Today EBHQ had its first Zoom workshop since Shelter In Place. Latifah Saafir was the teacher. This is her paper pieced Molehills pattern. Since I never make want to make someone else’s pattern or make a quilt that looks like someone else designed it, I’m thinking of inserting these arcs into a square or rectangular block, and making a baby quilt.
I had so much fun with the string blocks on the Lone Robin that I decided to add larger ones to this quilt. My question is what 4″ block to put in the corners? I was thinking of a liberated star on a background similar in color to the sashing, but now I’m thinking maybe lime green??
Here’s my Lone Robin with the third prompt, stripes or strips. I used a foundation piecing technique that uses newspaper as the tear away foundation.
The first strip was 1.25.” The rest of the strips are either 1″ or 3/4″ I used a short stitch length of 1.5. 
Keep adding strips. The ends can be triangles rather than strips.
Trim from the back, using the paper as a guide.
Here’s the finished block.
Here’s my quilt for the online show 100 Years of Women’s Progress. Follow this link to see the whole show: https://www.centuryofwomensprogress.com/claire-sherman
Here’s what I wrote about this quilt:
I was a teenager in the 1970’s when I first heard about the Equal Rights Amendment, (the ERA.) I was shocked to learn that it hadn’t been ratified yet, and it wasn’t part of the constitution. How could the constitution leave out something so fundamental? “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The amendment needed to be ratified by 38 states before becoming part of the constitution. We were one state away from ratifying it, when the time limit ran out.
Twenty five years ago, my husband and I were thinking about names for our not yet born baby. The girl’s name we picked out happened to have the initials: ERA. Although we hadn’t done it deliberately, we very much liked that the initials of our child’s name would spell out ERA. (I didn’t change my name when I married, and my husband’s last name begins with an “A”). Frequently in emails, I would write “ERA,” instead of writing out my child’s full name. On my phone, “ERA” would flash when my first born called home. This year that child, now an adult, decided to legally change their first name to another name that starts with an “E,” that better reflects who they are now. I hesitantly asked, ‘what about your middle name?’ ‘No change’ was the answer! It turns out that ERA loves being ERA!
I wrote a haiku, but like many things in life, the words couldn’t be contained on just three lines.
100 years of
A woman’s right to vote. BUT
still no ERA?
The background fabric, full of words and newspaper images symbolizes all the talk, arguments, and debates about the ERA that have surfaced since it was first introduced in Congress in 1923.
The scope of work available to women has completely transformed over the last 100 years. In designing this quilt I chose the “churn dash” block, named for part of a butter churn, to represent women’s work of 100 years ago. However the fabric in these blocks represents the work that women do today. Fabric with mathematical equations represents scientists, mathematicians, and technology workers. Radio circuitry fabric represents women in the media; film fabric represents women in the film industry; recipe fabric represents women in the food industry; fabric with a spool of thread represents women in the garment industry; the sheet music fabric is for the music industry; plus a mariner’s compass to help women find their way in the world.
Here is my Lone Robin with the second element: flying geese blocks. I chose to put them only along the top. There are now 100 quilters signed up for the Lone Robin with EBHQ, and possibly an equal number at SFQG, though there, they don’t sign up, they just do it. There are also a few quilters in the Liberated Quilters FB group making Lone Robin quilts, including one from New Zealand, who posted her Lone Robin on the SFQG page.
Here is the postcard I made and sent to Fredda. I used some of the fancy stitches I rarely use on my machine.
Above is the lovely postcard that Fredda mailed to me! She put a lot of hand stitching in it.
Here is a lovely paper collaged, hand embroidered card that Ernestina gave me just because!
In the EBHQ Meet Up group next Thursday, we are going to have a postcard swap. People will be grouped into pairs and send each other postcards through the mail. Here are some postcards I’ve made over the years.
I finally found the ombre fabric I wanted for the triangles. I bought 1 and a half yards at Bay quilts of the wrong blue. (i had only seen the color in an email). Then I looked online at the Missouri star Quilt Co. They had several pages of ombre fabric! I bought 3 yard and a half pieces. They said it might take 15 days to get to me because of Covid, but it came much quicker.
This is the beginning of a new quilt, called a lone robin. It’s an idea from my friend, Julia McLeod, who is in charge of the block of the month for the San Francisco Quilters Guild. She couldn’t figure out a way to do block of the month during Covid, without people having to mail quilt blocks back and forth. So, everyone is going to work on their own quilt, with a monthly prompt, from Julia. May’s prompt was curves or circles. So, above is my first block, which hasn’t been sewn together yet. The next rounds can be added as borders, like a traditional round robin, but could also be more improvisational, and just be added to one side, or more than one side.
Now that I’m looking at it on the screen, I’m not so sure about the layout. Maybe it’s better like this, below? I have 4 small rectangular blocks and 4 larger ones to experiment with. They are samples from the last time I taught circular rectangles at Hello Stitch.
Here’s what Julia says about the process, so that I can refer back to it.
Let me introduce you to a new quilting game I like to call the Lone Robin! It’s part progressive quilt, part mystery quilt, and will be a whole lot of fun when we compare quilts at the end of it! We’ll do this for six months: Each month we’ll complete a stage of our quilt, following that month’s instructions. For those of you with traditional tastes, this will likely mean you make a medallion quilt, building the quilt by adding a new round each month. For the rule-bending modern/art quilters you can choose to add any kind of compositional element—one strip, one chunk—that follows that month’s brief. We’ll all be following the same basic recipe because we’ll all add the same components in the same sequence, but there are no rules about color choices, dimensions, or placement. You can choose how much detail you want to put into this quilt. A plain border with one single motif-of-the-month still qualifies! Instructions will be released May through October via our newsletter, E-Blast, and Facebook page. November will be a “catch up” month and December will be the big reveal! Here’s our starting point for the month of May: Your first element must be something that involves curves or a circle. Go for a paper-pieced block, cut your curves free-hand, appliqué something circular, or even feature a face! This first block can be any size or shape. It’s up to you. Have fun, Lone Robins!
Here’s the simplest option, above.
Here’s another simple option.
Now it’s getting complicated. Here are 4 different options. All are ombre fabrics. I only have a yard of each of these fabrics, so there’s probably only enough fabric for 2 triangles from each fabric. This isn’t a good photo of the colors, but at the moment, I’m leaning towards blue.
