Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Follow Your Own Path/Celebrating a Famous Canadian’s Birthday QAL

June is a busy birthday month in my house being that we celebrate birthdays for myself, my oldest son affectionately known as Demando in Blogland, Granddoggie Daisy and for the past five years a Famous Canadian also affectionately known as Sandra’s Father. While the birthdays celebrated for my family involves cake, I celebrate the Famous Canadian’s birthday by participating in the annual QAL hosted by Sandra, mmm quilts.  Since this is a milestone anniversary of celebrating a Famous Canadian’s Birthday I thought I create a collage of the quilts I made in observance of this fun and important QAL. And talk about having ants in her pants waiting for June 15th, the first day of the Linky Party, so I can post about my Follow Your Own Path quilt which was a Finally Finished  for more than a week.


Here is my quilt for this year’s Follow Your Own Path QAL, a theme that, a QAL rebel like myself, could be inspired to go off course. Surprisingly, I behaved myself by sewing somewhat on schedule and did not deviate much from the pattern which I will mention later in this post.

I love participating in Sandra’s QALs; her patterns are fun, quick and easy and I always seem to have just the right fabrics in my stash. I have to confess, though, that this year’s Follow Your Own Path (FYOP) QAL was a challenge to find the right fabrics in my stash. Part of the fun in participating in a QAL is to make the pattern your own and I was having problems because I kept seeing Sandra’s version of the one she made for Modern By The Yard Ezine. I knew that I would have problems finding eight fabrics in four colors with two shades and with the right patterns/scales in my stash.
After several days and hours of pulling out fabrics and coming up with numerous combinations, these are the fabrics I finally decided upon and was resigned to using.  To tell you the truth, I was not in love with this choice, partly because the colors were similar to Sandra’s quilt and I could foresee how this quilt would look. Part of the fun of participating in a QAL is making the quilt your own.
While putting away the piles of fabrics I had pulled in my quest to find the perfect fabric combinations, I passed my bins containing new fabric purchases.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this fabric neatly folded, tucked under some other fabrics, but enough for me to see that this was the fabric I wanted for my background. I thought I could exert QAL Rebel privilege by using the same black fabric which was going to be my background for the shadow arrows. Combined with using Basic Grey Grunge fabric of which I have a nice colorful collection in my stash, this would work and this combination definitely made my heart sing. Unfortunately I only had a 3/4 yard remnant of this background and I needed more. I purchased this remnant online and the selvedge didn’t show the maker or the name of the fabric line. Thanks to some sleuthing of past online purchases, I was able to determine that it was from Dear Stella and after typing a search for Dear Stella Graffiti fabric I had a name for this fabric line: Pour Some Sugar On Me which I think was inspired by a 1987 song by Def Leppard which may explain why this fabric line had a rock music theme. I was able to purchase yardage of this fabric, on sale, from Hancocks of Paducah.
So, Grunge and Graffiti makes my FYOP quilt and is fitting of my usual QAL Rebel-ness and the theme. On a side note, as for using the same black fabric for the shadows, not being a rebel, because Sandra in her   
April 4th post confirmed that you can use black fabric for all of the shadows which was a “YES or fist pumping moment for me. The only thing that concerned me was that I had to wait several weeks for the fabric delivery which postponed my “follow the schedule” mantra for this QAL. I should mention that I had intended to make the smaller version of FYOP but chose to make the throw size so I could showcase more of the cool fabrics.
Once the fabric was received, cutting the fabric was smooth sailing, thanks to some of the patches were die cut and being able to cut the larger patch sizes with my Stripology ruler. (I should mention there are no affiliate links in this post.)
Like all of Sandra’s previous QAL patterns, these arrow blocks were a snap to make despite having to pay close attention to the arrow orientation. Really these arrows could have been made at one time but someone was following her mantra. Leave it to Sandra, the Shadow Master, so named by Kathleen McMusing, to figure out a shadow can be created with just three patches of fabric. I see from posts on Instagram and on Blogland, there were a lot of participants who finished their quilts early, probably, I think, because the pattern was just that fun and quick to sew.
Once the flimsie was sewn, I decided to add a 2/-1/2” border with the background fabric so some of the shadow arrows would not be next to the binding which was going to be the same fabric as the shadow arrow. This is my only deviation from the pattern.
This black and white paint splatter print by Springs Creative was perfect for the backing and a nice alternative for wanting to preserve the remaining yardage of the background fabric. I found this fabric at Walmart and purchased a whole bolt of it since this print would work so well with some of the modern quilts waiting to be quilted. I found this bolt on the very top shelf which involved some climbing on my part since hubby was shopping elsewhere in the store. If you’ve seen the YouTube video of a huge Monitor Lizard inside a store climbing up a shelf, that’s what I looked like, but not as graceful.
One of the reason why the background fabric is important for me when I do a mmmquilt pattern is that I need it to hide or camouflage my lackluster quilting.  I had wanted to do quadrant quilting but I couldn’t line up the arrow points with the quilting lines so I did horizontal straight line quilting, 3/4” apart.  Inspired by the Follow Your Own Path theme, my quilting lines were not always straight, sometimes I couldn’t see the guide lines, especially on the background fabric and were in some places, downright wonky. I used an Essential Thread in gray for the machine quilting. FYOP measures 58”x64”.
Kathleen McMusing already posted her FYOP quilt last month and threw the gauntlet down as to finding a cool place to photograph your quilt. Knowing of some of the other participants in this QAL, like Diann who lives near a sculpture park and Wendysota (Wendy from Minnesota) who wouldn’t surprise me if she captured a Bear to hold up her quilt, I created a collage of where my FYOP quilt would look great thanks to some photo dropping via PicMonkey.
This one is my favorite taken when we were visiting South Carolina several years ago.
After hanging around all of these photos, my FYOP quilt deserves a rest on the porch steps at the Grandparent house. I’m not sure of this quilt’s final resting stop but I did offer it to Demando to hang in his bedroom since it would go well with the other graphic art he has hanging around but he declined. Surprisingly, he does not like the background. Demando did mentioned, though, that he would like a new quilt for his bed, the nerve.
Again, for the fifth year in a row, I would like to thank Sandra for designing this wonderful pattern and hosting, as usual, a fun QAL, “ton père strait fier”. Be sure to check out the Linky Party to see the other FYOP quilts and don’t be surprised if you see a Bear holding up Wendy’s quilt. As for suggesting future QALs like I’ve done in previous posts, I thought I mention that I would not have a problem with using my graffiti background fabric again. Also, still hoping for Bella to be one of the prizes.

Linking up with MMMquilts Celebrating a Famous Canadian’s Birthday Linky Party

11 comments :

  1. You've set the bar high for where to take photos of our FYOP quilts, Rose! I may have to take a trip somewhere! I loved the story of yours and the results of your sewing, too. Beautiful finish!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your stories are always the best Rose. I wish I could have watched you climbing the shelves at WalMart. Hahaha. Your quilt is great and I love the background fabric! Also really glad you shared pics of all of your MMMQuilts QAL projects. It was fun to see them all in one place. Her designs are so fun!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, here I was, so proud that I got my quilt finished and photographed, and now I find out I shoulda found a bear?! Hahahaha! No bears seen here lately. Wilbs was a bit put out that I photographed FYOP out on the deck without him, so there's that. Anyhoo, your quilt looks fantabulous! You'll find a good place for it, even if it's not on Demando's wall. Great finish, Rose!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bernie is so right about your stories being the best. I grinned and LOL-ed all the way through, and even squealed a bit seeing the collage of all five of your quilts, and well, the Evacuation Route 'quilt in the wild' shot is just at another level. Thank you SO VERY MUCH for participating yet again, and for saying such nice things about my designs. This year, once again, I just love what you did to make it your own. That background fabric is so so good - your sleuthing powers (and climbing powers) at acquiring fabric amaze me. Thank you for the love of my dad; I know he's chuckling away that his little calendar note each year about this being 'the birthday of a famous Canadian' has gone a little bit viral ha!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Super great quilt Rose! Everything about it is so special! When mine becomes a real grownup quilt(finished), I’ll try to find a proper photo op! I don’t understand or have Pic Monkey?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well done you for being so "good", unlike me, who went way off course. I'd well finished my first when another popped onto the design board & I still have another brewing in my head. I love your background fabric & your hero shots are gorgeous. Too much bad weather here for trying to get good snaps so will have to post today with what I've got. Good to see the "5" & I've only done one other. Thanks for sharing such a great story too, take care & hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Rose! WOW! This is fun-filled post. I missed the whole gauntlet throw down - by Kathleen no less!! My photo was only taken in the boring hallway. Geez. I lose that big time! Thanks for the song worm. I'm still humming Pour Some Sugar On Me - great detective work, by the way. The picture of your Follow quilt with the Evacuation Route is just the BEST ever. Fabulous, Rose. Demando is living up to his name - of course he needs a new quilt for his bed. ~smile~ Roseanne P.S. I didn't see a bear with Wendysota's quilt but she does have Wilbs!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh Rose, Love your story and your quilt. I am glad you were able to get a whole bolt of that black fabric and that you didn't get hurt trying to reach it! You certainly did "Follow Your Own Path"! Good job.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yes, we can agree that you tell a great story Rose! This is a fun quilt. I think I need to go and look at all the other quilts made with this great pattern!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great job, Rose--story, crazy photos and finished quilt!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Rose, what a lovely quilt - you did make it your own way and it looks awesome. Congrats!

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments but due to traveling and my ineptitude with typing on either my iPhone or iPad, my response may be somewhat delayed. Thank You for your understanding.