The Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt

August started a new month for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. After I finally finished one of the flimsies from the July Challenge, I was ready to start quilting the August flimsie this past weekend when I was distracted by my bundle of Lotta Jansdotter fabric which I had chosen as the designer for this month. I could hear the Studio Squirrel chanting “Ya Gotta Lotta” so I did.

These are the original fabrics I pulled maybe last year when I had planned to make another Strips, Squares and Brick Quilt,  similar to my Mackinaw Island Row Quilt which is a pattern I designed to use up charm squares and yardage of the same fabric collection which I seem to have accumulated, intentional or unintentional. I had several charm packs of the Follie prints and yardage of other Lotta Jansdotter’s lines such as Glimma, Mormor, Lucky, Lilla Prata and Homemade. These are fabrics from the 2010’s and I haven’t purchased any of her recent collections. The gray fabric on the left is a Figo print which I purchased on sale to use for the backing. I decided after looking at this bundle and then looking what was still in my stash that I wanted to use different fabrics for the bricks and strips and didn’t want to use all of the colors which were in the charm packs. After eliminating the orange, brown, blue, purple, fuchsia, beige and lilac fabrics, my palette for the Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt is Black, Gray, Citronickle (yellow/green, not Lime), Golden Yellow and Teal. I find these colors to be a pleasing combination despite not having a focal print to tie these colors together in this quilt.

This pattern is what I called a stir fry; much time, almost the whole day was spent on die-cutting the strips, squares and bricks and then laying out the patches on the design board. Rather than sewing in rows, the quilt is constructed with 8”x16”(f) blocks which I found was easier to sew together rather than separate patches. The block on the top is (8) 4.5” squares in a two by four layout and the blocks on the bottom are the 4.5” x 8.5” bricks sewn with 6.5” x 8.5” strip sets. The bricks in this quilt are the Lucky Jerry Cat print, the inspiration for the name of this quilt, which paired so well with the Citronickle line print. Once the blocks were sewn, assembling the flimsy was quick just like a stir fry recipe. 

I should mention that I was first drawn to Lotta Jansdotter prints because of her use of Citronickle a name for the yellow/green which Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts and I came up with — a tomato/tomahto moment of our blog friendship. I also changed the strip sets to be the black/white and golden yellow prints from the Lucky and Lilla Prata lines which contrasted nicely with the bricks. Aren’t the teal prints a nice pop against the Citronickle prints? While I was laying the blocks onto my design wall I was saying to myself that this looked so Scandi/IKEA  that I realized another change to my plans needed to be made.

The backing for this quilt went from the gray Figo print to making this a patchwork throw by backing it with my favorite plush chenille to my Aha! moment that my long treasured and last yardage of the IKEA Nummer print which I’ve been saving for just the right quilt was to be used. You can see I quilted with a combination of straight and wavey lines. I think the Lotta Jansdotter and the Nummer print are a perfect and a great combination which was meant to be.

I used the black/white Lilla Prata print for the binding which at first I didn’t think would look right but now glad that I did. A light gray Aurifil thread was used for the machine quilting which went well with all of the colors. I thought I would include a closeup of the blocks and quilting. The Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt measures 56”x74”, approx.

One last photo of the Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt taken outside with the assistance of the Apprentice Quilt Holder. I can’t complain about his right hand showing because that’s his injured hand which is nicely healing and it’s good physical therapy for him to be holding up quilts, right? The Master Quilt Holder was resting after a long band practice so I didn’t want to bother him. We’ve been experiencing some rain this week so it was nice to take a photo outside.

Since I’ve been writing about squares and bricks in this post, I thought I should share the finally finished quilt of a flimsie from July’s UFO Challenge which is now ready to give to baby girl whose mother is sometimes a carer for the darling Granddaughter. This quilt is made from one of the first fabric collections by Lella Boutique and I had both charm packs and yardage of this collection. Once I saw the baby registry in March I knew this fabric would be perfect but sadly I could not find where I put the fabric and too stubborn to pick other fabrics from my stash. Once I started collecting projects for the 2022/23 UFO Challenge at the end of June, I finally found it. I didn’t have enough yardage of the floral print to do a complete border so the side borders were made with alternating bricks of the floral and pink print. I like the way this looked and will have to remember to do this again. The flimsy was finished during the last week of July and I could have finally finished it but was distracted with another quilt. I thought since the mother didn’t know I was giving her a quilt, the quilting could wait. But wouldn’t you know it, last week the  mother asked my son if she could pay me to make her a baby quilt so I knew I had to finish it and it will be a gift. I will be bringing the Baby B quilt when we leave for the GP house this weekend. 

Once we return, I will start quilting what I consider to be my #12 of the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge unless a squirrel brings me one of the other projects. This is what happens when I give myself choices.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT