A fair number of the “orphan blocks” in my (large) collection were made to try out a pattern before cutting the whole thing. I’ve learned (the hard way) to do that for several reasons:

• Some blocks may turn out to be not as much fun as they look like, and I’m doing this for FUN
• Sadly, some patterns come with inadequate or inaccurate directions
• When I make a test block (or two), I haven’t wasted much time or fabric if either of the above problems results in a decision not to make the quilt
• I once cut out an entire version of Storm at Sea only to find that the cutting directions were wrong. Oops.

And for those who don’t know the Storm at Sea quilt, here is my successful version, made at a later date using Deb Tucker’s tools.

Love at Sea was made in 2019 using Deb Tucker’s tools.

Here’s the pattern I tried out most recently.

I love Zen Chic designs and liked the look of the curves in this one. I made a couple of practice blocks out of scraps. The directions were excellent and the curves were easy to piece.

My practice blocks turned out well

In looking at my practice blocks, I noticed two things:

• Although the blocks are fair size, there WILL be 8 points coming together at each intersection
• There are clever little hourglass shapes at the intersection of the blocks, and THOSE have tiny curved points that must match for the quilt to look good. I hadn’t noticed that until I made the test blocks!
  

  Eek! Look at that lovely hourglass shape with curved sides!

I’m not about to sew something that requires that much precision for 64 blocks! So I have two more blocks for the orphan collection.

That’s why I make practice blocks, and possibly why I have a big orphan block collection 😀

Batiks and markers were used in this little quilt, and I put a UFO in the sky 🙂

The little quilt above was entitled “The Other UFO”. Most quilters are all too familiar with the UnFinished Object type UFO!

And sure enough, I recently found this box in one of my storage areas:

I dated it, back in November of 2021,  thinking that if I hadn’t finished the UFOs in it within a year I probably should throw them out.

WELL! Some of these are too good to throw out, but maybe this is the year to get them done! Look what I found, and for goodness sake pass on any ideas about what I should do with each of these.

#1 I bought this panel years ago at MaryJo’s fabric shop in Gastonia, NC. MaryJo’s is, sadly, long gone, but here’s this panel.

#2 This is a leaf pounding I did years ago and eventually set aside unfinished because I didn’t like the way my echo quilting turned out.

#3 I believe I bought this fabric at an antique shop, thinking it was a feed sack. Looking at it now, it is 50″ long after washing and has selvedges on two edges. I think it probably is a feed sack because there are a few holes where twine stitching could have been removed. However, it’s too loose-woven to be used in a quilt.

#4 Orphan block set from a long-forgotten improv block spree

#5 Small mola (reverse applique) blocks bought at a craft sale. The Craft Guild of the Southern Highlands includes Hmong artisans who do beautiful work, so of course I had to buy a few blocks.

OK! I have 5 potential projects and 4 months left in the year. Maybe I can get these finished in 2024?

Or I could just go back to trying to balance pins on point on my magnetic pin holder…

But of course that wouldn’t get the UFOs done. Any suggestions for what to do with these would be appreciated! And I’ll let you know what I do, including any I discard.

Even before we went to the wonderful car museum on our trip to Indiana, we went to a number of great quilt shops! Here are a few pictures so you can share the fun. Most of these shops were in the Shipshewana Indiana area.

At one point some of us were sitting in rocking chairs waiting for the other(s) who were still shopping, and a young person came by and said, “So this is what old people do!” Our party’s response is not recorded.

All the shops had pretty quilts on display, and we got a number of good ideas (as well as some fabric). I’m sorry to say I no longer recall which quilts were in which shops, but here’s a sample of what we saw.

Shipshewana is an Amish area, but this was one of the few traditional Amish-type quilts we saw

This Amish-inspired modern quilt was my favorite of the trip

This is one of these things I admire greatly but don’t want to make!

I could get only part of this quilt because of where it was hung, but I loved it!

I thought this was a better-than-usual row quilt design

One gift shop had a display of handmade potholders

There were many more quilts, but most were more ordinary than the above. Many were hand quilted (yikes!) and all were beautifully made.

