Sorry, (Not Sorry), This Is NOT a Nine Patch Variation

If you've signed up to receive the email newsletter from the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, you were treated to a photo of this glorious Civil War era antique quilt by an unknown maker yesterday:

93.5 x 85.5 Quilt From IQM Collection, circa 1860-1880

Look at the masterful color and value placement and deployment of design principles in this quilt that was created by someone who definitely did not have a "design wall" and probably didn't have any formal art training, either.  I love how those two opposite L-shaped brackets of darker blocks and the dark brown blocks surrounding the blue ones in the center create framing and structure similar to a medallion quilt for a one-block quilt that could have been dizzyingly busy with a random block placement.  I love how the strips of pink blocks do the same thing, but with more subtlety.  I love the glimmer of the teal center patches and the one block with the bright blue.  I was immediately captivated by this quilt, but scratched my head by its designation by the museum as a "Nine Patch Variation" and the newsletter description stating that this quilt contained "small diamonds" in addition to squares, rectangles and triangle patches.  

New Year's Day 2026: Studio Setup Continues with Design Wall, Ruler Peg Wall + Quilting Thread Racks

Hello and Happy New Year 2026.  I hope you all enjoyed wonderful holidays with your loved ones that were some combination of happy/healthy/peaceful/blessed/magical/exciting/restful and all the other good adjectives.  For those of us whose holidays were tarnished by things like grief/sadness/illness/disappointment/loneliness, I am sending out a big virtual group hug and a high five to you right now, because we made it through and we survived and now we are looking at a blank sheet of paper, a fresh bolt of fabric, and an empty design wall of possibilities for what we will choose to make of this brand new year.  Carpe Annum 2026!

The extra work of the Christmas season -- shopping, wrapping, Christmas cards, returning and exchanging -- necessitated a pause in the work of unpacking from our recent move and setting up my sewing studio in the new house, but we've used some of the quiet days between Christmas and New Year's to make progress in the studio again.  No, none of these Stonefields blocks is newly created, but this is the first time I'm seeing them again since I packed them up in Florida in October.  I have been struggling with motivation in recent weeks, especially with regards to setting up my sewing space, and I am hoping that these little quilt blocks will cheer me up and summon my "sewjo" to return to me.

Stonefields Blocks Unpacked and Back On My Design Wall

Here's what I decided to do with my design wall:

96 x 96 Design Wall Installed on Obtuse Angle Adjacent Walls

The new studio space has lots of windows and closet space.  Wall space suitable for an 8' x 8' design wall was in shorter supply.  I considered putting the design wall behind my long arm machine, but realized that there wasn't enough room back there for me to be climbing up and down on a step stool to arrange blocks.  So I convinced my husband that the design wall should go in this corner of the room instead: