Best of 2021

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I’m joining in Cheryl’s Best of 2021 Linky Party which is always a fun post to do. I depend on the kindness of Linky Parties since my posts are somewhat lost in Blogland and may be due to my RSS feed not being recognized-it’s still an ongoing mystery. With that being said, my best of 2021 doesn’t include my five best read posts but inspired by an idea from Nancy, Grace and Peace Quilting; I’ve come up with my own categories. You can read the posts by clicking on the link.

Best Quilt Holding by the Master Quilt Holder (Flutter), upper right corner. This quilt almost fell into two of my other categories, the post most read and my smallest quilt made this year.

Best Oopsie  Quilt (Kaleidoscope Krosswalk), middle photo on the right.

Best Biggest Quilt (Gypsy King Quilt), never say never, but I QAYG a king-size quilt, lower photo on the right.

Best Smallest Quilt (Small Quilts), Actually I’ve made several, discovering the peace/piece of making small quilts and slow stitching, middle photo on the bottom.

Best Quilt With The Most Read (Ernie Checkerboard Express), The Ernie Quilts of which I made several over the years and is one of my favorite patterns, I added another element and did a Tutorial, left photo on the bottom.

I thought I would mention that three out of the five quilts mentioned in this Best of 2021 post, has a My Quilt Infatuation connection and if your looking for easy quilts you could make with lots of different fabrics/scraps, do check out her patterns, not an affiliate link.

Thanks Cheryl for hosting another wonderful Linky Party and looking forward to more quilt making in 2022 so I can join in the fun next year.

Linking up with: Meadow Mist Best of 2021 Linky Party

Country Thread’s Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge: #1 Feedsack Star

My Feedsack Star quilt is my December finish and I am so thankful that it was a quick and easy finish being only 31” square. It only took around seven years to finally finish since parts of this quilt were started in 2014, which are the tiny feedsack circles in the corner nine-patches. 

I thought this would be a good post to finally explain how these 2” feedsack circles came to be and waiting for a project that I could finally include them in. Back in 2014 I finally finished my Feedsack Clamshell Quilt which you will see later in another Post in the future since some of the leftover blocks is another quilt which is part of the UFO Challenge.

The feedsack circles are made of four quarter circles which were cut from the bottom of the clamshell freezer paper pieces and  I could not bear to throw them away and figured I could find a way to make something with them. I decided to sew four of them together, then sew them on light interfacing which a circle drawn a little smaller than the sewn feedsack circle and then the interfacing was trimmed 1/4” around the circle. While deciding on what to make with these circles, I passed a few of them, liking them as feedsack coins,  to a few friends, some of them to Susan of Patchwork and Play who also immediately made something with them.

The feedsack circles sat around for several years before I appliquéd them to 4” black hatched print squares which was a project I took on a road trip. Then it laid around for several more years until August, 2020 when I had an idea to make a wall hanging since I finally decided that these circles were meant for small projects.

Almost five years ago I wrote a post about Feedsack Fabrics and Friends which I mentioned my love of feedsack fabrics and how I accumulated a stash through the kindness of friends. After this post, I became blog buddies with Wendy Caton Reed of The Constant Quilter whom we both share a love of feedsack fabrics and a past fondness for Tom Selleck. Wendy sent me a pack of 3.5” feedsack squares, many of which I’ve never seen before. I thought I would make nine patches with a combination of the feedsack circles and Wendy’s squares and just needed to trim the appliquéd circles a half-inch  in order for them to be the same size as the squares.

The center nine-patch were made with all squares. Once the nine-patches were sewn, I then needed to sew four QSTs with a red pin dot fabric, a black and red feedsack reproduction print and the black hatch print used for the appliquéd circles. All of the squares measure 9” finished and once the inner and outer borders were added made a 31” square wall hanging.

I did machine quilting in the ditch around the star and nine patches and then did diagonal big stitch hand quilting with black embroidery thread across the star and nine patches. Tiger tape helped to keep my stitches nice and even.

The backing is an Aunt Grace print and the binding was hand sewn which is what I like to do for wallhangings.

I wasn’t sure if I had a spot to hang this sweet quilt but then realized that it would fit on one of the wide black doors in the farmhouse kitchen at the Grandparent House. Doesn’t it look sweet with Susannah, my metal goat? I thought Mary Etherington, host of the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge would get a kick out of this photo since the goat is named after her late, great goat Susannah. I still have some feedsack circles and squares left so another small wall hanging may be in the plans. But first I need to check with Wendy Caton Reed to see if I ever sent her any feedsack circles, I can’t remember.

I thought my Feedsack Star Quilt was going to be my last quilt for 2021 but I was feeling a little quilt guilty about not making the darling granddaughter a quilt for Christmas. I decided after my last visit at the Grandparent House and spending days and hours watching Brown Bear videos with her that she needed a sofa snuggler which is what a Patchwork Blankie is. 

I ordered the fabric from Fat Quarter Shop (not an affiliate link) and had the teal plush fabric in my stash. I wasn’t sure of how these fabrics were going to be laid out but fortunately Nancy, Grace and Peace Quilting just posted a Vintage Santa Quilt which uses a large focal print and inspired me to come up with this pattern.

Since there is no batting in this quilt, I only did light machine quilting with silver polyester thread, straight and wavey. The Brown Bear Blankie measures 50” x 70” which is a nice size for two to snuggle under. This was a fast make, just under two days.

We’ll soon be heading to the Grandparent House for Christmas and will be spending the final days of 2021 at home which might give me enough time for one last quilt. We’ll see. 

Wishing everyone a Joyous and Merry Christmas, please stay healthy and safe.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Kaleidoscope Krosswalk

Well, my Kaleidoscope Krosswalk Quilt (KKQ) previously referred as the Tinkering Quilt is a Finally Finish and it seemed like it took forever involving some mishaps from start to finish. I started this quilt around the middle of October after deciding rather than participating in a QAL involving HSTs, I would  challenge myself with My Quilt Infatuation’s Tinkering pattern which involves making a seven patch block instead of just two patches. Sometimes I feel a little guilty making quick and easy quilts so every once in awhile I will make a project to give myself a challenge and that is just what my KKQ did. I should be good for guilt-free quilting for awhile now.

I already pulled approximately 75+ fat quarters and yardage from my stash of original and current Cotton+Steel and Ruby Star Society fabrics which I forgot to take the usual group photo but  I do have one of some of the selvages which are so worth saving. They were such a glorious group of fabrics, most of which were accumulated from my participation in Fat Quarter Shop’s fabric clubs. I have been wanting to make a quilt with these fabrics for a long time and looking at the wonderful prints I decided they would be better showcased with the Tinkering pattern I just purchased rather than four-inch HSTs. I should mention that this year I seemed to be having an “infatuation” with My Quilt Infatuation patterns as this is the fourth quilt I made (two Unruly quilts and Flutter).

I set up a nice assembly line to die-cut almost 300 patches using both of my Accuquilt die-cutters for the two sizes of HSTs and strip cutting with my Stripology ruler (not shown). BTW, I am not affiliated with any of the products I mentioned in this post.

Once the patches were cut, they were grouped in threes, making sure there was a good variety and contrast with the prints in shades of black, blues, gray, reds, oranges, golds, yellows, pinks, teals, browns, etc. I love this palette even though there is almost an absence of green and definitely no Citronickle which was because I didn’t have the right amount or enough prints to include my favorite color. 

Here is an example of one of the groups which there were more than twenty-five and not all of the groups made the same number of blocks since some of the fabrics I had more than a fat quarter.

After I made less than half of the blocks I needed or wanted, I re-injured my left knee which I fractured three years ago, almost to the date. After three days of standing on the concrete floor in my basement studio to press and die cut fabrics and then time sewing and more standing to press and trim blocks, at first four blocks at a time, then twenty blocks at a time, did my left knee swelled to the same size as when it was fractured and I could barely stand nor walk. Unfortunately, Hubby was already in bed at 1am in the morning so I barely managed to climb up the two flight of stairs by myself. Sleeping was pretty miserable that night but by morning I was icing my knee while elevating my leg, taking OTC and wearing a knee brace which I remembered doing from my fracture knee days. And yes, the walking cane was brought out for old times sake. After a week and a couple of Pajamazon Days, my knee felt a whole lot better as long as I wore a knee sleeve and I was able to go back downstairs to the studio to resume working on the remaining 140+ blocks and this time I stood on a padded floor mat and only worked on no more than eight blocks at a time which was what my knee could handle.

