Happy 50 Years!

February 23, 2025August 23, 2025 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

First, a continuation of a story. Remember this quilt? And how when I went to find the binding, I couldn’t…and then a friend wrote to say, “Oh, you sent me that fabric!”

Then that friend, Mary of Zippy Quilts, performed her usual magic and using that fabric and my Criss-Cross pattern, made this up in no time. Or at least it seems like that. And then, she didn’t have enough for an outside border, but went with what she had in her stash. She wrote it up on her blog, Zippy Quilts, which is always worth reading.

Oh Mary!! Look what I found!!

While clearing/cleaning out in another spot, I found this bag of –yes– cut binding for that quilt. But now all that fabric is really gone — to a good home in the guild grab bag. So that’s the end of that story.

Here’s my version of Criss-Cross Color, done all in richly colored solids. One of my children now has this quilt, and I hope it gets lots of use.

In keeping with my discovering more and more WIPs from Days Gone Past, I found seven selvage blocks (mentioned in an earlier post). And since I’m playing the News Avoidance-Call Your Congressman game, I figured it was as good a time as any to finish up this stray project.

Since the universe served me up this quote (which is unverified at this point) I knew what had to be done: write up a free tipsheet on how make these blocks, just in case you might want to sew some up. Keep reading for my final thoughts on this (at the end).

Click below to download the file:

Selvage Quilt Blocks_OPQuilt Download

(Don’t click on the illustration—>)

So I had seven, but made two more in the last few days, so here are all nine. I keep wondering about that white in the middle, but I’m in the business of rehoming my orphan blocks, not creating more. It will stay white.

What kept me going in ripping out all those papers:
I’m now going through the fourth book of Osman’s and have the fifth one in my wish list, but it’s not going to be released until September. I think you can also get them through public libraries, too.

Basic Tips for Selvage Blocks

(Tips are also in the free download, above, but here’s some different photos)

The triangles are cut and pinned, and now I’m ready to add my first round of selvages. I check to make sure I’m overlapping at least a 1/4″ and then sew it down, keeping my needle about 1/8″ from the edge.

Since I have a range of blues ready to go, I add more. On the upper left, I pieced the selvage so the pears would end up next to the words. It’s not the most perfect piecing job, but the bright side is that it allows you to see that I did piece it. I do try and arrange the markings (words and designs) when I’m cutting and arranging the strips, so they don’t get cut off. And in the last photo, I’m happy that the bright blue will run around the very center of the block (more on that in the Tip Sheet).

In the top left (I assume you are reading this on a desktop, but if you aren’t, it’s probably the first photo in this group if you are reading on a mobile), I noticed I was not as careful as I should have been in getting the strips on straight, and it was only going to get worse.

So I threw in a “half-length” of selvage on the right and stitched it down. Then the next strip would be more straight and level, and I could move forward. This process is pretty forgiving, so try not to sweat the small stuff. The rest of the photos show an early phase (half done), then a fully covered square. Notice that the “tip” has a rather large piece of selvage on there. I have been known to grab a length of fabric from my stash and cut a selvage to fit.

Flip over your completed piece, and trim to 10-1/2″ square.

Four of them, sewn together, yield this pretty thing.

One last tip: I did plan to keep the paper on until the very end, but hey — paper doesn’t move, stretch, or give. [Or if you’ve been watching all the Saturday Night Live (SNL) videos this week, it also doesn’t kick…stretch…or kick.] While some of these selvages are from 25 years ago, they aren’t as old as Sally O’Malley (she’s 50!).

Although, if you need a good laugh, let me stop you right now and remind you to watch the More Cowbell skit. We burst out laughing one early morning, and in spite of the News (shudder), had a smile on our faces for most of the morning.

The other night I couldn’t sleep so wandered into my sewing room. I typically don’t sew in the middle of the night (you know, sharp things) but I decided to piece together my big blocks. I had some repairing to do after taking all the papers off, so did that, then started –very carefully — pinning and sewing the blocks together. It was a wonderful time to think of the fabrics that I’d used, from baby fabrics to bright bolds, to textures. I found repeats in different color ways, backings (they give the longest lengths of selvage), and bits and pieces of other fabrics.

I realized this quilt is now kind of like a fabric journal, a history of my materials and where my quilting journey has taken me over the last fifty years. Just as SNL is celebrating their 50 years of doing comedy sketches, I guess I should celebrate my fifty years of quilting.

Happy 50 to me!

Guess I’ll go and sew something!

