Dear Tula With a Twist Quilt

My Dear Tula with a Twist (DTWT) quilt is my September finish for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge but more importantly is the last of the three Dear Tula Pink quilts started in 2013. I posted about the Dear Tula Pink Quilts in 2017 in which my two Quilt Peeps (Mary and Linda, my 21st Century Bulls-Eye QALers) and I all made and exchanged quilt blocks from Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Quilt Block book. To make a long story short, neither of us made all 100 blocks and since we all used such different fabric combinations, there was no way one quilt could be made so I decided I would make three separate quilts. The first quilt comprising of Linda’s blocks was made in 2014 and my quilt was made in 2017.

Mary’s blocks were made mainly from a 2010 Sanae OZ fabric line from Moda which I loved and intended to purchase but never did. I was happy to see Mary used it for these blocks except for one thing; she also used a Thimbleberries print with is the cinnamon brown floral print which is also one of my favorite prints but wouldn’t use it with the Oz prints. I will say it did closely match with one of the colors in the print. When I describe Mary’s quilt style, I always say it’s mostly traditional but with a twist, thus the reason why I named this quilt Dear Tula With a Twist. I received her blocks in 2014 and later when I was in Arkansas and visited a small quilt shop by the resort, I was happy to find fat quarters and yardage of the focus print of the OZ collection. I still, though, was undecided with what to make but knew that strips and squares were going to be involved.

One of the challenges with making this quilt was to finally decided on the quilt design and the DTWT quilt is what I called making do with what I had; a two yard piece of the lovely focus print, yardage of the green and brown stripe, various fat quarters with twenty-one of Tula/Mary blocks. Not to throw Mary under the bus, but I will, before I could do anything, the blocks needed to be trimmed to a consistent size since they were not the 6.5” size as in the book and you know I hate making anything with increments that are not whole or half inch.

I’m quite pleased with what I came up with, a vertical row quilt with three rows of seven each of the Tula/Mary block offset with four rows of plain blocks made from the fat quarters. All of the blocks were sashed with the green and brown stripe fabric. Sadly, I only had enough fabric to make a quilt measuring 40”x52”.

The 40”x52” size turned out to be the perfect size because I only had two yards of this lovely focus print which I may have wanted to use for the front of the quilt. I could not bear to cut it and thought it would be best to save it for the backing.  This is really a big print, the flowers almost measure 12” tall and could be one of those quilts you want to show off the back.

Quilting was going to be tight since there was only a little more than an inch on each side and thankfully there were no problems.

I decided to machine quilt wavy lines, 1 inch apart, with #6001 Yellow Aurifil thread and love  the way it looks and feel.

Here’s another pic; I just love how this quilt turned out.

The size of this quilt is what I call a nice size for it to be a leg warmer or car quilt and I won’t have any problems using it for this reason. I am finding that during short/capri season my legs do get cold sometimes. As for the OZ scraps I have leftover, I promised them to Linda since she still hasn’t made anything with the Tula/Mary blocks yet. I’m pretty sure Mary has fabric for her quilt if she decides to ever make her quilt.

Just a reminder that next week is Kelly Young’s Blog Tour for her latest book Scrappy Improv Quilting and I am so excited to finally reveal my project on Wednesday, 9/15. I hope you visit my post as well as the other participants on this tour. I cannot say enough wonderful things about this book; the projects, instructions, the section organization, etc. and I bet you will find a project you will be inspired to make. You can check out the blog tour schedule Here.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation, NTT

The Flying Geese Frenzy Quilt

This is my July and first Finally Finished for the 2021/22 Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge and I am off to a freakishly fast start. Once the blocks were laid out on the design board, The Flying Geese Frenzy was a quilt in less than 48 hours. But then on the other hand you can say it was six years in the makings.

The inspiration for the Flying Geese Frenzy quilt was the Fat Quarter Shop’s Fat Eighth Frenzy quilt made in 2015 with BasicGrey’s PBJ and Persimmon fabrics, some of which I purchased from Country Threads when the store was opened. This is one of my favorite collections which I made several quilts, one of them was my youngest son’s Wedding Quilt and scraps of it have appeared in other quilts like my Gypsy Wife and Smitten. These fabrics will be making another appearance in the Dirty Dozen Challenge since I have another UFO with these fabrics in the queue. 

