Don’t Ask Me — they all just crept in!

January 12, 2025August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

It’s traditional for everyone on the planet, not just quilters, to make a list of projects they want to complete in the upcoming year.

No, it’s not.

The rest of the world makes resolutions. However, we quilters make lists of things we want to make but knowing we can’t possibly get them all done. But still. We do it anyway, as it’s not something we can really help. This year I thought I’d try something different. Smaller bites.

The first one up is a Block of the Month from Sherri of A Quilting Life. This way, I reasoned, I can still list a project but since she only releases the block once a month, I’ll never be behind.

Now, stop that laughing.

Here’s the fun thing. I DO keep a The Master List of Quilts I Absolutely Must Make and “Make a quilt with Sherri’s fabrics” has been on there for several years running. Above are my fabric options for this quilt. Bingo!

I chose Clover Hollow, a stash from way too many moons ago, largely because it had a jelly roll and in her cute demo she mentioned that she’d used one. (But — um — not the grey bits.) If you want to make this quilt, here’s the link.

I picked up these cute project bags at Target for $3 for the duo, and in went my project.

The next one happened when Carol was cleaning out and suggested to me that we do a quilt together, since we’d enjoyed our last one. She went through a couple of her options, and I leapt on this one. Again, finishing this (from a class I took at Road to California in 2020 and we all know what happened to THAT year) is on The Master List of Quilts I Absolutely Must Make. Bingo, again! Carol and I have a goal of 1 block per week or 4/month, and I’d already made four in that class I took, so I’m running ahead for 2025, but just for a minute.

I did finish something:

A Totoro Bag! (L: the front. R: the back, but I changed the tail) And yes, this was also on The Master List of Quilts I Absolutely Must Make. (I do not discriminate. I include quilty bags on that list.) I purchased this in 2019 from a vendor at Road to California, and I knew that if I toted it in, they’d take my photo for their Instagram feed. If they come this year, that is. We’ve had a few fires (ahem) and so many are impacted by the horrors of this. I watch the news daily, and even the diatribes that come from people who have never been in a fire driven by 100-mile-an-hour winds. Folks, there is almost no chance at fighting those — the firefighters have to get creative and try other methods. I hope they never see some of those posts on social media criticizing them. Or as one commenter called it:

I wish I’d had this term when I was raising children.

The wind pushed all the smoke out to sea, but when it stopped blowing, and the firefighters could use their air drops, the smoke came our direction. We live inside the white circle in the image just above, so we are in no danger, but that doesn’t stop us from checking our news feeds to see how things are going. They are going sadly, for so many people.

Maybe we are this stage, already?

I celebrated another run around the sun by buying my birthday cake at Costo, then being taken out to lunch by my husband, accompanied by Donald Duck. Just kidding about that. DDuck was leftover from the Christmas decor at a local Peruvian restaurant. We went to a Peruvian restaurant because I lived in Peru with my family when I was twelve, and they make the best chicken ever, along with the yummiest Pollo Saltado. If you don’t know what that is, it involves the said chicken and french fries. Go get some.

And lastly, time for some real life. I generally always keep the area around the sewing machine straightened up, but the photo below is of The Other Side. There are multiple reasons for this. We’re coming up on the first anniversary of my father’s death (on National Polka Dot Day, no less), and I realized that a block of two years was taken out of my life as I attended to mourning for both my mother and my father — thank you all for your words of wisdom and kindness on this. This mourning was pretty much a huge job (it’s just how I’m put together). Some health struggles also popped up here and there (of course). And many times, I just didn’t have the energy to even walk in there, let alone deal with the mess. I have many more apologies I could make, to friends I just didn’t have the energy to call, or letters I didn’t write. But I’m approaching the other side of this experience and I know that from what you’ve told me, I will always miss my parents. However, I’m catching glimpses of a more engaged life, and I want to head that direction.

It’s good to document stuff like this once in a while (click to see another one).

But the GOOD NEWS is…it’s now fashionable to have messy rooms! Or so says an article in the New York Times, titled “In Defense of Messiness, “written by KC Davis (and you can read it for free with this link). I love this paragraph:

“I’ve been preaching my gospel that being messy is not a moral failing for years now. But I want to take it one step further: Messiness can be a good thing. All communities should have some messy people. We are not all meant to be Joanna Gaines. Some of us are Molly Weasleys, our homes bursting with the cozy chaos of a loving family and cabinets packed full of odds and ends. We cannot be Martha Stewart because we are Thoreau, so consumed by capturing Walden Pond’s essence that we need someone else to bring us meals and do our laundry. And try as we might, no amount of clutching our items to see if they spark joy will turn us into Marie Kondo’s closet, for we are Albert Einstein’s desk.”

I like tidiness, I really do. But if I waited to clean up my mess, I would never sew. And the world would be poorer for not having one more Totoro tote bag. Right?

So I’m launching myself into not ONE, but TWO monthly projects, and at this point, I’m in good shape. Happy Messy rooms. Happy Polk Dot Day. Happy 2025!

( a snowy Elizabeth, because we’re supposed to be in winter, not in raging infernos)

A photo of Albert Einstein’s office – just as the Nobel Prize-winning physicist left it – taken mere hours after Einstein died, Princeton, New Jersey, April 1955.

