An Oh My July: FALLoween II, Flimsy Frenzy, Etc.

With a busy July which included three trips to the GP House, attending two of Hubby’s band gigs, a day with my Peeps whom I haven’t seen for  many months and other activities which I don’t usually do like baking cookies from scratch, I had a pretty productive month with one Finally Finished, Five Flimsies, one Test Block and working on two twenty year old UFOs. And did I mention making Spider Balls which I wrote about in this Post. I thought that this Post would only include a brief mention of my FALLoween II quilt which was my Finally Finished for this month. It was included in my July projects for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge and am always glad when I can cross a project off this list. After I sent this pic to Mary Etherington/Country Threads  and she asked about which pattern I used, I realized that I should include some details about this quilt.

Last year, I was having a sewing fling with my lovely stash of Sandy Gervais Fall fabrics which mostly are from her MODA days and are 10-20 years old. I made two flimsies: FALLoween I and Fallowween II. FALLoween I (pictured above) was one of my first finally finished for 2023 and you can read the details Here. Right around the time FALLoween I and II were made, I was experiencing problems with my Juki 2010Q so machine quilting was delayed until the arrival of Jinny Janome. FALLoween I was quilted first. Since I wanted Falloween II to be finished sooner than later, I added it to my Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge for 2023/24 and as luck would have it, it was drawn to be finished this July in time for Fall.

I did mention beforehand that I have a lovely stash of Sandy Gervais Fall fabrics and after the FALLoween I flimsy was made, there was enough to make FALLoween II which is a another version of the strips and bricks pattern I like to make. The rail blocks are what I like to call the Ernie strips which are 2.5” and were cut either 8”(f) or 16”(f). The brick blocks were made with focal prints cut 4.5”x8.5” and framed with 2.5” strips. A sample of these blocks are in the upper right corner of the above pic. For such a simple pattern, I did have to spend some time on determining the layout of the blocks and the colors, plus making sure I had enough fabric to make it work. This quilt measures 56”x 72”.

I remembered after the flimsy was finished and feeling a little disappointed with the way it looked, I’m happy to say after machine quilting it with an CT Essential Thread in variegated greens with straight and wavey lines, I am liking FALLoween II now. I used yardage of a Robyn Pandolph green stripe fabric found in the backing vault but did looked in the Fall stash to see if I could make a pieced back.

While looking in the Fall stash, I came across some 2.5” strips and yardage and remembered that a FALLoween III quilt was planned. I decided that I didn’t need another quilt but could make table runners instead.

While at the GP House this past weekend, I made two runners, which are two of the five flimsies made this month, the left one measuring 32” x 66” which will be for our primary house and the one on the right measures 20” x 36” and will be for the GP house. I had leftover fabric to make some placemats but decided to wait. I am glad once the table runners are machine quilted that it will be nice have them ready for Fall decoration.

Here are pics of the other three flimsies made during July. The top quilts, Wensleydale and Mazed were mentioned in my last Post and I will write more about them once they are a finally finished. The bottom quilt is Razzle Dazzle which is a Fat Quarter Shop pattern which came with a bundle of Ruby Star fabrics. I had die-cut the pieces in May and thought by sewing the flimsy in July I was working on a DREAMi project and feeling a little guilty but realized that this was one of my July projects I listed for the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. This quilt plus Wensleydale can be crossed off my July list as flimsies count as a Finish.

Here is the test block I did for Sandra Healy Designs which I used Alison Glass fabrics. While I was sewing this block, I realized that I could used to make a pillow to go with the darling granddaughters new bedroom ensemble. I’ll be sure to post a photo once the pillow is made.

While I was searching for possible projects for the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge, I came across two twenty year old UFO projects. The top pic are the 4” block exchange from a quilt guild I used to be a member and the bottom pic is a Sandy Gervais flag quilt. Once these projects are finished, it will be a post for another day.

I’m a day late with my July post because I lost track of the days thinking I had a few days left. So, I’m posting after Midnight which makes it August 1st and this means another new number will be drawn for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I think I’ll take it easy and only work on one project because there’s some house projects, like finally organizing some closets I really need to do.