Author: jennifer

Well, here I am today with another English paper piecing project.  Though I haven’t yet finished an EPP quilt, I am close on my Mandolin .  It just needs the edge pieces on two more sides and then I can share it.  I stitch a little bit each morning, and it’s coming together slowly but surely.  I guess that progress made me feel like I could jump into an EPP sew along, so at the first of the year I ordered the pieces for the Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden and got started shortly thereafter.  Although it’s September, I want to share a Homage progress report.

Who doesn’t love a Grandmother’s flower garden quilt?  I read once that it’s the quilt pattern that is most commonly left unfinished, and there’s no surprise there!  So many hours, and yet it’s one of those iconic epp patterns.  I know I would love to make one, but never have.  When I saw this clever design for a huge ring of flowers set in a flower garden background, I ordered it immediately.  This is my grandmother’s flower garden project.

The sew along was cleverly divided into 52 sections, one for each week.  Every section includes some background and at least one colored flower.  Aaaand, I stalled at week 5.  Yep.  I started, sewed what I’d prepped, and then got crazy busy preparing my daughter to go to Guam for an 18 month mission.  Just like all my other epp projects, they tend to sit for long periods if I don’t have more pieces prepped.  It’s the step I just don’t get to, apparently.

Last week I took an afternoon and selected, cut, organized, and glued pieces for weeks 6-12.  Once I get into it, I really enjoy it.  I’m hoping to pick up the project on the same weekly schedule even though I’m months behind.  I obviously won’t finish it in 2022, but I would like to finish it before my birthday next summer.

Every time I look at it I’m excited about it again.  It’s going to be beautiful.  I just need to be diligent!  And while I’m at it, here’s my homage progress report for the first 4 sections.  It’s fun to see even this small section come together.

I’m excited to recycle the pieces for a second round of these lovely flowers.  I hope there are many more English paper piecing projects in my future!  But first, more prep work!

I took my daughter to college a couple of weeks ago.  She is our 5th of 8, and though you’d think it would get easier, I can officially say that it does not.  This drop-off was HARD for me.  I mean, I acted fine while we were moving her in, but inside I was anything but.  There were definitely silent tears on my drive home.  I have missed her presence terribly, but I know it’s the right next step in her life.  She did take a piece of home with her, though.  I finished Marian’s quilt.

Marian made the quilt blocks years ago.  She and her sister both wanted to sew, and I felt like Marian’s personality would do better with improv sewing than following a pattern.  She jumped in and had fun, sewing several blocks.

Blocks that sat.  For years.  Because she couldn’t decide what color she wanted for sashing.

Last Christmas I used all the colors she liked to finish the quilt top for her and she loved it.  I worked up the courage to put it on my longarm so I could send it with her to school.  And oh, how I’ll look back at this one to laugh!  I decided to go for it and try a custom border that I definitely don’t have the skill for.  Yet if I never try it, how will I get the skill?  I learned good lessons as I tried to create a feather design all the way around the blocks in the white border.  There are a few spots that look good up close, but it’s mostly a hot mess.

One of the best parts is the back.  A simple rainbow striped sheet.  It’s a sheet we used at the beach house, and I kept it to put on the back of her quilt.  I knew I could trust her with it, trust her to love it more for the memory.  A scrappy binding made of leftovers from past quilts finishes it off.  It’s a perfectly imperfect quilt.

She loves it though.  Which is kind of her.  That’s been one of her gifts to our family – loving us with all our flaws, not complaining about how lame we are or how we could improve.  She accepted this gift for what it was, flaws and all.  And I know she’ll treasure it.  The way she looked when I put it around her shoulders the first time, and how she kept it there, was enough for me.  Marian’s quilt might be full of flaws, but Marian is a treasure.

Smiles like that are the best part of quilting!  This might be the best collaboration I’ve ever participated in.  I hope she treasures it like I do.

If I had to choose just one quilt that captures my life’s work, my goals and hopes, it would probably be this quilt.  My Refuge quilt, made with my HOME quilt block , is a quilt about home and family .  And now it’s finished!

I used the largest Home block for this quilt, in a grid of 5×5 blocks, but within the blocks I made the houses themselves two different sizes.  These also alternate across the rows.  I chose bright colors and fabrics that read largely as solids to convey the many personalities, cultures, and stories of different families.

The background is a different story.  Life is hard.  The world we live in gets crazier all the time.  And people are facing storms.  Not just real storms, though there are plenty of those.  I was sewing about metaphorical storms, equally threatening and debilitating.  For these I chose more than a dozen different gray fabrics.  Blue-gray, green-gray, light gray, dark, and black.  I wanted to suggest storm clouds, wind, overcast skies, dark days.

Melissa quilted it for me, and I requested this pattern because the movement in it reminded me of strong winds.  And I named it my Refuge Quilt because I believe that families are the fundamental units, the basic building blocks of society.  It’s where we learn fundamental values about how to treat others.  And I believe that families are worth working hard for.  To preserve them, strengthen them, keep them together.  They are, or can and should be, the bright spot in the storm.  Home should be a refuge from the world.

We all know that the heart of every home and family should be love.  I used the traditional red as the center square for each house, as well as in the corners.  It represents love, tradition, and urgency.  Everything we can do to strengthen families and individuals matters.

This time of year is exciting, with a new school year signaling the start of a fresh chapter for many of us.  But it’s also a time of transition and stress, and can feel tumultuous or daunting.  I’ve had this quilt hanging to remind myself that we will get through all the changes, everyone will adjust.  And I can try to be the calm in the storm, working to make home a refuge for the people I love most.

God bless you in all your efforts to create a refuge, too.

Jennifer