Shipshewana was a fun place to visit. There’s a huge flea market, too, but we didn’t get to see much of it because a dangerous looking storm rolled in just as we were starting. No problem, because all the quilt shops were indoors 😀

This first quilt was made to display the beautiful fabrics from a line called Ancient Beauty, by Robert Kaufman. A friend and I found fat quarter bundles of this in a shop we visited while travelling, and the fabric was just too beautiful to leave there.

Here’s the swirl picture:

Quilt Stats:

Name: Ancient Beauty

Pattern: tic-tac wall quilt from the book Cozy Modern Quilts by Kim Schaefer

Finished size: 51″ x 61″

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

The second quilt is the “Indonesian ethnic” one made after I watched a lecture on ethnic fabrics.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Indonesian Ethnic

Pattern source: Block design by Carole Lyles Shaw for some blocks; Gwen Marston style stars for some blocks; overall design is mine

Finished size: 60″ x 68″

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (here), I found an interesting-looking lecture on the use of African fabrics in quilts. Offered through Creative Spark, it is called African Fabrics for Contemporary Quilts, Crafts, and More.

My friend Laura agreed to sign up for the lecture too and we scheduled a time to view it together (from different states). The lecture was specific to African fabrics, and we both had some of those in addition to some other interesting fabrics we hoped to use.

We both enjoyed the lecture. Laura was happy to learn the meaning of some of the designs in her African fabrics, and I was happy to hear Carole Lyles Shaw‘s take on “cultural appropriation”. The question presented was whether it’s acceptable for individuals who are not of African descent to make things with African cloth. Carole’s response was that cultural mixing goes on all the time, so it’s perfectly acceptable for anyone to use the fabric. However, the designs should not be used without attribution, which of course is a basic principle across creative endeavors.

The other presenter for the lecture was Lisa Shepard Stewart. She’s obviously in favor of everyone being able to use African fabrics, because she has an online shop to sell them!

There were two bonus patterns at the end of the lecture, one for a notebook cover and one for a small quilt.

When I went back to my stash, I decided I didn’t have enough different African fabrics to make the small quilt. HOWEVER, a friend gave me this wild fabric from Lunn Batiks several years ago and it seemed to have enough variety all in one piece. And batiks are an ethnic fabric with a long history of use in quilting, so here we go!

I made some Gwen Marston-type stars, and some of the blocks from the bonus pattern (designed by Carole Lyles Shaw), and combined them into this:

The top is finished, but you’ll probably be seeing it again when it’s quilted and bound.

As for using fabrics from different cultures, I’m with Carole: we’ve been a cultural melting pot for years. Nobody questions whether I can use cottons from India since I’m not of East Indian descent, or whether to use Japanese yukata fabric in quilts. And we’ve been using Indonesian batiks for years. Cultural appropriation is a legitimate concern, but that’s not what this is. As a friend once said, “Worry about something else.”

A Ronald McDonald House near me requests quilts to be placed over preemie incubators in the NICU. They suggest 36″ square, so I made a few. They’re all from “orphan blocks”, and most were quilted by Linda Nichols (though I quilted one myself–gasp!).

Here they are:

And they all have this pretty backing:

Another use for orphan blocks 😀

On a recent trip to Indiana we stopped at the Auburn Cord Dusenberg Automobile Museum. It was much more interesting than you might expect for a quilter, so here are some examples of inspiration I found there. I enjoy history and design, so even though I’m not an old car buff, I had a good time at the museum and was somewhat reluctant to leave even after two hours!

First, the museum itself! The building was originally a showroom to which car dealers came in the early 20th Century to be convinced to sell automobiles made by the Cord company. And what a showroom it was! It was huge, and its art deco details have been restored. Here are a few of my favorite examples.

The chandeliers were the first thing I noticed!

Here’s a broader view of just one part of the showroom, showing the detail on the beams, the columns, and the grand staircase. And look at that Italian terrazzo floor!

Museum displays explained that, up until World War II, there was quite a market for American made luxury cars. And I do mean luxury–many of the cars were meant to be driven by a chauffeur! To my surprise, these luxury cars were many different colors. I took these pictures because I liked the color combinations and plan to use them for inspiration.

Then there was a car that belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright, whose work I admire. Mind you, I don’t much admire the man, from what I know about him, but his work was wonderful.