And here are all 232 of  the blocks, at first way more than needed since I only had plan to make a 60”x72” lap quilt but decided to make an 84” square quilt since I had enough plus I thought the quilt needed to be square even though this was a size I’m not comfortable quilting but then again it added to the challenge. Another challenge was how the many blocks in this diverse color palette were going to be laid out evenly and preventing globs as much as possible. I decided to separate the blocks into four color groups depending on the center patch: 1) Black and Blues, 2) Reds, Oranges, Gold/Yellow and Brown, 3) Fuchsias, Pinks and Corals, and 4) Grays and Teals.

When the patches were assembled into larger blocks, they were always laid out with the blue group in the upper left corner, the fuchsia group in the upper right corner, the red group in the bottom left and the gray group in the bottom left. Once the blocks were sewn together, the horizontal seam was pressed up. Also, two types of blocks were made, a bolder block (left side) with the deeper colors which had the reds and oranges and quieter blocks (right side) which had no reds or oranges which were alternated in the layout.

This system really helped in the quilt layout and spreading out the brighter colors/prints. The flimsie was finished right before Thanksgiving and the plan was to quilt it right after our return from the GP house and I would have ten days to quilt it before we left again.

But I procrastinated which shouldn’t be a surprise. Besides the machine quilting, I wasn’t really looking forward to the task of basting and ironing the wide backing of a wonderful text print found in the vault. I waited a week or three days before leaving for the GP House during which time I worked on Holiday decorating and playing and reorganizing some fabric stash did I finally decided to start the final leg of this Challenge. Of course, it had to coincide with the day I received my Booster shot and  just added to the challenge of doing this with a very sore left arm.

I originally planned to quilt with just straight grid lines, horizontally and vertically along the seam lines and diagonally along the strips. After the horizontal and vertical lines were quilted, I decided to quilt wavey diagonal lines instead for more variety and to add some softness to the lines. But really, it was easier since if I had quilted straight diagonal lines, I would then had to mark all of the lines with either a Hera marker or chalk since I couldn’t use my walking foot as a guide for the 1/2” line needed. BTW, when I first started quilting, my stitches were skipping and I thought the problem would be resolved after I changed needles, rethreaded and installed the new walking foot but stitches were still skipping and I then realized this was caused by the stitch length dial not being clicked in place but was caught between two settings. Once it was clicked in place, the stitching was nice and even.

And wouldn’t you know it, another mishap — after quilting almost the final diagonal line, I discovered a block boo-boo — one of  smaller blocks were sewn the wrong way and there was no way I could take the quilt apart to correct it, so what I did was quilt it the way it would have if the block was laid right. It’s a good thing that this block is on the edge and not in the center where it would have been way, way too noticeable. I didn’t do a good of a job checking to make sure all of the blocks were sewn right after I thought I caught the one lone block with a boo-boo since apparently there were two. Thank goodness for the busyness of all the colors and prints.

And the mishaps continued with this Binding Blunder in which I had just enough of the black Netorious print. After telling myself I had to be careful when cutting, I realized after cutting four strips, the print was laying lengthwise and not selvage to selvage. Not wanting to use another fabric because the black Netorious print was perfect and no longer available to buy more and I really want to finally finish it before leaving for the GP house, I decided to finish cutting the strips the right way and alternate the strips by sewing them together with straight lines rather on the diagonal like I usually do. There were around twelve strips to sew together and if they weren’t sewn together with a straight line, I would not have had enough. Thankfully, this isn’t too noticeable and if you’re inclined to follow the binding along a quilt, this will definitely make your eyes crossed.

