Celebrating the 4th With My Fourth Finally Finished Quilt

Our trip to the Grandparent House was delayed so we ended up spending the 4th at our house which meant I could finish my Mackinac Island Rows quilt which was the first RWB (Red White and Blue) quilt I started this year but was set aside for the other three RWB quilts I just posted. After all, it was time to finally have a quilt made from the Minnick & Simpson Prairie Paisley Fat Quarter Bundle purchased in 2008. 

I started this quilt back in March when I came across two Charm Packs of Minnick  & Simpson's Mackinac Island which may have been part of a Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler Box. I thought that I would either make a Jelly Charm Chase or Staggered Strips and Squares Quilt but thought the layout needed to be more controlled since I didn't have a large variety of strips from my Prairie Paisley Fat Quarter Bundle.  I added to this mix, two fat quarters of large floral prints and a homespun plaid once a pattern was decided.

I decided to make another variation of a Strips, Squares and Brick Quilt and drew a layout on my trusted graph paper.  You wouldn't think by looking at this quilt, a lot of planning on the color sequences of the rail blocks, squares and bricks went into this quilt.  I was lucky that I only had a certain number of rail blocks in certain combinations and there were enough of each to have a balanced layout.

Over the course of several months, the rail blocks rows and the brick strip were sewn.  They were assembled into five panels; three of which consisting of one brick strip of seven 4.5" x 8.5" rectangles  framed by a rail block row of seven 6.5”x8.5" rail blocks and two panels consisting of three rows of fourteen 4.5" squares each from the charm squares which were trimmed. This quilt measures 56" x 72".

You can see by this photo the two different layouts of the rail blocks, one with light blue,  red and light strips and the other with red, light, and dark blue strips and they were laid in a certain way to contrast with the brick strips and the charm square panels.  This is a nice and easy pattern and I have plans to make this again with other fabric collections from the past which I somehow bought a charm pack and yardage.  I also decided if I ever buy charm packs, I should buy at least two.

The machine quilting went well with the combination of straight and wavey lines in red thread.  Backing was the ticking stripe from the Prairie Paisley line.  I considered doing a wide 1" binding in the red stripe but decided the usual size would accent the blocks better.

Two little tidbits about the Minnick & Simpson and the Prairie Paisley bundles as I was preparing to write this post.  When I was figuring out how the Prairie Paisley fabric was purchased, I remembered how much I loved the fabric so I purchased both a fat quarter bundle and yardage. I knew the bundle was no longer intact when I started the Mackinac Island Rows quilt since some fabric was used and was wondering what I could have made with it.  Well, duh, it was the Snowball Quilt (top) and I only posted about it just five days ago.  It was a chuckle and head shake moment.  As to why it took me so long to finally make a quilt, it could be sort of a grudge against Minnick & Simpson for the 12" block they designed for Fat Quarter Shop's Moda Designer BOM in 2007/2008.  This is the BOM, my Quilt Peep Carol and I refer to lovingly as the Block of the Month from Hell and the Minnick & Simpson block is the one we always mention when we talk about it.  Would you believe there were 91 patches of half triangles, squares and one plain rectangle sewn together for the background and another 10 for the appliqué for the darling pail and flag which I fused and raw edged sewn by hand-a total of 101 patches. Sometimes I wondered if the Moda Designers were trying to outdo each other to see how many patches could be in their block. I never finished the quilt, (there are three blocks left and I can't remember where I put them) partly because it was full/queen size, definitely made to hang on the wall and fortunately for me there wasn't a wall in my house to accommodate it.  I thought of making two smaller quilts, one with the appliquéd blocks and the other with the pieced blocks.  They really are sweet blocks and maybe one day I will post them.

Here's another photo of the quilt.  At first, after the top was made, I thought I could wait until later to quilt it but the next morning I looked at the photo of the top and decided I needed to quilt  it now since I thought it would be nice to have it finally finished by the 4th. Plus, I once again have an SOS ("Seasonally On Spot") quilt-coined by Nancy of Grace and Peace Quilts. It just wouldn't be appealing to post this quilt in the Fall.  I will say my RWB mood has now left the studio.

Also, a confession, I reverted back the the Legacy Blogger for this post since I had a number of links I wanted to use and right now I have not figured out how to do this on the new Blogger Interface.  I can't wait for Sandra's, mmm quilts, in-depth tutorial.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable 4th of July.  It's now evening and the neighborhood is filled with fireworks.  I know one dog, Sophie, is not happy right now as well as some of the other neighborhood dogs.

