Keep Kalm-a-La and Carry On-A-La

November 10, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Well, my candidate didn’t win.

However, I was making this bag the whole last week of the election, and because I was inadvertently using the Keep Calm and Carry On (only it was Press On, Quilt On, etc.) and they had a skit on Saturday Night Light Live with Maya Rudolf and Kamala Harris that had a lot of joy and lot of play on words (including the title of this blog post), you really can’t blame me for merging it into the effort, can you?

I say it’s okay to name things after current events, as I’m just fitting in with my quilting ancestors (thinking of all the quilts I saw in the DAR exhibits while I lived in DC that were named after election things like the Henry Clay Campaign Quilt or the Fort Sumter Flag Quilt and such). Really I just call it the Black and White and a Pop of Color challenge project for my guild, and I’m done a full 6 weeks early, for which I am celebrating! And no, no one from my Guild ever reads this blog, so I’m safe to write about it.

This took me ton of time, because of all that cord-loop business inside.

The pattern came from a book I picked up in France, which was all in French, but it was a Japanese designer, and yes, I made some shortcuts and mistakes and no, we aren’t going to talk about those. But thank heaven for Google Translate. Isn’t that colorful one on the cover a lot of fun?

I used some handles I’d purchased ages ago in Japan at Yuzawaya (and attached with little cloth loops), but it took me numerous shopping expeditions both at brick-and-mortar stores and ETSY, to even get something resembling the cord I needed, and I raided another bag for the clasp. Like I said, if I were in Japan, all these parts would be at the local Yuzawaya store. I still think I need to order thicker cord for the right look, but oh well.

Side, side, and bottom. Since it took me as much time as some of my quilts, it has a number (293) and is indexed in my Indices, above. I do think it’s clever how the cord draws up the bag to give it shape, but just don’t know if it will work long-term. At any rate, the Guild Challenge is due in December, and I’m DONE!

While I was out shopping for cording — in early November — Christmas music was playing. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. November is a time for gratitude, fall colors and fall quilts.

*Autumn: The Chestnut Gatherers, 1894* by Georges Lacomb. Seen at the Norton Simon Museum.

*Autumn Leaves*, original design More autumn quilts seen here.

Why do I bring up autumn quilts? Because we’ve all seen these blocks from the #sweaterweathersampler2024 in our Instagram feed, an offering from some very talented women. I like the 2024 quilt offering better than their 2023, but they are fun to see pop up (check out this exhibit from some quilters in Germany). The one above is from Iva Steiner, an incredibly talented longarmer and quilter.

But, given the general season of thankfulness and thanksgiving, I’m happy that I like the autumn quilts that are in my house.

Given the general anxiety we all felt the past two weeks, I’m glad that the election is over and I don’t want to hear anymore about it for a long, long while. I was also feeling anxiety over quilting a very organic quilt that I’d made, and all my usual doodling wasn’t cutting it. My husband suggested just going with the flow, meaning following the lines of the organic fabric.

I guess I knew that in my heart, but it took my sweetheart to state the obvious: all those fancy geometric designs I was familiar with in my usual fmquilting just weren’t going to cut it with this one.

The back, a conglomerate of leftover fabrics. I have great light in my bathroom, so I take progress shots in there a lot.

Even in the border, I went organic, like blocks of waving grain, or striated boulders, or I don’t know what. Full reveal after I get the borders on.

I only have three hours left in this novel. I almost can’t stand to stop, but this morning I’ve got a lesson to teach to the church ladies, so things will slow down on the listening for a while.

But a good book can really get me to sit down and get the quilting done. I’ve got my eye on getting this one and this one quilted up and finished, too.

We’ve spent so much time in the last few months looking ahead, so I thought I would leave you with this quote, from Adam Miller from his book Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking:

“Creation unfolds exclusively in the present tense. Nothing is created in the past—though the past was once present. And nothing is created in the future—though the future will eventually arrive.”