The car is “Cherokee Red”, a favorite color of Wright’s. I investigated and learned that there is more than one Cherokee Red, even within Wright’s work. Here are a couple of references, in case you’re as much a geek as I am (looking at you, Gwen).

Here is an article explaining Wright’s Cherokee Red and including several examples.

And here is an article about the PPG palette now used at Fallingwater. It includes “Fallingwater Red” which is the version of Cherokee red used in that house. I have bookmarked this so I can use the palette for a future quilt!

If you’re in northern Indiana, this museum is worth a visit, even if you aren’t much into cars.

Hanging sleeves for quilts are required for most quilt shows and instructions are available many places online. I have for years used the instructions from the American Quilters Society website, as I consider them the definitive resource for such things. Recently, however, I’ve made a few tweaks that I think make the process easier.

Here are my changes, step by step. If you aren’t already familiar with how to make a hanging sleeve, go to the AQS site for basic instructions. These are just my changes.

1. Use leftover quilt backing (108″ wide) to reduce the number of strips that have to be joined.
   

   I often buy backing in 3-yard packs, and that means there’s some left over that’s still 108″ wide

2. Use two rulers to add up to the 8.5″ width needed for a regulation quilt sleeve and cut a strip 8.5″ x width of fabric. Cut whichever way gives you the longest strip. In this case, I had a full width of fabric, so I got a strip 108″ long!
3. If you’re making sleeves ahead of time, just stop here and roll up the fabric for storage. If you’re ready to use it for a sleeve, measure across the width of the quilt and cut a length of sleeve 1″ less than that. (Most instructions say to cut the width of the quilt then hem the ends, but that’s unnecessary.)
4. Now serge or zigzag the ends of the strip to finish them. Most modern machines have the equivalent of a serger stitch, so you don’t necessarily need a serger to do this.
   

   Just serge the ends to finish the edges rather than hemming.

5. Fold the sleeve lengthwise, wrong sides together, and press lightly so the fold opposite the raw edges can be seen. Either join the raw edges with a 1/4″ seam or serge them together.
6. Baste 1/4″ from the folded edge of the sleeve, opposite where you just joined the raw edges. This allows for the ease required in the sleeve so the quilt will hang flat when a big pole is put through the sleeve.
   

   Left arrow points to the basting; right arrow points to the seam joining the raw edges

7. Now re-fold the sleeve, still lengthwise, so the basted seam is on top and the seam that joined the raw edges is on the bottom.
8. Attach the sleeve to the quilt back by hand. Note that the way the raw edges were joined puts the long seam on the outside of the sleeve, facing the back of the quilt. It’s thus out of the way.
9. It’s possible to avoid half this hand work if you think waaaay ahead and put the top edge of the sleeve under the binding as you attach the binding, but really, who plans like that?
10. After attaching the sleeve, remove the basting stitches

One more thing: After the quilt show, remove the sleeve to be used on the next quilt! Making a hanging sleeve still isn’t my favorite thing to do, but it’s easier with these little modifications.

Here’s another quilt made from circles cut out of orphan blocks.

I asked a friend whether to re-design the whole thing or have it quilted as is, and she said it would be fine if it had a really interesting quilting design. She here is the Aboriginal panto, done by Linda Nichols in gold thread.

Quilt Stats

Name: More Circles

Finished size: 50″ x 72″

Design by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

The good news is that a big pile of orphan blocks just went to a guild that’s making small wallhangings for the doors in a nursing home. That leaves me with only a few hundred to do something with 😀

Studio Stitch is having a Christmas in July event, and I asked to make something with a snowman for it. After searching through available patterns, we selected this cute wall hanging (or table runner, maybe) by Sandy Fitzpatrich of HissyFitz Designs.

I’ll be teaching this in July, but the patterns started selling as soon as the class sample went up, so the shop is re-ordering. If you’re comfortable with fusible applique there’s no need for a class, since this is pretty easy. However, that cute cardinal in the center block needs to be assembled separately, on a special applique sheet, and then fused to the block.

The pattern is available from Studio Stitch, either in person or by mail, and I’ll be teaching the class July 27. There are other fun holiday-related classes planned, as well; you can see them on the shop’s website.