year. All of mine are above; because of the length of my verse, about half of them were made by my beemates, and I did the rest.

My original intent for my wordy quilt was to have it be done all creams and pinks and reds for a Valentine quilt, but as soon as I got it up, I realized it needed some color. On the side I pinned some fabrics to audition for the quilt, and I have some ideas.

You can find a how-to for every letter over on the Quilt Abecedary Blog, which I wrote when I got in my mind to free-form create an alphabet. Have fun.

I plan to do a year-end wrap-up of the two different bees, so then you’ll see what we’ve all been up to. I like doing bees as I’m exposed to new ideas and new blocks and a different way of looking at the world. Who would have known that an enlarged Chuck Nohara block in AMH fabrics could look so fabulous? Now I do, thanks to my beemate.

Quilts

Quilt Abecedary

October 4, 2015October 4, 2015 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Starting in January, I will be participating in a one-year term group where we will make words for each other, with the end goal to make a quilt of letters and phrases and words. Since gathering the group together, though, I realized that although I loved quilty words, I hadn’t the faintest idea about making them.

I bought two books (one recently and one a few whiles back) and read them both cover to cover. Then I decided I wanted to have the best of both worlds: the fun wonkiness of Tonya Ricucci’s Word Play Quilts and the shapes and precision of Sam Hunter’s Quilt Talk. I bought the Kindle version of Quilt Talk, which included a digital printout of the letters, but I just couldn’t face doing foundation paper piecing for an entire alphabet, so instead I printed out the pages with her drawings of the letters’ shapes and used that as a guideline.All of this is to say that I started a new blog: Quilt Abecedary.

I, like many of you, are fascinated by font and words and graphic design. I always say in another life, I would have gotten a graphic design degree, but alas, that life is in the past. So maybe this is a way for me to have fun with type and typography in a quilty way.

What is an abecedary? Or an abecedarian? I wrote about it on my introductory post, but both are known as types of ABC primers, or a record of the alphabet in some fashion. More info about an early stone abecedary can be found on the post for the Letter B.

I have included a tab above, Quilt Abecedary, where I will link over to individual letters as I get them made. My goal is to do one a day in the month of October and with tomorrow’s posting, I’ll have finished from A to E.

It’s not really meant to have followers, as it will be a completed reference work, with a finite finish date and serves as a documented journey of my working my way through the alphabet. If you are going to try your hand at making quilt words, you may want to check it out. I also have a Pinterest Board dedicated to word quilts, just to inspire you.

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My apologies to those of you who received my unfinished post, Rolling Rainbow. Sometimes things just get the better of me.

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