Build Me a Cabin of Light

November 9, 2025November 8, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Remember this cartoon from a couple of posts ago? Well, I decided to break the secret rules about Blocks of the Month quilt-a-longs and decided to finish up my quilt at Month Nine.

The world didn’t end.

I used a three-inch border, then some snazzy dots for the binding.

That sweet checkerboard on the back is another bit of fabric from Sherri and Chelsi. I’d been ~~hoarding~~ collecting their fabrics from their very first collection, and used only their fabrics in this quilt. The patterns are from the Sherri, of Sherri and Chelsi, and you can find them on her website, A Quilting Life. She’s already talked about her BOM (Block of the Month) for 2026 — lots of fun, there!

I did machine-stitched binding again for this one. My friend Lisa taught me to use two different colors of thread: one matching the binding, and one matching the backing. It went pretty quickly.

The title is from a poem by Kwame Dawes, as I liked the imagery in it.

My quilter, Nancy, did a great job on using one of my favorite patterns, Boujee by Urban Elementz. This is Quilt #310.

I superimpose the quilting design over a lightened image of the quilt, to help guide her on the size I want.

It’s nice to have it done, and hanging on the bottom of the guest bed. Thank you, Sherri!

And I think it’s okay to throw in a couple of other things, here. One is squircles (free pattern on this post). I’m seeing them pop up here and there, especially on Gladi’s blog, where you can see her squares in the background as she shows the basket she won from her guild’s show (which gave me complete guild-envy). She also shows them on her social media. I’m closing in on 80 of these little guys, and I’ll put them all up on my pin wall when I do make it to that milestone.

I’m seeing cheddar-colored fabrics in a lot of places. I have been collecting these for about a decade, and thought It Was About Time. Plus, Gladi has been working on a cheddar quilt, and Barb Veddar has more than one on her IG feed.

I’m using my Azulejos pattern and made some test blocks to answer my burning question: Do I like it better when all the scrappiness of the blues and cheddars are mixed up (the two on the right)? Or, do I like it better when there are only two different fabrics in each block, but the quilt will be scrappy?

I just couldn’t handle the chaos of the blocks on the right. The whole quilt will look scrappy, but it will have some order to it, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Autumn has arrived in the bedroom, with my pillow and the Nancy Rink Amish quilt, Shadow Owes Its Life to Light on the bed. Our weather is so strange — like it’s 82 right now as I type this (Saturday afternoon). In November!

The quilt remains folded on the end of the bed as it’s too warm, and we lift it off at night. Rain is supposed to show up next week, so maybe we’ll put it to use then.

This morning, I helped my sister figure out her artist’s statement for her art, which led me to think about another conversation I had with another quilter, about how she’s more interested in watercolors right now. Another is working hard at learning the flute. It reminded me of this quote, from Todd Plough:

It is not the brush you bring to the canvas but what you bring to the brush.

As long as there is some kind of canvas (quilt, digital screen, thick watercolor paper, clay) and some kind of brush (needles and thread, a computer mouse, a paintbrush), you are good, in my mind. Of course this coupling of canvas/brush could be so much more than what I thought of. It could be food and a dinner plate. Or a bowl and some rising sourdough bread. Or wood and a bandsaw. I’ve scrolled through enough posts in my life to know that there are multitudes. And while you may start in one, you will probably end up with another, even if you continue with your first creative love.

What matters is what’s behind the brush, and that is you.

300 and Beyond · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilt Finish · Quilts · This-and-That

This and That • October 2025 • Quilt Finish

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Boo!

This latest finish had a few mothers:

1) a bag of scraps from mine and Leisa’s Halloween in the Vegetable Patch quilt, and…

2) a need to make a quick quilt, which Azulejos is, and…

3) After the Great Computer Debacle and File Deletion Tragedy, I’ve been trying to put back together my pattern files, and Azulejos was the first one I finished. So I needed to test it out, and…

4) This cartoon from one of my favorites (Grant Snider) and a collaborator (Jon Acuff), and…

5) Realizing that I still had the 4th of July redwhiteblue quilt above this cupboard and now it was the orangeblackwhite season.

This is how it came together in two days (click to enlarge any photo below):

I kept the quilting simple. On the back were two leftover panel blocks from the original kitted Halloween Quilt, along with some rando orange dot fabric from the stash. I used the bits we’d cut off to border the panels, so they’d be large enough. And since this pattern — while quick and easy — calls for a template, I put tape on the back so it won’t move around, then I use a ruler to help in the cutting.

