Archived Notes

Blythe and Darien are not actively blogging on this site.  But the archived notes and comments below are still a pleasure to read, and we hope they provide you with helpful information.

My love for quilters

In this five-year project to document mom's quilts (in full disclosure, I certainly haven't worked on this full time for five years!), I have reached out many times to mom's circle of quilting friends for clues and advice. These were people who took her classes, made...

About 30% Finished

My mom's 75th birthday would have been August 8 - it's been more than five years since she died and I am about 30% finished getting her quilts up on this site. It's been a project that gets done in bursts, and as time goes by I have realized that it's more important...

Using this Site

After showing this site to several people in the last few weeks, I realized that accessing the photos for each quilt is not particularly intuitive. If you click on "Quilts" and then click on the picture of the quilt you'd like to know more about, you'll link to a page...

Red Wagon Patterns

Mom made several quilts using Red Wagon patterns. While researching a couple of later appliquéd quilts I ran across "Trains," a pattern by Linda Brannock, which I'm sure was the source of Mom's quilt "Trains in the Rain." I just added that reference to the description...

More About Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo hit Charlotte North Carolina on September 22, 1989. It was my birthday and I had tickets to see Elton John, but the storm warnings came early enough that the concert was cancelled. By bedtime, the wind was really knocking things around outside and it...

Book Titles

Mom had lots of computer files for a book that began with "50Sens," but for some reason I thought that was a work in progress. They are actually the files for her last book, The Big Book of Patchwork, which is subtitled "50 Fabulous Quilts from Judy Hopkins." The...

Quilt Categories

I am not a quilter. The only categories I've set up so far on this site are: Traditional Blocks Applique Hand quilted Machine quilted Are there other categories you'd like to see? It's easy to look through the quilts now, with just a few on the site, but once there...

Be sure to sign and date your quilts!

This was the start of a very authoritative paragraph in Mom's first book, One of a Kind Quilts. It reads: Be sure to sign and date your quilts! If embroidery is too tedious, write your name and the year on the back of the quilt with a permanent pen (test to make sure...

Documenting Mom’s Quilts

My mother, Judy Hopkins, died in March 2011 just three months after being diagnosed with cancer for the second time. It was sudden, it was devastating for our family and friends, and it cut short the life of an incredibly creative woman who was an inspiration to me...