Shining my way through this season

November 5, 2020December 24, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This is my reaction to the election fol-de-rol. Actually it’s my granddaughter Maddy’s, when she was just born (she’s soon to be 12 this year!). I’m totally patriotic (witness all my RWB blocks) and love the election itself–going to vote, feeling a unity among all Americans as we do our civic duty. It’s just the other stuff — the having to board up windows, the chants (count the vote! stop the count!), the lies, the attempts to cast doubt on the election, the lack of patience for the vote-counting — that gives me a chance to imitate Miss Maddy on a regular basis. By the time you read this, it may well be all over. Or not. Onward.

QuiltMania and I have been collaborating on releasing the Shine blocks, all newly refurbished. They usually do them on the first Friday of the month, which is upon us, so I try to time it and have a post. There’s a tab, above, for Shine, but to get the free patterns, you’ll need to subscribe to their newsletter. I have been remaking them in Red, White and Blue (told you I was patriotic!) to give them a fresh look.

But before we get to that, I wanted to show you Susan Hilsenbeck‘s block. She chose a Shine block for her SAQA Auction Quilt for 2020, and titled Op#3. I love how she chose the colors, the fabrics, and that quilting is a WOW. Really fun. Her artist’s statement is below:

Now, onto the new blocks!

This one’s a little different looking than the original. I flipped it to swirl a different direction, and instead of making the points separate, I kept them attached to the swirl, so they were both all from the same fabric.

This RWB version challenged me, as there are many places to use color and it’s a bit challenging to use just three colors. I have since found more lines of fabrics that will work with my original set, so I have more choices now.

I think I like the RWB version better than the original. Okay, here are the original nine blocks:

So, if you’ve been following along, and are getting the QuiltMania newsletters, you’ll have Blocks 1-6. The next three should drop tomorrow. Here’s a link to where you can sign up for the newsletters in order to get your SHINE blocks. If you don’t have Blocks 1-6, I’ve been assured that if you write to them, they will send you the links for them.

I’ve written two other individual block patterns, one of which has been added as a bonus block to the Finishing Instructions (which includes that sashing you see peeking out of the middle block, above). The other is being field tested right now by my friend, Linda, who is making her Shine blocks into a Christmas quilt.

I’ve got a couple more in the works, to be added to the Final Four blocks pattern that is up on PayHip.

But first, I’m going to be a guest tonight at Acacia Quilt Guild in Buena Park, California. Our workshop is Triad Harmony, which will be held on Saturday, live-online style. The organizer asked me to pass on to any of you that there are some openings left, if you’re not busy Saturday and want to jump in. Just leave me a note on this post, and we’ll get you set up. So far, I don’t have this on my teaching schedule in the future, so it may be the last time I teach it for a while.

More pumpkins. Well, I actually have thirteen, but who’s counting now?

They are. I’m happy to wait.

Red, White and Blue · Shine: The Circles Quilt

SHINE: QuiltMania Collaboration, part 2

October 2, 2020December 24, 2025 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

When I searched this morning in Google for how many days until the United States Presidential Election, the questions it prompted me for were these:

So, if we are going to have a zombie apocalypse, let’s spend our remaining days doing some quilting. (By the way, it’s 32 days until the election, as of today.)

QuiltMania and I have collaborated on releasing revised versions of quilt blocks for Shine: The Circle Quilt, and they have released the next three blocks, if you are a subscriber to their newsletter (sign up here). Many thanks to QuiltMania for this collaboration–I’m enjoying re-working the blocks in Red, White and Blue.

*Block Four: Red, White and Blue version*

*Block Five: Red, White and Blue version*

*Block Six: Red, White and Blue version*

I bordered that block to check for my Quilt Finishing Pattern, and then didn’t want to take it off for the picture. Soon, all of them will have their borders. I know these fabrics look a bit moody — but this line of Minick and Simpson that I’m using, augmented with a few more bits of Moda and M & S’s most recent line of fabrics — really is appropriately red, white and blue.

*Block Seventeen: Red, White and Blue version*

I’ve also worked up a new block, that is included in the Quilt Finishing Instructions as a freebie: Block Seventeen. I working on another new one, which will find its way in the panoply, as a freebie for the Finishing Pattern? Still working out the details, arriving hopefully before the Zombie Apocolypse.

I will be teaching Triad Harmony for the Coastal Quilters Guild of Santa Barbara next week, and while I have two of these wall hangings finished, I wanted to try it scrappy. As is always the case, I discovered some old favorites (the silvery leaves and the happy sun faces) and some new favorites (the plaid border) lurking on my shelves.

I’m currently quilting it, but stopped last night when I got to the borders. It was late, the book I was listening to got to a stopping point, and I was stumped by how to quilt the final section. Finding ideas of how to quilt something is always a challenge, but I’ll get back to it today.

My lecture with the Coastal Quilters is Thursday night, and I need to have this quilt ALL done by then. I’ll make it, as long as — you know — those zombies don’t show up.

Finally, this really great news. As many of my long-time readers know, I’m a huge fan of this book, but sadly it has been out of print for a long time. I was contacted by the new publishers, Electric Quilt, to provide a blurb for the new edition. You may see my words in their advertising, but the exciting thing was I was able to get a glimpse of the new edition and I was blown away! It’s a huge improvement to the original (although that will always be my first love). I just wanted to give you a heads up that they are having an introductory price that you may want to take advantage of.

I have had days like this — we all have — but with sewing my red, white and blue blocks, thinking up quilting motifs for borders, being pulled along by great fiction, and hanging out with friends like you: it’s all good. Yes, I take it day by day, but the whole concept of quilting is one of looking forward: from purchasing the fabric, to cutting, to stitching then quilting, to sewing that label on. We quilters are good at this.

Happy stitching!

Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Shine: The Circles Quilt

SHINE: The Circles Quilt • Collaboration with QuiltMania

September 4, 2020December 24, 2025 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

First I’m going to tell you the short version.

Shine is going back out into the world again, this time in collaboration with QuiltMania Magazine. If you are a subscriber to their newsletter, you’ll receive access to the newly revised patterns, free, as a thank you for subscribing.

Now the long version.

When Covid-19 hit the proverbial fan, one April morning in my mailbox was a heartfelt letter from Carol, writing in her regular QuiltMania Newsletter about some of the difficulties magazines like hers were facing. I contacted them, offering my help in any way (you know I’m a fangirl).

After some correspondence, it was decided that they would release SHINE: The Circles Quilt out into the world, bit by bit on their blog, and after further developments, as a thank you for subscribing to their newsletter. I was happy with this, and thinking it would be released quickly, revised all the formerly free patterns on this blog into a new format. I sent them to back to QuiltMania where they were translated into French.

Wondering if they’d be out by July, I started work on another set of the circles, this time in Red, White, and Blue. You may have seen them here, here, and here. I am still working on them, but am borrowing an idea from my friend Carol, who is also working on a Red, White and Blue quilt. We hope to get these quilts finished in time for the Inauguration in January. That gives me a little more time.

So here we go on a new journey with SHINE! Underneath each block is the name, and a link to where it lives on this blog. Each of these posts has detailed instructions and photos, which may prove helpful in your sewing. The full set is up above, in my header, under SHINE: The Circles Quilt.

This is how it looked on their blog this morning.

Above is the teaser in their newsletter, which you’ll want to subscribe to.

Here’s the scheduled release dates of the free quilt blocks from QuiltMania:
September: Blocks 1, 2 and 3
October: Blocks 4, 5 and 6
November: Blocks 7, 8 and 9
December: Blocks 10, 11 and 12

In case you can’t wait, the complete pattern is coming soon to my PayHip shop. Currently up up on PayHip are the last four blocks of SHINE (13 through 16) and the quilt’s finishing directions, which are written in Hobbit Elvish. Just kidding (sort of), but certainly they are from my earliest days as a pattern writer and will soon be revised to my current format and standards. (When the new patterns drop, if you have purchased either of these, you’ll be able to download the new ones without additional cost.)

I used fabric from the Minick and Simpson recent lines of red, white, and blue, as well as other Moda and Riley Blake fabrics for the backgrounds.

Happy Labor Day this weekend. Here is a less-than-happy version of Work (Le Travail), by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (c. 1863) from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. I am happy that they worked in a woman in “travail” down in the lower right corner. I am beyond happy that my current work of quilting doesn’t resemble anything in this picture. (Okay, maybe sometimes.)

Keep stitching!

Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Red, White and Blue · Shine: The Circles Quilt

Happy Seventh of July Block!

July 7, 2020July 5, 2020 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Yes, it’s Happy Seventh of July!

On this day in 1928, sliced bread was sold for the first time. What other significance does this day hold? It’s National Chocolate Day! I could just stop this silliness there, but it’s also National Strawberry Sundae Day. The moral of this is if you don’t have sliced bread, you can head to chocolate or strawberry sundaes. Or chocolate-drizzled strawberry sundaes on top of sliced bread.

I don’t have a back of this block to show, but the title of this block is Provoslavni Park, named for where that beautiful church was located in Ljubliana, Slovenia.

Here’s the back of the 6th of July block, shown yesterday.

My mother always says that doldums come predictably after Christmas: in January you can expect a little mopiness as you clean up the glitter and tinsel. It’s just that living such a sustained high — in terms of activity and expectations and hopes and fun and parties — will inevitably result in a series of days where you can hardly drag yourself around.

So what are we to expect after having a series of days, in this Covid-time, where we have covidistraction, covidsludgenergy, or general covidecline–what can we expect after that?

I know we all looked forward to the 4th of July with all that hullabaloo, but given our numbers, if you stayed in the house and didn’t breathe you were to be commended. So that’s why I thought a little silliness these past few days might provide an occasional snort at a bad joke, a roll of the eyes, and yes, I do want to see pictures of your chocolate-dripped strawberry sundae on sliced bread.

And as usual, Pattern Coming Soon. Stay Sane.

The Original Shine: The Circles Quilt, just hanging out.

And that’s it for the Shine re-do-up-do for a while, while my fingers catch up on the rest of the blocks. Happy July, everyone. Only two more years of — what my science-y friends call — mitigation (masks, etc.)! By then this pattern will be out and I’ll have the quilt made, with any luck.

Stay safe and figure out how to do a social distance gathering, so you won’t feel so isolated as we wait out/suffer through this pandemic. And please keep the parts of the country that are exploding in cases in your hearts, and if you are so inclined, in your prayers. And please wear your masks. We’re all in this together by ourselves, Lily Tomlin used to say.

Never truer.