Jolly July

It's usually a good month of quilting when I have two Finally Finishes but I surprised myself with three. Late last night I finished hand sewing the binding of one of these--can you guess which one? I think it might be my favorite finish. Looking at my past July Posts, it seems that it’s a very productive month for me despite it being very hot and inhumid and doesn’t prevent me from using my Plush stash again. I’m numbering these quilts in the order that the flimsies were finished which means the top two made with Marcia Derse fabrics are #1 and #3 and the one in the middle on the bottom is #2. All of these were made from scraps and stash, all new projects, no UFOs and inspired by the Squirrels and Eunice who live in my Studio. There are similarities between them either by size, fabrics or pattern. Hopefully, I can be brief in providing details of my Jolly July.

The only plans I made for July was that I couldn’t use any Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, so I decided to spend some time with my Marcia Derse stash. These two, #1 and #3 are Patchwork Throws since they are backed with Plush and both finished by the third week in July.

Since I had a lot of strips and HSTs in my Marcia Derse scrap box and enjoyed making my KF String Quilt finished last month, I decided to make another one using the same QAYG technique.

This time, I QAYG HSTs on 15” squares of batting with one side sewn with mostly black and white fabrics with a color HST and the other side with color fabrics and a black/white HST. Once sewn, they were trimmed to 14.5”. I made twenty-four HST and they were set to create either a black/white or color diamond and they were much easier than the HRTs I made with the KF fabrics. Normally when I back with a plush fabric, there isn’t any batting in between but since these are QAYG blocks, I used a very thin plush with lines to make it less heavy but this definitely has a weighted blanket feel. I machine quilted with straight lines along the block seam lines with a steel gray polyester thread. For the binding I had hoped to use a Vanessa Christensen Ombré Stripe in Citronickle but sadly did not have enough. Fortunately I found another Citronickle print in my Marcia Derse stash which accented the quilt quite nicely. This quilt #1 measures 56” x 84” approximately. This will be my throw for me in the Family Room as I found when I was spending a lot of time there while my Hubby was recovering from his two back surgeries that there was only one Patchwork Throw and it belong to him and was using it.

I thought I share a before and after pic of my Marcia Derse scraps and as you can see String Quilt #1 hardly made a dent.

Earlier in July I had a dental appointment which meant I could go to a wonderful quilt shop near there which carries modern fabrics and they had the latest Marcia Derse Sketchbook fabric lines. I picked up a few fat quarters and yardage with the idea of making another quilt, like my Cicada Colada made last year and given away, by adding it with the other black, brown, taupe, and gray prints from my Marcia Derse and Lonni Rossi stash.

After I made the #2 Flimsy which you will read about later, I decided to use the same big block pattern since I thought would showcase the prints better, especially the focus print which you can see I used for the plain blocks.  These blocks also measure 14.5” square and I needed 20 squares to make a 54” x 70” Patchwork Throw.

The size of this throw was determined by a wonderful piece of Plush which has been in my stash for several years and been wanting to use. It is thicker than the other Plush in my stash, has a wonderful feel and geometric design and what I now call Plushcious. This may be an instance where the back came before the flimsy. When I ordered this Plush online, I don’t know why I only ordered two yards which for a tall family, we need our lap quilts to be at least 80” long. Because of this, I now always purchase Plush at least 2.5 or 3 yard lengths. Since I already had my sewing machine set up to machine quilt for plush with the #1 Strip Quilt, #3 was finished before #2. I machine quilted with both horizontal and vertical lines with the Steel Gray Polyester thread and this time I was able to use Vanessa Christensen Ombre Stripe in Black. I have now used her Ombre Stripe for binding in three of my Marcia Derse Quilts and they seem to pair well with each other.

While I was sewing the #1 Stripe Quilt, Eunice, my Quilt Tormentor who lives inside my head and likes me to sew the right thing which is usually an UFO but this time she was reminding me of a ten year old stash of French General prints, mostly Petite Odile. These fabrics were released in 2012 and I remember buying yardage of these prints at a July Sidewalk Sale at least ten years ago. I really love the focus print on the right side and somehow found a Charm Pack back then. I love the children print and the colors have a vintage vibe. This stash has made an appearance on several Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenges but I never made a cut. I thought maybe I could make a wallhanging to satisfy Eunice but once I started playing with the stash, when I should have been focused on my #1 Stripe Quilt, I decided to make a larger quilt to use up more of the stash. I realize that sometimes my quilts are large because I want to use up as much stash as possible. 

Since I had yardage and a charm pack, I thought I could make a modified version of Quilting Jet Girl’s Bundle Buster Pattern which is one of my favorite patterns. I think I made at least five quilts using this pattern and thought I knew it well….which it turns out I didn’t. After the flimsy was made and thinking the construction of the pieced blocks were sewn like a log cabin block, I realized I forgot to add another charm square plus row. But I still liked the way it looked and it accented the plain blocks with the focus print nicely. I liked it so well that I decided to use this big block pattern for the #3 Marcia Derse quilt. These blocks also finished 14.5” square and twenty-four blocks were made to make a 56”x84” quilt.

We were at the GP house this weekend and didn’t think I would have time to machine quilt #2 but as luck would have it, I forgot there were 31 days in July so I spent Tuesday and Wednesday finishing it. There was no problem in choosing the backing since I already had a six yard piece of the Button print. As for the thread for the vertical wavy line quilting spaced 1” apart, I knew I wanted to use my recent purchase of Star Thread in Mother Goose, a golden tan, which is a favorite and used it when I first started quilting. I had run out of this thread and saw in an online chat quilt that this thread is still available so I purchased two spools.

 I always like to use either a stripe or mini check for binding and remember I had this print in my stash. It used to be in the French General bin but I had removed it years ago when I saw it wasn’t a French General print. Fortunately I found it and thought it was special enough for me to hand sew the binding down. I still have quite of bit of French General fabric left and this time I do have a plan to make a wall hanging.

Yes, this is my favorite finish for July mainly because I finally used my French General stash and the colors are perfect for the Family Room where most of the red/blue quilts are located.

Since I mentioned that #1 and #2 quilts are for my Family Room and if you’re wondering where #3 will be going, it’s for the Family Room also. I gifted it to the Master Quilt Holder who is recovering quite nicely from his two back surgeries—I thought he was Plushcious worthy. He uses his Big Blinky Bill Blankie a lot in the Family Room and it’s almost five years old so he deserves a new one. Plus, I will enjoy looking at it whenever I’m in the Family Room.

I’m pretty sure that there will be no more finishes left in me for July and the only plans for August is not to use any Marcia Derse or Plush fabrics. As for my KFC hiatus, it may end because the August Collective is being shipped out next week so I am looking forward to receiving twenty new fat quarters. But then I’m ready to do some Holiday sewing since I’m pattern and stash ready. There was a time for many years that I absolutely hated August because we could never take vacations then because I worked for a community college and we had to prep for the new school year and also for the many years I had to get the boys ready for school too. I’m enjoying August now with it’s 31 days which means an extra day for quilting. I’m hoping it’s going to be an Awesome August.