After the Fat Eighth Frenzy quilt was finished, there were around fifty+ bonus HST (just under 8”) made from the parallelogram blocks. I like the challenge of making quilts with leftovers and with what I have in my stash. Last year, I decided I wanted to finally make a quilt with these HSTs and grouped them with yardage of the blue zig zag print and the prettiest blue floral print. I paired the HSTs which were the same and there were around 25 of them which matched. My thought was to make flying geese blocks and sashed them with 7” high cuts of the blue floral print and side bordered with a 7”width  of the zig zag print thus making a 70”x96” quilt, a super twin size. It’s a good thing it fell to the wayside because once I started planning to make this quilt on July 1st, I made a smaller version of 58”x78” by changing the size of the sashing and borders.

Before we left for the Grandparent House, the HSTs were laid out on the design board and upon my return this past Tuesday, they were sewn together. I realized after the flying geese were made and deciding that each block would be sashed individually instead of using one long strip, I was trying to determine the width of these blocks. I realized the flying geese were not what I considered an even size because I did not trim the HSTs to a consistent size of 7.5” square prior to sewing them together. Truth be told, since I use either my die cutter or triangle paper to make my HSTs, I never trim them. I should have trim these HSTs since they were cut offs when the parallelogram blocks when they were sewn together. Lesson learned, so I trimmed each flying geese blocks to 7.5” x 14.5” which resulted in some of these blocks having their points cut off once the top was assembled but otherwise the sewing went well.

You can see I alternated the sashing strip with either the floral or zig zag print because some of the flying geese blocks had either one of the prints in them. So in order to give good contrast and to avoid what I call globs, they were paired with either one of the prints and those that had the zig zag print were paired with the floral, and vice versus. The middle blocks had the floral sashing and the side blocks had the zig zag sashing since the border was now going to be the floral print. This is the reason why the quilt ended up being smaller since I only had an 80” length piece of this print and thought the zig zag border would be too busy. Also, I changed the size of the finished sashing strips from 7” to 3.5” high.

Sewing the flimsie went fast and it helped that the flying geese blocks were trimmed and that the sashing was pieced and not one long strip which I originally envisioned. I know I have a hard time lining up blocks when the sashing is one long strip which is the reason why I don’t make quilts without cornerstones. The sashing strips were cut 4” x 14.5” and the border strips were 7.5” wide.

Fast decisions were made for the quilting, vertical straight lines, 1” apart with #2610 Aurifil Light Blue Gray and the backing is a 2004 RJR stripe found in the newly organized backing vault. Another tip I learned and now going to follow is you can avoid quilting over safety pins by not quilting when it’s 3AM in the morning. Thankfully, my Juki Junebug survived and I did replace the needle right away.

When I sewed the binding with the zig zag print, I used a tip which Linda, Texas Quilt Gal just posted about who learned it from Janine, Quilts from the Liittle House and that is to use a folded post-it note to get nice, sharp corners by lining it up with the edge, sewing up to it and then angling off.

Here’s a somewhat close-up of the quilting, binding and backing. I’m especially pleased with how everything went together so nicely and freakishly fast. I wish this would happen more often.

I brought the Flying Geese Frenzy Quilt to the Grandparent House this weekend to take photos of it around the porch and fence. Unfortunately, the skies were overcast, which supposedly is great for quilt photos. The only Sunshine was provided by the Master Quilt Holder’s very sweet Assistant and yes, she was wearing her pajamas.

I couldn’t resist including more photos of the Flying Geese Frenzy Quilt since the Grandparent House is a wonderful place to take photos since I don’t have a fence nor railings at the other house. I even have a clothesline here but have yet to put it to use. I’ll be bringing this quilt back to the other house where once the other quilt from the Challenge is a finally finish, these two quilts will be part of the new Master Bedroom Ensemble. Yikes, I hope that quilt could be a fast finish since it will be king size and I’ll be quilting it myself via QAYG.

I’m glad my Challenge quilt for July is a Finally Finish because I’ll be spending some time preparing for some secret sewing which I will posting and providing “peeks” of my project shortly. The final reveal won’t be until mid-September. Is it me, or is this summer just flying by but not freakishly fast, right?

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation NTT

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.