This quote has made me think, and ponder a lot. When our Instagram feeds are blitzed full of other people’s achievements and when we are battling one demon after another, it can make us long for days when we used to be super-charged in making, or looking forward to days when we can get to the machines and roll like crazy. But, as Miller notes, creation unfolds in the present. All that we take in now will be fuel for the creativity when we sit down and enjoy the stitching in a present-not-here-yet. We need days when we can stop and notice the autumn colors. Or take a few days to practice forgiveness. Or linger on some days to fill our heart with thanksgiving.

Happy Autumn, y’all!

Quilts

Clutch Purse and Bee Block–Feb 2015

February 12, 2015February 12, 2015 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

For February’s Mid-Century Modern Bee Block, Carla asked us to make the paper-pieced birthday cake found on the Ellison Lane blog. If you decide to make this, note that the default printer settings are quite a bit smaller, so make sure your scaling is set to 100% when you go to print it out. It went together really easily. Carla’s going to have a whole quilt of layer cakes.

The Good Heart Quilters gathered together for our monthly get-together; it was held at Charlotte’s house (upper right) and we felt well feted by her hospitality. Lisa (above left) wore her quilty socks, and finished up Diane’s Date Night Clutch. We had others there, too, and we were all sewing on the Date Night Clutch, however, I got to hold Caitlin’s newborn baby so she could sew. A good choice!

This is the version I made from Dianne’s pattern. I had a box way up in the closet labeled “Japanese Fabrics,” and it held cloth purchased when I went to Japan and Shanghai China about fifteen years ago, a month after 9/11. I had put up the fabric and pretty much forgotten about it, so when I decided to see what was in there, it was a lovely surprise.

Why did I only buy a half-yard of this amazing red/white cotton?

Diane has two different versions of her clutch and this one includes the inner pocket on one side, the insert that will hold credit cards and bills, and a small zipper pocket for small items (or change?)

I’m all ready for QuiltCon now, as I have a small useful clutch to tuck in the bigger tote bags we all carry around.

And. . . I survived the grading of their first essay. I could tell you stories, but I don’t want to upset you if you are eating. I have one student that I’ve picked out as the One I Teach To. He spent a year at Cornell University before decided that it wasn’t for him (he didn’t elaborate). He’s always prepared for class, got an A on the essay, doesn’t fall asleep, and looks interested. . . like he values his education. See why he’s the one I’m teaching to? I generally like all my students, although Video Zombie Boy is getting on my nerves–turning in two paragraphs four days late and telling me it was his essay. (Right.) I’m leaving them all behind for a couple of days while I head to QuiltCon next week. I remind myself of the student I was working with in conference about re-writes, and after we’d finished, she blurted out “I’m going to see Wicked next week and I can hardly sleep I’m so excited!”

Yep. That’s me!

Classes · Creating

Bostonian Bag and a Wrap-up

March 25, 2013March 25, 2013 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

While this post has lots of pictures of my recent class, the Bostonian Bag (which they titled Bag Bostonian), it is NOT a tutorial nor are there any patterns.

For this you’ll need to take the excellent class from Kathy Ranabarger at Sewing Party in Orange County, California; our class was held last Friday, March 22nd. And because it’s a wrap-up of some of the details of the class, the post itself may not make any sense to you at all. (Hey, I have many days like that!) In the photo above I’m on the right in the aqua sweater.

First off, here it is. It’s a good-sized bag. . .

. . . and the ten-member class made excellent progress. But nearing the end, I was nervous about beating the traffic home, so I left a few minutes early but not before taking lots of photos of Kathy’s samples to jog my memory. I told the class I’d post them in case they needed them too (so, this post is picture-heavy).

First, here’s some details, just for visual ideas: the bag bottom with decorative piece, the side trim piece wrapped to the inside and stitched down by hand, and the pockets I made in class: a double pocket (one on top of the other, and on the other side, a zipper-closed pocket.