In the Mood for Red, White and Blue

‘‘Tis the month for sewing red, white and blue quilts which means I have three Finally Finished, two of them longtime UFOs and one quilt a start and finish within nine days which would have been done sooner if not for a five day visit to the Grandparent House. I already have a nice collection red, white and blue (RBW) quilts and it’s been awhile since I’ve made one, with the exception of some small wallhangings, but these three just “happened” to get made. 

This is the first RBW quilt finally finished and if it weren’t for Mary Etherington, Country Threads posting the one she was currently working on, there was a strong possibility this would have remained a top. It’s been over five years since this was made and was a QAL which Mary hosted. I changed the dimensions of the blocks to 6” finished so I could die cut them and used fabrics from my Minnick & Simpson stash. Seeing Mary’s current quilt gave me the impetus to finally quilt it. It’s the first time I’ve ever sprayed basted and really liked it and thought it would be a game changer but as I later discovered it works best right now for small quilts. This quilt measures 28” square and already hanging on the hallway door.

This is the second RBW quilt which I finally finished as a result of the first quilt because I made the two at the same time and it just wouldn’t be right for it to remain an UFO. The pattern is Dandy designed by Pat Sloan and she also hosted a QAL. I thought this was a great pattern for the Zippity Doo Dah fabrics designed by Sandy Gervais which I had a layer cake and yardage. This has to be one if the few quilts I've made which only used four fabrics. After I made this top, I wasn’t sure how to quilt it so that’s why it was an UFO for so long.  I decided to quilt it with curvy horizontal lines and again I spray basted it and this time I don’t think I liked it as much with the numerous pinches and puckers. This quilt measures 34” x 46” and will be a seasonal table topper for the dining room table.  (I’ve been thinking a lot of Pat lately because right after I finished my Dandy quilt, I learned that while going for a walk, she tripped over uneven pavement and broke both of her wrists and had surgery today. I’m a big fan of Pat’s patterns and fabrics and wish her a speedy recovery and hope she heals well.)

While hunting for the binding for the Dandy quilt and coming upon the Zippity Doo Dah layer cake, I knew I wanted to use it for an Algorithm Quilt, a pattern designed by Gundrun Erla, GE design, which is a fun pattern to make and a nice change of pace from the strip and square quilts I’m fond of making. Would you believe, we're at the end of June and this is the first quilt the Master Quilt Holder has held up outside? 

The pattern did not include borders and measures approximately 49"x64". Normally I do not add borders but thought since I still had yardage of the floral print I would add borders so the quilt measures 57"x70 which is a nice size to cover more than a lap.

Since I added borders, I was tempted to quilt straight through the borders but decided that I would start the straight and curvy line quilting inside the top and bottom and spent the time burying the knots.  I was going to use a natural color thread and glad I decided at the last minute to use instead Red. For the borders, I also did a combination of straight and curvy lines also.

For both the Algorithm and Dandy quilt, I was able to back it with a 2001 print designed by Jill Kemp/Bear Paw Design.  It's a patriotic print with text saying "Remember Me' which I'm glad I did because it's definitely been waiting to be used.  Since I didn't like the red print I had left from the Zippity Do Dah stash, I decided to use a ticking stripe of red and natural which went well with the other prints.

If you read my last post about my Centred Quilt, which I mentioned that I was unhappy with the new Blogger interface and some may have interpreted that I wasn't going to post anymore since I wrote that this post would be the last post I would do in the old or Legacy Blogger interface which I dearly love. Well surprise, surprise, I'm writing this post in the new Blogger interface since I decided to put on my big Blogger pants and post with the flow.  My mentor Sue of PatchworknPlay and tormmmentor Sandra of mmm quilts have been helpful.  I discovered one of the problems I was having is that my MAC Pro Laptop is ten years old and cannot support the new Blogger interface so the toolbar was not appearing.  It worked on my iPad but there was no way I was going to type with one finger.  My hubby suggested that I try typing it on my PC and it works but I had problems with uploading photos directly from OneDrive.  Another problem is inserting links so I apologize for not including them in this post.  Hopefully, Sandra, who promised a little tutorial for the new Blogger interface can offer some insight.

Wishing everyone a Safe, Happy and Healthy Fourth!