And finally, to add one more final challenge to the KKQ I decided to sew the binding down by hand which is something I have not done for awhile and only added to the “forever” in the finishing. One nice thing about this is the many TV shows you can watch while hand sewing for almost eight hours and thankful my hands were free from cramps.

After experiencing some days of wind and rain, today was the perfect day to take a photo of the Kaleidoscope Krosswalk Quilt hanging outside of the screen room and I must say it is one lovely finally finish. I was planning on having the Master and Apprentice Quilt Holders hold up the quilt but decided it would be best photographed with less noise coming from the Demando, the Apprentice Quilt Holder.

I thought I include some close-up photos of some of the blocks since I just love the fabric combos and one more of the backing. I came up with the Kaleidoscope Krosswalk name almost when the final stitch was sewn and I may have been influenced by the many colors and shapes created by the fabrics and by watching too many YouTube videos of James Corden Crosswalk Musical with BTS my fav group at the moment.  I will mention that the thought of naming it Stinkering came to mind with all of the mishaps I had but thought this quilt deserved a nicer name. Boo-Boo would have been cute though.

I didn’t think my KKQ would take as long as I did but the hours it took allow me to listen to several books and podcasts about subjects I normally wouldn’t have listen to like the making of the movies “All About Eve” and “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. Unfortunately, some of the things I listened to I may associate it knee pain which I don’t think I’ll do when looking at my quilt which I am looking forward to it hanging from the second floor bannister with the wrong block not showing, of course. Would I make another Tinkering Quilt? Oh yeah, plans are underway since I found the leftover patches from my Spunky Americana quilt which just happens to be the right size and hopefully will be less stressful on my knee. The plan is to just make it a 48” square quilt. I do have one more Finally Finish for 2021 which I will start working on right after this post, it’s my #6 of the Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge and thankfully it’s only a wall size quilt. I hope the mishaps have left the studio.

Lastly, I had to include a photo of the Master Quilt Holder who even though he had MOHs surgery on his ear this morning, still was able to hang the quilt outside for me. He would like for me to say that the bandage was due to my chewing off his ear while giving him instructions on how to hang the quilt but we know this couldn’t be true. But, if the bandage was on Demando’s ear, then that would be a different story.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

A Finally Finish and a Big Flimsy Finish for November

 

It’s been almost six weeks since my last Post which also means it’s been that long since I’ve finished a quilt. It’s not that I haven’t been quilting when we weren’t traveling to the Grandparent House but was rather involved with a new quilt project which is the Big Flimsy Finish and will be seen later in the post. While working on this quilt, I somehow re-injured my left knee which I fractured three years ago and resulted being laid up for around a week and interrupted my sewjo. Once I was able to move around a bit, I needed to work on my #11 of  Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge which is a quilt inspired by GE Design’s Locus Pattern.  Over five years ago, I had cut over fifty 8” squares from my Kansas Trouble stash for a pattern I decided I didn’t want to make so I’ve been looking for another pattern to make with these squares.

Last year while looking through Gudrun Erla’s Stripology Squared Quilt Book for 10” squares, I saw her Locus pattern and thought if I changed up the size of the cuts, I would be able to use the 8” squares. To make a lapsize quilt, I needed to cut an additional 50 squares and while I was at it and had the stash, I decided to cut an additional 100 squares. I started this quilt last year and wanted to finish it sooner than later so I added this quilt to my UFO Challenge and was happy that this was pulled for November since I thought this was a perfect Fall quilt. I’ve named this quilt Hocus as in Pocus since it’s almost a Locus quilt and there was something magical about making this rail-style quilt which starts out as squares. 

This block pattern reminds me of the Ernie Express Quilt except it’s made in a way I would never have imagined and that is what is neat about Gudrun Erla’s designs. It’s a great pattern for both traditional and modern fabrics and already have one planned for the Thimbleberries stash but will use strips instead of squares and will also use the same measurements as the Hocus quilt. It’s a flexible pattern if you want larger or smaller strips.

Even though I only had a few blocks made, this was a quick make since the squares were already sewn and just need to be cut.

