Blue Ernie Stash Dash Quilt

Well, this is a nice October surprise, my Blue Ernie Stash Dash Quilt is finished and it took less than two weeks which is a pretty good record for a quilt this size.  What was even more surprising was how the quilt was made and quilted; a good example of happenstance.

It started with my current quilting phase revolving around Ernie quilts and 2.5" strips.  I saw the Indigo Stripe quilt by Karin Jordan in Love Patchwork & Quilting, Issue #38; it's the blue quilt on the left side of the cover which made me think of the black, blue and light Cotton + Steel prints in my stash.

The Indigo Stripe quilt uses 12 fat quarters and yardage of a solid white fabric.  Each of the fat quarter are cut in 2.5" strips and in varying lengths and then sewn together.   The quilt is constructed in individual rows with the solid white fabric added intermittently.  I loved the blues and using strips, however, not a big fan of using solid white fabric on my quilts, I rather use low volume prints plus I wanted a more improvised look.  Also, I wanted to use the octopus, tiger, swallow and flower prints but without cutting them in strips.  I came up with the idea of sewing a series of strips like a jelly roll race but not as long which is why I call this quilt a Dash.  (Tidbits on how the blocks were made are at the end of this post).

As I mentioned earlier, Blue Ernie was a happenstance quilt, wasn't sure how I was going to make it, changing and improvising as I sewed the blocks and laid them out and just loving how it turned out.  Even more surprising was how I quilted it which came to me while I was making the quilt.  As mentioned in my previous posts, I have not been happy with my Juki 2010Q when it comes to straight line quilting and I really wanted to quilt Blue Ernie the same way the Indigo Stripe was quilted.  Divine inspiration came to me and I decided to do QAYG (Quilting As You Go) for each panel row on my Elna 7200 Quilters Dream which had been idling because of the new Juki and it turned out beautiful.  I'm glad I thought of this before the top was sewn together.  (Tidbits on my QAYG process are at the end of this post.)  So another surprise was that I may have solved my quilting woes by doing more QAYG, which I haven't in the past because of my impatience in wanting to see the completed top, and now piecing with the Juki and quilting with the Elna, my dream team.  

This is my third quilt in the Ernie Series and it measures 64"x 80"--another surprise, it wasn't suppose to be this big, I miscalculated.  All of the fabrics were from my stash, no new fabrics were purchased, batting scraps were used (yay!) and I had yardage of a gray print in my stash for the backing which, for once,  I didn't deliberate or had qualms on using.

And just a shout out for my furry friend Ernie, the American Farm Tiger and Quilt Czar, who belongs to Mary Etherington and the inspiration for our quilts, you're going to need to bless this quilt too, after all the blue tiger print has your essence.

And Now the Tidbits

I'm using the word "tidbits" to describe the information that I share and first of all want to disclaim myself from any mistakes or injuries you may suffer from making this quilt and what I'm providing is not a how to tutorial but just information to give you an idea of how I made this quilt.

• The color range of the fabrics were blacks, navy blues, royal blues, periwinkle blue, light and dark grays and modern low volume lights.
• Thankful for my Sizzix Big Shot Pro Die-Cutter, affectionately referred to as Princess Die-Cutter, I cut 120 2-1/2" x 20"-22" strips (depending on the size of your fat quarters or the full length of your strips cut in half); there were at least two of the same prints and sometimes four in this count. Thirteen of the strips were cut in half, measuring around 10", again not an exact measurement.   I  also used one half yard of the octopus print and three fat quarters of the blue tiger, swallow and floral prints. 
• The strips were divided into 26 piles of  four strips plus one half strips.  Like a jelly roll race, I sewed the four strips together (short ends) and the half strip was sewn either at the beginning or at the end to ensure the strips are offset and then folded the long strip in half and sew together either from the top or bottom.  One the end is cut, I had strip sets measuring approximately 4-1/2" x 22"which I did not trim.
  

• Once these strip sets were sewn, I then sewed two strip sets together, making sure I did not sew the strips made from the same strip set together which created a strip set of four rows measuring 8-1/2" x 22", approximately, again I did not trim them.  The strips were ironed the same way, going up.  Once this was done, I had 26 strip sets of four rows.
• Cutting was as follows:  6 strip sets were trimmed 8-1/2" x 16-1/2" and the remaining 20 strip sets were trimmed 1 piece 8-1/2" x 12-1/2" and the other one 8-1/2" square.  Because my strip sets were around 22"-24" long, I made interesting trims which gave the blocks the improvised look but did not trim it where the fabric would have been less than 1" at the end.  FYI, I saved the trimmings for another quilt.
• I cut the focus yardage as follows:  (4) 8-1/2" x 16-1/2" pieces were cut from the octopus print and (4) 8-1/2" squares were cut from the fat quarter prints.
• There are 10 rows in this quilt and each row has (1) 8-1/2" x 16-1/2" block, (2) 8-1/2" x 12-1/2" blocks and (3) 8-1/2" squares, making the width of the quilt 64-1/2" wide.
• When I laid out the blocks, I looked for matching blocks that had at least one of the strips with the same print in the same location to create a wonder as to how this quilt was made.  And when I could not find a match, I inserted one of the plain blocks.  Sometimes the match was from the top or bottom, not always on the side. Ideally, the strips nested together but when they didn't, I just re-ironed one of the blocks in the other direction.  After each row was sewn, I ironed the blocks in alternating directions so the seams would nest together.

• Once the strip set rows were sewn, I sewed two rows together creating a panel measuring 16-1/2 x 64-1/2" which gave me five panels rows in this quilt. I was ready for QAYG.  The method I like is quilting the top and batting together first.  I cut my batting strips at least 1" wider than the panel rows on all sides.
  
  
  
• After all the panel rows were all quilted and trimmed, I then sewed the rows together, the seams are pressed open. FYI: pressing the seams open exposes the top fabric and if your backing is light, you will see the open seams through the backing.

• The idea behind this QAYG method is because the top and batting are already quilted together, the backing when added only needs to be quilted minimally which I did where the panels rows were joined; the photo below was taken before I quilted between the octopus and kitty strips.

• Additional quilting lines was done on the diagonal in eight places, like the Indigo Stripe quilt to ensure the backing was attached to the top/batting.

I really enjoyed making this quilt and amazed at how everything turned out, especially the quilting.  I hope the tidbits were enough to give you an idea of how this quilt was made.  It's a great way to use the stash and already thinking of making another one with my Tula Pink stash.  Hope you make a Stash Dash quilt too, believe me it's fun.

Wild Ernie--The Twill is Gone

I decided that I wanted to make my second Ernie quilt now with the fabrics I posted earlier, the wonderful dyed dots/checks with the colorful twill and planned the quilt to be 56"x72" which I would make 24 blocks with the dots/checks and 18 with the twill/black combination.  After making the 8-1/2" x 12" blocks I started thinking that I really didn't need another big quilt and could instead make two smaller quilts 40"x48" if I made additional blocks in the twill combination which I had enough fabric to do.    I was really happy with the way the layout look.

Unfortunately, the two fabric combination type did not play well with each other when I sewed the blocks together, I could not get the seams to line up with each other so I decided what I needed to do was to separate the two; make one with the dyed dots/checks blocks and one with the twill/black blocks.  For some reason, I was planning on using another backing for the dyed dots/checks blocks and the Ernie fabric for the twill combination but divine inspiration made me realized that the Ernie fabric would look great with the dyed dots/checks since the colors are so bright and happy.

Another change from the plan was to make this a throw instead of a quilt; I used fleece instead of batting which meant minimal quilting which I'm a great proponent of doing.  I have done this with several other quilts after much research to see if this could be done and happily there are other quilters who have used fleece.  It feels more like a blanket, soft and wraps around the body nicely and keeps you very warm.  I've already washed a quilt with fleece and there were no problems. When I quilted the layers together, my safety pins did not work well plus I didn't like the way they poked through the quilt top so I ended up using my quilting straight pins--when you use fleece instead of batting, you need to pin more since it tends to shift more than the batting.  I wore my quilting gloves to keep pin pokes at a minimum.

Wild Ernie measures 40" x 60" and is a wonderful size to keep the lap warm.  I needed 25 blocks to make this quilt but only had 24 blocks and no more fabric to make the 25th block so I improvised and  made it with 2.5" scraps leftover; you can see this block on the right bottom of the quilt.  If you ever met Ernie Jo Mauer, you will see that this throw captures his essence, such a fun and lovable orange cat who loves to sit on quilts.  The next time I see him, I plan on bringing Wild Ernie so he can bless it.

