The Fair Isle Block
I’ve been calling this the Fair Isle block in my mind, because it makes me think of Fair Isle knitting patterns: two-color patterns of squares in a repeating pattern (of […]
Author: Betsey
The Healing Power of Quilting
When life gets busy and stressful, quilting tends to fall by the wayside. But that’s when it’s needed most. Officially, this block took me 18 days to sew, but in […]
The Driving Distraction
I’m teaching my kid to drive right now, and the DMV requires teens to log 50 practice hours before getting their license. So, while I had planned to spend the […]
The Swedish Death Cleaning
It’s late in the evening on December 31st, and I still have four blocks after this one to make my yearly goal. I’m probably not going to make that, but […]
The Improvised Tools
I had originally planned to do a square block before tackling this one, but I was going to be on the road a week later and triangles are harder to […]
The Century Mark
Those of you have been keeping track may have noticed that I’ve finished 99 blocks, making this one the 100th block … and it only took me 3.5 years to […]
The Gateway to Insanity
The triangle blocks that are built in horizontal “layers” make it relatively easy to ensure that you’re on track for the correct finished block size. You construct the bottom layer of the […]
The J Game
After finishing the basket block on my first morning at retreat, I went full steam ahead on this block in the afternoon. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of […]
The Orientation Options
This basket block is unique in that it’s the only truly pictorial block in the quilt – none of the others have a clear right side up. In photos of […]
The Portmanteau
Today I learned that I’ve been using the word “portmanteau” wrong all these years. I knew it was a type of suitcase, and I thought the alternate meaning was “something that […]
The Wait
I actually finished this block in a single day, over three weeks ago. It was a day my Hand Quilting Group was meeting, and I needed something to work on, […]
The Intersections
Everyone said to appliqué the melon shapes on this block, but when I went to print out the pattern pieces, the Dear Jane software gave me templates to piece the […]