Quilting was a combination of straight wavey lines with a Cornsilk thread from Connecting Threads which went well with both the top and the backing. The binding was the bright blue Splatter print from one of the Kansas Trouble fabric lines. My Hocus Quilt measures 58” x 78”. I love that I finally have another quilt made with the Kansas Trouble fabrics and thinking since I have a lot of it remaining in my stash and the extra squares I already cut that I would make a king size version of this quilt.

After the Hocus Quilt was a Finally Finish this past weekend, I was able to resume working on my Tinkering Quilt which is the latest My Quilt Infatuation pattern (not an affiliate link) and my Big Flimsy Finish. This quilt measures 84” square and is made with just Cotton+Steel and Ruby Star Society fabrics. Once this is a Finally Finish which I hope it will be once we return from spending Thanksgiving at the Grandparent House I will write more about this quilt and what could have caused my knee mishap.  Any ideas?

I hope you are blessed with a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation/NTT, OhScrap, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

The Gypsy King Quilt

The Gypsy King is my #4 of the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge for October and is a Finally Finish. Big sign of relief here because I seriously thought this would be the first time since participating in this yearly challenge that I would not finish on time.  Even before I started this quilt, I was in QAL Escape Artist mode by asking myself do I really need to make this quilt and do I still like these fabrics and I had to say Yes. This was reluctantly decided after much procrastination by viewing too many BTS and Fiona the Hippo photo/videos. I thought when I decided to participate in another year of the UFO Challenge, I would step it up by committing to finishing projects which were in the block stage rather than just needing to be quilted like I mostly did last year. This wasn’t a bad idea except the UFO was a king size quilt with more than half of the blocks still needed to be made. It’s challenge enough to make a king size quilt let alone making it a double challenge by finishing it during a certain time frame. I wanted to QAYG, even though it was only going to be my third time using this technique, because it’s the only way I could quilt a king size quilt. Normally this would be something I would send to my long arm quilter but because of the pattern and scrappiness, I thought the quilting would be somewhat lost plus I rather save my money for a quilt more deserving of fine longarm machine quilting.

I mentioned in my Flying Geese Frenzy Quilt post which was my July finish for the UFO Challenge that the fabrics used in that quilt would be seen again for this project. The blocks are a modified version of the Unruly Pattern by My Quilt Infatuation (not an affiliate link) and were made while at the Grandparent House. The fabrics used were mostly Basic Grey’s PB&J line and Felicity Miller’s Charleston line, both of which came out around 2012/2013. I’ve used these fabrics in other quilts and mainly one which I will show later in this post. I needed thirty blocks to made a 90” x 108” quilt which I thought at first would make a King, but then I was briefly disappointed when I thought I made a mistake in  the measurement  and that this would only made a Queen. It was only after I was halfway through the quilting that I realized that I was confusing the measurement with that of a Queen size batting and yes I was making a King size quilt which is really what I wanted. I needed to sew 17 more blocks and thankfully the patches were already cut and ready to be sewn into bocks.

Here are the thirty blocks arranged on my design board. Initially the plan was to QAYG each block but then I realized that I could instead QAYG vertical rows of 5 blocks each which would be a lot simpler. The blocks were laid out with the seams of the blocks in each row either pressed going up or down so once the rows were sewn together, the seams would nest.  Otherwise not too much attention was paid where each block went and if it was too close to the same fabric which usually matters to me but since there is so much scrappening going on I didn’t care.

I thought I show a before and after shot of the batting pulled from the scrap stash and it doesn’t look like it made a big dent but nevertheless I was happy I was able to culled some large enough pieces to use for this quilt. I need six pieces measuring at least 22” x 96” and had four but was able to piece the other two using a pieced batting method found on A Quilter’s Table Tutorial. It really was very simple and know I plan on piecing more batting for future projects. I originally pulled the batting thinking I was going to QAYG blocks rather than rows so this also saved batting. I think the scrap pile on the right would have been a lot bigger. Before this gets tossed out, I first will cut up the useable pieces to make squares to use for dusting which comes in very handy around the house.