Meanwhile, I think I'm all "Ernie" out so the twill combination blocks are being saved for another day and will be thinking about my next quilting adventure or I should end this post with a funny situation.  I bought the dyed dot and check fabric at a quilt show over ten years ago and it came in two color ways, one with black and one with red.  My friend Carol and I split the two bundles, giving us each (48)  9"x20" pieces.  I used some of the red in an earlier baby quilt and never found the right pattern to use the black until the Ernie pattern.  So when I took the fabric out of the bin which held it for many years, I thought when I put the remaining pieces away there would be a more appropriate bin to put them in and now I have no idea where I put them. The more appropriate bin is not where it is and it's really bugging me but I rather sew than search for it since I really don't need it yet.  As my husband always said, it'll be in the last place you look.  Plus, Carol said I could raid her stash.

Sew, Sew for now!

My Ernie Journey

My friend, Mary Etherington, owner of Country Threads, Garner, IA, a wonderful quilt shop which is now closed and who blogs under Country Threads Chicken Scratch made this wonderful quilt using a Denyse Schmitz jelly roll plus some extra strips.  We called it the Ernie Quilt because of the backing fabric that I gave her which I purchased from Ikea and has orange cat heads which reminded me of her orange tabby Ernie Joe Mauer.  

This is Mary’s first Ernie Quilt.

Mary also made another Ernie quilting using strips from men dress shirts and it's beautiful.

What I like about these quilts is the versatility of this pattern, you can use any size strips and the blocks can be any size you want.  You're not tied down to using a jelly roll especially when you have a die-cutter and can die-cut your own 2.5" strips.  Also, I like that Mary off-set the blocks which really makes her quilts interesting and unique.

Well, I had to make a Ernie quilt too-- mine was made with a combination of a Jen Kingwell's Behind the Scenes jelly roll and yardage of her Little Lollies fabric line which determined the size of my blocks, 4" x 8" (finished).  My quilt is 56" x 72", 14 blocks across and 9 blocks down and I did not offset the blocks which wanted to but didn't look right to me, I'm thinking my prints weren't bold enough.  Even though I had yardage of the Ernie fabric I did not back my quilt with it because I had yardage of Jen Kingwell's Gardenvale fabric which I accidentally purchased.  The story behind this purchase was I made a Gypsy Wife quilt and bought this fabric for the backing forgetting that I did not make this quilt with any Gardenvale fabric in it--so this was a very good opportunity to make up for my whoops.

My journey with this quilt was in the machine quilting, a three-day journey.  I originally wanted to do straight-line quilting horizontally but my Juki 2010Q would not co-operate so I had to remove 10 lines of stitching.  When this happens, I tend to spend some time on the Internet looking at Long Arm Quilting Machines and Frames but reality sets in and I go back to quilting.  I decided to switch to doing vertical straight lines and after doing the first line in the ditch, 72 inches long, I wanted to change it to 1/2" from the seam line--so another round with the seam ripper.  I love my Juki 2010Q and only have a problem when it comes to straight-line quilting that is less than 1" apart; my quilt lines were approximately 3/4" done organically which means I couldn't see the lines I made with the hera marker very well.  For this quilt, I tried spray basting for the first time and pin baste in certain spots but still was experiencing shifting which leads to tucks but not so much as previous quilts.  I really was expecting that I would not like the quilting but in the end it turned out okay.  As well as the look of straight-line quilting, I love the feel of it.  I was happy to find in my stash a 1/2 yard piece of a micro-stripe black and white made by Windham Fabrics for the binding which was so nice to hand sew since it was a lighter weight.

So I'm ready to make another Ernie Quilt, a.k.a., Ernie II using some wonderful colors of twill and dyed homespun and cottons; this time I will back it with the Ernie fabric.  My blocks will also be larger, 8"x 12" (finished).

This pattern is so addicting, I know two of my quilting friends who plan or have already made Ernie Quilts when they saw Mary's quilt.  My friend, Carol, who is known never to follow a pattern completely, made one and here is her interpretation.  What's so funny about this is I want to make one like this now since I have a beautiful Jinny Beyer fabric and greens which Carol has given me over the past few years.  Carol thought I threw her under the bus when I showed Mary her quilt so as a form of punishment she bought me three yards of Lotta Jansdotter fabric which could be called Ernie, Jr. fabric.

I guess this means there will be an Ernie III quilt.