Quilt #308 | Halloween Mini-quilt | approximately 28″ square.

This is still one of my favorite versions of this pattern: SeaDepths. I have one more version to try, a deep blue and cheddar combo. Some of this is that I realize that every corner of my room holds the promise of a project/quilt-to-be. I’d been saving the scraps since last year and the bag kept kicking around the edges. GONE! I have been saving the deep blue/cheddar fabrics since 2019. They are washed, and stacked, ready to go next week. And yes, I threw away the scraps from the scraps, as there was so little left.

You know I wouldn’t want to miss America’s throwing itself a party. One of my signs was a cat print-out from Martha Rich’s art (used with permission), and the other sign was my husband’s (Protect Our Freedoms) with the wording he chose. We both wore yellow, as did others.

Bravo to all the unicorns who came out to walk and gather. Lots of flags, lots of good will and as I noted in my Instagram post, we detoured into the Korean chicken place mid-way. It was delicious. Then back to the march. Then home.

Our signs posed together in the Butterfly Alley, near the gathering.

Started the latest Thursday Murder Club listen: The Impossible Fortune.

How does he come up with these plot lines? I am really loving this.

Even though there are technically three more blocks to this A Quilting Life 2025 Block of the Month Quilt, I’ve using Grant Snider’s advice #6 — getting rid of rules — and calling it done here. It’s been a fun project and hats off to Sherri for her creativity and for sharing these free blocks with us. Now to figure out a border, and get it quilted.

Finally, Squircles will finish this edition of This and That for October 2025. The hashtag we’re using — #backtosquircle — showed up with two more squircle makers: Lisa and Betty, both from the mountain west.

Mine are on the above left, and Gladi has some that are shown on the above right, out of beautiful brocades and silks.

On the train to Strasbourg.

On the train to Colmar. I must admit that I looked out the windows a lot.

Now, with a new sewing box, courtesy of a run through Le Grande epicerie in Paris (where I purchased some cookies just.for.the.tin), this is me stitching in the airplane on the way home. In the dark (again). Why do we never put up our window screens anymore to see the miracle of flying through the air? Nevermind. #screensrule

I’m almost to 60 squircles finished, one-third of the way there.
Keep stitching, keep stitching!

Last Look

Did Vasarely get there first?

August 16, 2025August 19, 2025 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Maybe. Maybe Victor Vasarely got there first in the art world, but I’m guessing the origin of circles on squares, or even squircles on squares, may have come from all the mending the first woman did on her children’s clothes. Just a hunch. I really have no way of knowing this, but when my friend Dot mentioned the artist Vasarely as being reminiscent of our #backtosquircles project, I believe she was on to something. Have fun looking at his art.

My Tips and Tricks

Caveat: If you would rather fold laundry or scrub out the bathroom than do hand appliqué, I have a post on how to do nearly invisible appliqué on machine, using monofilament thread. It’s quick! It’s easy!

Back to the method I used *this time.* (I might change it next time.)

To cut out the shape: I would often iron on my freezer paper version of the pattern (I just printed it directly from the pattern). Other times I would just use a pin. Always I used my rotary cutter to slice around the fabric, and usually I was working with four layers of one polkadot fabric. (I learned in this project how many many many polkadot fabrics I have.)

In my past appliqué lives I have always cut out a bunch of the shapes out of freezer paper and pressed the fabric onto that. I would place shiny side up, and nudge the edges onto the shiny stuff and they would generally stick. When it was cool, I would take the pattern out and use it again.

This time I tried Old School Methods: spray some spray starch into the lid, and using a small brush, stroke it around.

Like this.

You can just see where it’s damp from the starch. Don’t use too much. I always lay down a piece of cloth on my ironing board to catch the dribbles.

Place a template (here I used mylar and punched holes in it — more on that later), pressing the corners and sides up over the template. The starch should dry and hold it in place. Let it cool, then remove the template. Duh.

I finger press some marks at the centers.

Then I arrange the cooled, pressed squircle by eye and pin it down. Sorry if this is repetitive for you experts — feel free to leave a comment if you have more tips; this is always helpful!

Sometimes you’ll get a little bump out. That just means underneath the seam allowance has its knickers in a twist. As you stitch along to this spot, with your needle, sweep the seam allowance away from the bump (in the directions of the arrows) and it should ease up and smooth out.

Sometimes I just put four pins.

Other times that squircle isn’t going anywhere.

I use the Thread Conditioner from Riley Acres, and I like the Super Bobs Bright Thread Collection. Rachel uses her own bees’ beeswax to make the conditioner, and I like how it feels, and it never gets hard.

I’ve sort of started evaluating my polkadots for this project. The ones on the left are rejects. The ones in the middle I was thinking about, but in the end, I only used the ones on the right: regularish-shaped dots, with not too much else going on.

Twenty-two done. I’m ahead of schedule, happily.

I made you a chart to keep track of our squircles. I added it to the pattern, and tweaked the pattern a bit, if you want to download it again:

Squircle_OPQuilt Download

Okay, that’s it for my squircle tips and tricks.

The mylar sheets can be found on the Great Store in the Sky, and I just slipped the pattern underneath and traced it off with a fine Sharpie marker. The Mylar cut easily with scissors. I punch holes in my Mylar so the steam doesn’t build up and warp the template. Although with the starch, I didn’t use steam this go round.

This little project will sink into the background for a while, so I promise, no more squircles posts for a while. But the pattern (free!) and the tips and tricks will stay here on the website for your use.

keyword search term on this site: squircles
hashtag on Instagram: #backtosquircles

I could listen to Rose talk about her job in the hardware store every day.

300 and Beyond · Free Download · Patterns by Elizabeth of OPQuilt · Quilts

Squircles

August 10, 2025August 14, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

You knew this was coming, right? After you saw that last post about squircles, I’ll bet you knew I’d go hunting and fall down a rabbit hole. You are very perceptive.

This is a squircle grapefruit from designer Tai Tan. I found it on Dribble, which is also a website I didn’t know about before.

A squircle is not a rounded square, apparently. There is some design technique that can explain it, and it has to do with the flat edges. In a rounded square there are flat edges. In a squircle, they may LOOK flat, but they are every-so-slightly rounded (from here).
John Uttley also has a nice grid of squircles to admire, and here’s more to see if you want.

Lisa, my quilty friend in the previous post, was as happy as I was with these quilts, so we thought we cook up a project. It went like this:
1st idea: make blocks and swap
2nd idea: swap backgrounds but still do your own appliqué
3rd idea: set up a challenge to do *so many* each month, and check in with each other.

Third time’s the charm. We’re doing a Squircle Challenge. So I went looking and besides the designers, I found some quilters:

Marla Varner’s blog, Penny Lane, feels like the OG.

I did an image search and was able to source this image to Zippy Quilts, my friend Mary’s blog. This quilt alternated squares on squares, and squircles on squares. It was made by Carolyn Brown.

This is from the Instagram feed of laurispringer.

Last quilt I found was from Amanda Jean Nyberg’s website, and she calls it “dot your i’s quilt.” This is different because of the low-value backgrounds.

So here’s the story. I started the PatternLite with using a 5″ block (5 1/2″ with seam allowance) and that’s the first one in the pattern. But then in my stash box, way in the back of the closet, I found a stack of Charm Squares in Painter’s Palette Solids, my favorite brand. The 4″ squircle just looked too crowded.

So I redrew the squircle, to be more squircle-y, with slightly rounded sides. Then I resized it to fit — making it a 3 1/2″ (finished) size. That seemed to fit the backgrounds much better. So you have two sizes and two shapes in the free pattern.

I spotted my purple/lime green polka dot fabric at the top of this photo of Machelle Preston’s quilt, in the current Springville Quilt Show (see previous post).

I have been ~~hoarding~~ collecting polka dots for years now. This is why: Come A-Round, from earlier in my making (Quilt #90).

However…I noticed that I seem to have plenty more dotty fabrics, so why not use them again, borrowing Machelle’s idea?

So here are the first three, courtesy of one of those sleepless nights that come along once in a while (if you haven’t seen Melanie, you are missing out). Now I just have about 177 more to go, but don’t worry, in the pattern there are two sizes (the 5-inch requires fewer blocks), and a helpful chart so you don’t panic. Just tote this project around to doctor’s offices, pick it up while watching TV, or while you are hiding from your family in a quiet room.

Because we dreamed this collaboration up in August, and everyone’s going back to school, that’s our theme. Our hashtag is #backtosquircle, a play on Back To School. We have an easy schedule, for who needs more pressure in their lives? The drill:

choose your block size/quilt size
make a bunch
every 20 blocks made, post it up on Instagram with our hashtag #backtosquircle (if you use that social)
take it slowly!