I sewed and QAYG one row/panel at a time. Once the row was sewn together, then all of the loose threads were removed and then pressed before placing it on the batting. Because the rows were only around 25” wide, I pin basted using the long arm straight pins. When you do this, you definitely need to be  sure your arms and legs are covered, armor around the torso would have been nice.  Each row/panel was straight-line quilted 1” apart with #2610 Blue Gray Aurifil thread. Since these were going to be sewn together, the quilting started and ended l” away from each side since this would also be the area where additional anchoring quilting would be done once the backing is added.

Once the batting was trimmed, two rows/panels were sewn together, one pair at a time and the 1/4” seams were pressed opened.

Here is a photo of four rows/panels sewn together. I had to say despite having to sew the rows together with the batting, the seams nested together very nicely. And even when they didn’t, it isn’t very noticeable.

After machine quilting four rows/panels rather cautiously and suffering some pricks, I remembered that I had made some pin point protectors and boy did that make a difference in how fast the last two rows/panels were quilted. I was rather annoyed about forgetting that I had these, so to avoid this happening again the future, I packed the long arm straight pins with the pin protectors. I just hope I remember that I did this when I’m looking for the pins.

Once the six rows/panels were sewn together which I might say it was a little cumbersome, I discovered a new absolute “hate”; pressing a 108” x 124” wide backing. For me, this is one of  the good reasons why king size quilts should be sent to a longarmer. I have to mention that the dusty blue Moda Marble wide backing has been sitting in the backing vault for awhile and that it was the right color. You don’t want to use a light backing when you QAYG, because the seams of the top and batting will show through the backing.

Also, a little cumbersome and time consuming was placing the top/batting on top of the backing. I still pin basted 4” apart.

Once the quilt was layered, I originally only planned to anchor quilt around the seam lines of the rows, but then decided to also quilt it approximately a 1/2” away from the sixth line of quilting just for added anchoring.

I thought the final machine quilting went well until I saw this which happened at one of the corners as a result of bad basting but was an easy fix. I am hopeful the QAYG technique will be stable enough for the Gypsy King quilt which will be used for our bed and will be subject to numerous washings. If not,  then I know five or six people/dogs who might want a yoga mat.

I was going to machine bind the quilt with a yellow print in the quilt which I had yardage of but I remembered I had this Basic Grey text print on grunge which I think is from their Merkai line. I thought it would be perfect although I can’t read some of the verbiage; I just love using text prints for binding especially when you can read all of it.

I mentioned earlier in this post where the fabric for the Gypsy King quilt came from and would show the quilt where it was used mainly for; my often mentioned but seldom shown, but still gives me the willies, Gypsy Wife Quilt which I put to great use my QAL Escape Artist skill by finishing it sampler style and not with the strips. If you’ve made a Gypsy Wife Quilt and have since recovered, you know what I am talking about.  A funny tidbit here, the yellow binding I was going to use for Gypsy King, I used it for Gypsy Wife which I didn’t realize until I pulled it out from her sitting spot.

And now you know why I named this quilt Gypsy King as a reference to the Gypsy Wife quilt and as to the size of it. Truth be told, I didn’t come up with this name until I put together these four quilts for this pic to show my new bedroom ensemble which almost was eight years in the making. I now have a quilt to hang on the wall which can only be Gypsy Wife, Gypsy King for the bed, Flying Geese Frenzy for the rocker and Fat Eighth Frenzy for the bench. I would love to put this in my bedroom now but sadly the Winter quilts were just hung or laid on the bed this week. I will have to wait until either next Spring or Fall for my new ensemble can make an appearance. Meanwhile the Gypsy Wife Quilt will be hanging around my studio to remove any bad woo-woo between us so I will be comfortable sleeping with it hanging above my head.

I thought I include some more pics of Gypsy King just to show how well I think it turned out and the size of it although it looks rather small hanging from outside the screen room. Also to show how wonderful the Master Quilt Holder/Hanger is for climbing up the ladder after recovering from whatever he had, wasn’t Covid, Strep Throat or telling me too often how much he loves helping me, etc. Because he was laying low this week and didn’t go to the Grandparent House, I was able to finish Gypsy King. Finally, I now know my limitations and don’t plan on ever quilting a King quilt ever again…but I do have plans for making another one.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT