June Unexpectations

I like for my posts to have a theme to tie in my activities and I came up with “unexpectations” since I had a total of 8 Finally Finishes for June which was quite unexpected plus there were other things which I’ll mention during this post. Since traveling back and forth to the Grandparent House and becoming disorientated as to which house I’m waking up to, I’ve now really don’t know what day/date it is. Since returning home this past Sunday, I was always thinking one day ahead. I planned to post on the last day of June which happened to be yesterday not today which was unexpected. The definition of “unexpectation” is the absence of expectation/want of foresight which I think I’m using the word in the sense of quilts/project not on my radar being unexpectedly finished. As for wanting foresight, I’m pretty good at knowing what I have to do and also good at avoiding or doing what I shouldn’t be doing. 

Not all of my Finally Finishes were unexpected, two were expected which were my Follow Your Own Path Quilt and my Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge-June Quilt and posted about earlier this month. Two of the six other Finally Finishes, and unexpected, were already posted; Zingy Zinky and Road 15 which you can see in the Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge post. More Unexpectation followed just by merely coming upon these projects in the course of doing something else.

Scrappy Ernie was a flimsie made last year from some One Canoe Prints which Kathleen McMusing generously gave me some scrap after much “whining” from me. She won some fat quarters from a Bloggers Quilt Festival which we both participated.  Not that I was unhappy with the prize I received, but I was really hoping to win the One Canoe bundle and from time to time I would mention this to Kathleen over several years. Well, she finally sent me the scraps after she made what she wanted and most of the scraps received were 2.5” strips, perfect for an Ernie Quilt.  After I added some strip from Cotton+Steel, Zen Chic and Crazy Mom stash, I made a 40”x56” flimsie.

After coming upon it, I thought I would finally quilt it since I’ve met all of my commitments for June. I quilted it with straight and wavey lines with a Pale Apricot Essentail Thread which I just purchased and it blended nicely with both the top and backing which is a Thimbleberries print quietly sitting in the backing vault for several years. The mint/teal binding is a Crazy Mom print.

As much as I love this quilt, I really need to donate it to an organization of Kathleen’s choosing. Once I find out, I’ll wash it and send it to a new home which I hope will be loved.

Zingy Zebra is a baby quilt I started earlier in the year at the Grandparent House and was brought home to sit on my project cart. I decided to finally sew the strips together and quilt it because I happened upon it because it was with some yardage I needed for another flimsie. I decided this would be the easier of the two so it became a Finally Finished. Most of the prints were from a Emma+Milo bundle of five fat quarters. I needed six in order to make this quilt so I added the black and white alpha print.

I straight-line quilted it with a Smokey Gray Essential Thread. The backing is one of the prints used in the top and in keeping with the Zebra theme, a black and white stripe was used. This quilt measures 36” square and will be saved for a future baby shower present which the darling granddaughter will be needing for a gift for either a future cousin or for her Speech Therapist.

After our arrival home this past Sunday and having five days to spend in the studio, I sort of did some unexpected upheaval/reorganization in my quest to come up with my 2021/22 Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge. Before I came up with my project list, I decided to take a gander at some small wall hangings and Patchbox Quilts which were waiting to be quilted—most of them over 15 years which were laying on the top shelf in my backing vault. I found a flimsie made almost 20 years which I decided to Finally Finish, although I could have added this to the Challenge list but seeing that this would be good for the upcoming 4th of July holiday which should be no surprise that I totally forgot this was coming up next week. My Flag Parade wall hanging was made from Indygo Junction prints and the flimsie was made as a shop sample during my Quilt Shop Days which were in the ‘90s and early 2000s. I had wanted to embroider a word, either “ Love, Hope, Honor and Glory” on one of the four light fabric strips in the rail block but never got around to it so it laid unfinished. 

Since my new favorite way to finish a square quilt is to do quadrant quilting, I decided to do just that with Coats & Clark Golden Tan thread. Fortunately, the “I Pledge Allegiance” fabric for the backing and the blue star print was with the flimsie so no searching was thankfully not needed.

Here’s a closeup of the quilt so you can see the wonderful border print of the Flag Parade. I love vintage-like prints of children which I have a nice stash waiting to be used.  I didn’t have any notes of this quilt but I suspected it was an Indygo Junction print and this was confirmed when I saw it on the selvedge of the blue star print.

Well, after the Flag Parade Quilt was a Finally Finish this past Tuesday morning,  I thought of keeping my habit of duo finishes, so I decided to finish an Indygo Junction kit, Stitch ‘N Play Quilt waiting to be finished since maybe 2002.

The redwork blocks were finished and needed to be cut and sewn with the red sashing and bordered with the wonderful Playtime Fun print. I like to mention that this quilt was a Finally Finished by late evening—two Finally Finishes, especially UFOs for almost 20 years was both totally unexpected and feels real good.

I made a few minor changes, the binding is a black and white mini check instead of the red print which I thought it would give a nice vintage look and I sewed black buttons instead of tying with white thread. The backing involved a little bit of a search in my American Jane/Vintage Children stash and I found the red daisy print which I think is just perfect. (As previously mentioned in this post, I like vintage-like children prints which I keep together. While going through this bin, I also found my previously missing stash of Wizard of OZ fabric and much to my surprise there isn’t much left. The blue print, which was waiting to be reunited with the rest of the stash, was and maybe one day a mini or Patchbox quilt can be made. I’m going to mention the Wizard of OZ prints again later in this post.) I lightly quilted the Playtime Quilt with red thread on the sashing and around the blocks.  I didn’t want any quilting to distract from the very sweet border print,

After the two Indygo Junctions wall quilts were a Finally Finished, I focused on compiling my projects for the Challenge. I changed up my rules for participating this year: 1.) all projects needed to be in a block stage and not just quilts waiting to be quilted; and 2.) it has to be a project I like and want to finish and not be finished because of how long it’s been an UFO. This eliminated a 20 year old log cabin quilt made with just 9 different calico prints and I wasn’t loving it when I pulled it out. I am really looking forward to finishing these projects. #3 was the number drawn for July which is a quilt going to be made from Basic Grey PBJ scraps.

Without showing you pics, I finally unexpectedly reorganized my binding drawer and my backing vault. I decided the binding drawer needed to be reorganized, especially since I plan on quilting some of the Patchbox quilts and needed to know if the bindings were ever placed in the drawer. Most of them were found. Last October,  when my Wizard of  OZ quilt was a Finally Finish, I could not find my Wizard of OZ binding in the drawer nor the stash. I chose another pink mini check since I thought it would look better and assumed that what I chose originally was gold. After the binding drawer was reorganized, I found the missing binding fabric and it turned out to be the pink gingham print in the collection so that was the plan all along; I just forgot.

Thanks for reading this unexpected long post which took me awhile to write since it is now July 2nd. I started this post in the late afternoon and got sidetracked with a video game.  I mentioned before that I’m very good at doing what I shouldn’t be doing. Also, I like to mention that I have not yet decided how my posts are going to be emailed. I am thinking of compiling my own email list since I think I have a core group of less than twenty-five who read my posts and can do it this way, I think. I still will link up my posts on Linky parties and post on Instagram.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy 4th. Now I need to clean the very unexpected mess in the studio I made before we head out to the Grandparent House.