Quilts

Straighten Up and Sew Right

August 21, 2014 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

(from *here*)

It had been nearly a month since I’d threaded the needle of my sewing machine and sent it to humming, and I felt like the sad seamstress in the photo, above, pining away. I wanted to get to the machine and have a good sewing session and have something to show for it. As one Instagrammer said, “My sewjo is missing.” But I wasn’t idle. First, I had a root canal, which ought to occupy anyone for a few days. And I also cleaned out the stash a bit, filling two large mall shopping bags with swatches of fabric to let my quilting group, the Good Heart Quilters, rummage through before donating the rest to our quilt guild. And here’s some photos to prove I have tidy cupboards, before I start messing it up again:

I like to organize mine by color and value (light-to-dark).

The lower half of the cabinet. Inside the pull-out box are browns and blacks–easier on the back this way. I keep the Kaffe Fassets in another place, and I also have a stack of cream/tans and a stack of “low volumes” (neutrals or pastels), and stack of predominantly white/light background fabrics.

Here’s a close-up of my Molly Qee collection (the characters with the crowns). They are hard to find in the States. I started my collection when my sister Christine and I happened into a collectibles shop in Lyon, France.

And on the other shelf are other doodads. My husband gives me the little Japanese dolls (ningyō). And those fabric-covered binders are all my journals, began when I was a young woman of twenty-one years old. Since the advent of email and cheap phone calls, I’ve stopped writing them, but I love having them around (they hold all my secrets!).

So after a busy month, I pulled out the machine and got started. I decided to ease my way in slowly, making a selvage block.

When I begin, I use my standby translucent paper, cutting, then pasting a strip on one side so it measures 10 1/2″ square. Then I draw lines on it to keep the selvages on straight. Do I cut all my selvages off when I buy fabric? No. I like having them on to keep track of the newer stuff in case I need more. Most of these selvages happen when I’m going through older fabrics that are in my stash (like those to be donated), of which I know I’ll never need the information again. Then I slice it off, leaving about one-inch to 1-1/2″ of the fabric on top of the selvage so I have Lots of Options.

I get started by cutting two 4 1/2″ blocks, then slice them on the diagonal to make up the four triangles you see in the center above. I pin them down, then start sewing on the selvages, placing the selvage edge 1/4″ in from the raw edge of the triangle, as shown. Sew closely along the edge. I like it best when the first selvage next to the color is the same, or nearly all the same, so I look for a longish piece. I think it just helps set the stage. Sometimes I piece selvages to get the printed symbols and the words closer together (above) and other times I just let it be. Then it’s random, random, random after that, some thinner strips, some thicker strips. Some people like to trim the fringey pieces, but I just leave it that way. Sometimes after I sew on a strip of selvage, I’ll go in and trim down the underneath piece just to keep it tidy.

Sometimes I get things off balance, like in the pink block way above (too much deep maroony-pink in the lower left) but then I figure I’m teaching myself how to let go a bit and just enjoy the process. And I do. I now have five colors of four 10″ (finished) blocks, so the block will be twenty inches square after all four parts are sewn together. This is going to be one big quilt, but I’m in no hurry.

To close with, here’s a quote from The Rise, by Sarah Lewis (the book I wrote about in the Creativity post):

“Perhaps we have grown impatient with the incomplete. We are part of a generation that, as the African proverb goes, wants to eat dinner in the morning, that longs for the immediate, fully prepared for consumption. Yet the strength to linger over the long-left unfinished reminds us that something inexhaustible in us is empowered by striving, that we sense unnaturalness in blunt ends of journeys, of lineage. And that power comes from where we least expect to find it.”

Go tackle something incomplete, and enjoy the power of taking another look at something that in our hands, has had a long journey.

WIP

WIP Wednesday (Selvage Blocks)

March 12, 2014March 12, 2025 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Okay, these 20″ blocks are addicting. Someone on IG commented on my selvage stash, but the whole thing could fit into a gallon ziploc bag. There are all those selvages on my stash, however. . .

Other Works in Progress, this Wednesday morning:

Rainbow Petals–the more I type that name, the more I realize it needs to be changed

Lollypop Tree Quilting. It’s such a big project, I keep waiting for the decks to be cleared to start on it. That’s always a bad idea if you are trying to get something done, but a good way to procrastinate.

Cross-X Quilt Blocks. That’s February’s installment on our Friendship Swap to the left.

Cutting out the quilt with the Mirror Ball Dots fabric. Let’s just make that THINKING up the quilt with the Mirror Ball Dots fabric. (No photo) That’s enough for now.

Update: I used to be a part of a “linky party” titled her WIP Wednesday, and that’s why this is here.