And you can now find me on Bluesky. Come on over!

300 Quilts · Happy Old Year Ending (Wrap-up) · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt

Happy Old Year Ending 2024

December 29, 2024August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Can I squeeze just one more quilt in here?

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.

Yes, I make all sorts of pieces, occasionally.

Happy Old Year Ending!

All of my patterns live on PayHip.

300 Quilts · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilts

Sun and Sea • New Pattern

June 9, 2021October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.28 Comments

How long do you keep owing someone a favor? Do you give up after a month? A year?
About FIVE years ago, Michael contacted me for a pattern for one of my quilts: an older one called Sun, Falling Into Sea.

He didn’t say exactly what he liked about it, but he wanted a pattern for this quilt just as it was. I am not completely flakey: I had sent him the blocks for the center, but last month he contacted me (such patience!) again asking for the pattern. Those of you who know me long-term won’t even blink when I say, well, I should do a couple more different versions. First up is Happy Valley.

Happy Valley, with its limited spectrum of colors and a black background, is named for the place where I grew up. We all called it Happy Valley because it seemed like nothing wrong could ever happen. Or if it did, we’d deny it to our death.

I recently visited my childhood home, and that name was just floating around in my head, as I drafted the pattern in the car the long way home from that place. Ignore the red garage with the antlers. When I lived there, the garage was a falling-down thing in the back. My bedroom was one of those two upper story bedroom windows; there were seven children and we traded around a lot. We were the furthermost house up the hill, with those glorious mountains behind us. I could go on and on about my little childhood stories, but we’ll leave it here.

For this quilt, I dipped my toe into Reels on Instagram and had fun making this little movie. (Sound on!) It’s also on my feed a couple shots back, if you would rather see it that way.

This coloration is called Summer Snowcone, because — of course — with its red, white, navy and sky blue it just says summer fun. I added a different kind of border around this one, and you can make this as large (add more blocks and more border blocks) or small as you want to. I chose this size to be a little table cover for us this summer.

I posted this pattern up on my PayHip site, and within minutes the ever-patient Michael had purchased and downloaded it. I hope it works out for him, and that it was worth the wait. Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed I set up a little discount for anything in my shop, with the launch of this pattern. Use this code to get 15% off:

I did put this up on my Index of Quilts, but it’s kind of cheating, I say, if its not quilted. Well, it will have to be a place holder until I do get it quilted. And that’s another reason to celebrate: Happy Valley appropriately puts me at the significant milestone of 250 quilts. Summer Snowcone is coming in at #251. Cheating, yes, but I couldn’t resist!

Here’s to your Happy Valley, and to the first Summer Snowcone. But let’s do a giveaway or two, too!

UPDATE: GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ENTERED!

~~The first giveaway~~ is a free Sun and Sea pattern from my pattern shop. If you are the winner, I’ll send you a coupon just for you to use to get your free downloadable pattern, plus, I will send you a gift card to Pineapple Fabrics, so you can pick up 1 1/2 yards of white Painter’s Palette Cotton Solids to help you get started on your Summer Snowcone quilt.

~~The second giveaway~~ is a free Sun and Sea pattern from my pattern shop. If you are the winner, I’ll send you a coupon just for you to use to get your free downloadable pattern, plus, I will send you a gift card to Pineapple Fabrics, so you can pick up 1 1/2 yards of black Painter’s Palette Cotton Solids to help you get started on your Happy Valley quilt.

(If you head to my pattern shop to the Sun and Sea Pattern, you can click in the upper righthand corner to download a Preview file that gives an overview of the three different flavors of Sun and Sea quilts, plus yardage requirements.)

~~To enter: tell me your favorite memory from your childhood that involves summer. I love reading what you write, so enter to win!~~

(Happy Grandchildren)

300 Quilts · Free Quilt Pattern · Quilt Finish

Is a Tablerunner a Quilt?

May 30, 2021October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

When you are stuck, it is. I love those houses, but…No.

New favorite. I ordered two more yards.

I love having scraps of batting that are just the right size.

Letting us both rest after a few hours of quilting.

Here come the beauty shots. (Isn’t that little bee with the branch arms the cutest?)

I quilted whatever came into my head.

I haven’t measured it, I haven’t labeled it, but the saga of the Orphan-Blocks-into-Table-Runner is now complete. I’m sorry to say, it didn’t empty out my orphan blocks bin much. Now I have to think up another way to use some of those up. And I have to think up a name. These orphan blocks came from when I taught the First Monday Sew-day class of beginners about Square-in-a-Square, or Economy blocks.

I still love these little houses. Now I have the beginning of another quilt! Get the Pattern Lite here.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend.

Or, as my mother would say, Happy Decoration Day (some fascinating reading in this link). The weekend before Memorial Day, my mother and father would go out and decorate the graves of their grandparents and great-grandparents with flowers, the cemetary made beautiful with pots of mums everywhere. This is the gravestone of my Scottish gr-grandmother. I have two namesake gr-grandmother Elizabeths and I remember them both on this Decoration Day. While the origins of Memorial Day are generally thought to be about the war dead, because of my mother, I remember it also as a day to honor those long gone.

I think we can do both.