So, after the fabric’s been quilted, the pockets made and the lining basted to the bag on the sides and top (wrong sides together), the decorative trim is attached to the zipper-opening edges (shown). Kathy showed us how to install our zippers in class, and I’m pretty sure we were all successful in getting those in before we left for home. Next was sew the side seams together, lining right sides together, so the seam allowances ended up on the outside of the bag, which is covered with a decorative trim piece.

(Click to enlarge so you can see detail.)

I did end up interfacing the side trim piece, as my 1/2″ seams were pretty bulky. I pinned down the trim piece, then stitched it by machine as she showed us in class. I kept going at the end: I stitched right off the edge of the bag on my trim piece, continuing along the pressed-under seam allowances, top-stitching them down. I then folded the piece over as Kathy showed us, then trimmed and hand-sewed it down as I was using two colors of thread (one dark, one light) and it just wouldn’t have worked to machine-stitch. (See very top grouping of photos, illustration in upper right.)

“Boxing” the corner, with a five-inch measurement, centering the seam at 2 1/2″ inches. Stitch along that line. In that same top grouping of photos, you can see my bag corners in the lower pocket photo. In the final bag, I wasn’t really keen about how the bottom trim piece stopped an inch short of the boxed corner, so in the future versions of this bag I’ll either 1) box the corner in deeper (maybe at 6″) or 2) make the bottom decorative piece longer.

Attach the bottom trim piece to the side, by sewing the point to the side trim piece. The ring moves freely, and is not sewn down.

Handles are next. Flatten out the bag, take the handles out and let them relax, then place them near the top, centered on the bag.

I put a couple of pins to anchor mine, then did a backstitch all around the outside, starting about 4 holes down from the upper left holes, taking it up to the end, then backtracking all the way around the tab. I wasn’t really keen about how the inside looked and ended up cutting some more lining fabric to applique it over the stitching, so it will be unnoticeable. I have to say that attaching the handles was one of the more frustrating parts of the bag and it took me some time. Sit in really good light, use a heavier hand-sewing needle and thimble on your finger for pushing it through the hole (which is sometimes not easy to locate and yet other times it is), and work steadily.

Now here are a bunch of photos of the samples we saw that day in class.

When she attached this particular bag handle, she used a running stitch, which looks like this on the back.

Handle attached with a back-stitch.

And here’s a few more of mine:

Bag unhooked. I think I could fit a small laptop in there, or at the very least, a tablet. It’s quite roomy inside.

Our class. This was a fun group of ladies to sew with.

And that’s it!

Another March finish for me. Actually I took this class the last day of Spring Break. I started Spring Break with tune-up visits to doctors, getting the have-to’s out of the way before I quilted all week. So in the spirit of a teacher giving a grade to things. . . I’m at an interesting place in my life right now, and so content and calm about what I’m doing that I’m sure the proverbial “other shoe” will drop from the sky at any minute. I have a job I mostly enjoy, love my church and congregation as I’ve been going there for nearly a quarter-century and know their histories, and they, mine, and we have both endured each other’s quirks and habits. My husband and I have worked out a good balance between together time and “cave-time,” and really enjoy each other’s company when we are together. I could make a list of all the good things in my life, of which family and friends would occupy the top spots, and I’m sure that your list might echo mine in magnitude and depth. I also have this blog, and love to write and quilt and have the wherewithal to do both.

As I listened to others talk while our class was in session, I caught whiffs of the same sort of feeling: one woman expressed pride over her daughter’s achievements, another woman was having her sewing room re-made which I gathered was something she’d looked forward to for many years, and several of us found we had connections (via our children) to UC-Davis, of all places. Perhaps it was the beautiful weather, or a relaxed and informative class or the fun of getting something done in a creative environment, but I could see that many of us were living in a “parallel contentment.” Maybe we’ve just learned not to sweat the small stuff. . . and at our age have figured out which is the small stuff and which isn’t.

While the grading will pick up to a dull roar in the next few weeks of the semester, it’s really nice to feel this way — especially tonight, when some nice tunes are on the playlist and the fragrance of the wisteria blossoms is drifting in through my open window.

Happy Quilting.