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.

FALLing into Piecing

For the past two weeks, which involved the darling granddaughter babysitting us for a week which we recovered nicely and being home this week, I have no finished quilt to post; only some new projects in the beginning stages and a hopeful solution involving fabric.

During the week we were at the Grandparent House, I started making Jen Kingwell Wensleydale blocks with foundation paper piecing after much hesitation but was finally inspired to make them thanks to my down under Quilt torMentor Sue of Patchwork and Play who is doing a wonderful job with her blocks. I won’t give too much details right now but only to mention before finishing the very first block, I was ready to call it quits and was planning an Escape from Wensleydale quilt. After much careful ripping of patches and finally making the first block which took more than three hours due to some fabric patches being too small and some distraction, I decided to do another block but this time cutting my patches larger resulting in some waste but was worth it. I originally precut my patches based on the templates in the Quilt Recipe book and adding 1/4”around. For me adding 1/2” around worked much better. I’m using several Jen Kingwell fabric lines which  include some bright colors and prints and to tone it down, I’ll be making neutral blocks to alternate with these colorful blocks.

Before I can continue with the Wensleydale blocks, I had to decide what I was going to do with the Jen Kingwell Glitter Blocks which I paper pieced last year. After making forty of these blocks, I decided to stop since I couldn’t see making a large quilt with these blocks. I came up with a plan to make a wall/door hanging for the recently vacated bedroom using  the gray/tan Radiator Cover print, designed by Amanda Nyberg purchased several years ago, for sashing with apple green cornerstones. Now that I have a plan for the Glitter blocks, this will free up the fabrics set aside and can now use it for the Wensleydale Blocks which will give them even more variety.

The October Project Number for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge was Five and in my group of projects for  this number was two quilts using Sandy Gervais fabrics which I am calling them FALLoween #1 and FALLoween #2. I still have a nice stash of Sandy Gervais fabrics and my favorites are the ones she designed for Fall and Halloween. This week, I’ve been busy die-cutting  HSTs and squares plus sewing 2.5” strips together which were die-cut last year. BTW, the skinny strips leftover from die-cutting the strips were used to make what I call fabric marbles seen in the top opening photo of this post. I am hoping I will have both of these finished by the end of the month.

When we were with the darling Granddaughter last week and observing the napkin war she was having with her father who thinks she shouldn’t be throwing her paper napkin on the floor after one use or not using one at all, I decided to make her some fabric napkins. I know when we eat at Olive Garden she uses the fabric napkins and doesn’t throw them on the floor and may take disposable napkins to heart by throwing them on the floor. I remember seeing a post about fabric napkins made with terry cloth so I purchased a pack of 18 for under $7. These inexpensive washcloths are the right weight to go with the fabric. I trimmed the wash cloths to 10” square since the size of each one differed which turned out to be a good idea since I could use a 10” cut x width of fat quarter to make two napkins. After top-stitching around the napkin edges, I also did diagonal stitching on the center to make sure the fabrics stayed together after washing. I have washed the napkins after sewing 18 of them and I can say they are nice and soft, not wrinkly and probably will get softer after each washing. Here’s hoping the darling Granddaughter will use them so I don’t have to hear her father say “Napkin” at least twenty times during meals. In her defense, I will say her father was a very messy eater when he was her age.

Another thing that kept me busy was the slow makeover of the recently vacated bedroom once occupied by Demando along with other rooms. My yarn stash which has been residing in the dining room and the spare bedroom will now be residing in this bedroom since the nice IKEA shelf unit was left behind. And if I didn’t have enough Jen Kingwell during the past two weeks, my Gypsy King bedroom  ensemble was finally laid out this week; the king-size quilt was finished October of last year. So far, there has been no bad dreams sleeping under the Gypsy Wife quilt.

We’re once again heading off to the Grandparent House. It’s nice to know that upon my return I’m going to have some wonderful projects to sew but then again there’s also more room/closet reorganization to do. I need a magic nose.