February DrEAMi: Specks, Strips and Squares, Oh My Quilt

This quilt was an unexpected finally finish for February, or as it is properly called by Sandra of MMM quilts, a DrEAMi!. It wasn't even in my plans to make which means a Squirrel was involved. Screamer, the Squirrel, was sent to me by my down-under Quilt torMENTOR, Susan of PatchworknPlay who is one of the major reason why I started blogging with her just saying "you should start a blog-it's easy" or something to that effect.  She has a way of making me do things especially with the beautiful quilts she has made with her fabulous fabric and color combinations.  I first started following Susan when she was posting a Jen Kingwell pattern she was then making called "My Small World" and I then became aware of Jen's many wonderful, but complicated patterns.  I should have then realize that Jen and Susan seem to go hand to hand. I finished my Gypsy Wife quilt several years ago and it still makes me go cross eye when I think about the making of this quilt and, in typical fashion, as I have done with other challenging quilts, I took the easy way out and eliminated the setting strips and set the blocks sampler style.  My thought was that after all the hard work making all of these blocks, I wasn't going to do a jelly roll race at the end--this coming from me who loves to make easy quilts with strips, especially 2.5" strips.  To further solidify my feelings of any Kingwell patterns are a test of quilt fortitude, I did finish Smitten. So getting back to Susan's involvement with the making of the Specks, Strips and Squares (S3) quilt. Now remember she has a way with her words, being a teacher and all, after I had posted about finishing my Classic Meet Modern BOM quilt this past January and mentioning that it was challenging and refreshing to make something a little bit harder, she left a comment "I hope the success of it encourages you to try more difficult designs and blocks! Perhaps Delilah (a Jen Kingwell pattern) could be your next one??"  Disclaimer:  I did warn Susan about this post earlier and that I was going to throw her under the bus so hopefully I didn't break any sanctity of comments and deter anyone else from ever leaving me comments.  Well, after reading the mere mention of Jen Kingwell's name, I went into mind numb mode with a screaming "No" and my eyes started crossing, my usual reaction which is what I call Fear of Jen Kingwell patterns. Some time later, I retreated to my sewing studio with Sue's comment fresh in my head; I'm lucky I didn't fall down the stairs thus wasting the time I've already done doing physical therapy for my healed fractured knee--don't you love my dramatics and guilt I'm throwing into this post?

While in this mindset of  my Fear of Jen Kingwell patterns and putting away fabric, I came across my stash of Jen Kingwell fabric and scraps.

The scraps came from these two quilts made from a Gardenvale Jelly Roll (right) and Lollies yardage and a Behind the Scenes Jelly Roll (left) and some yardage.  Even though I had other projects I wanted to work on, I thought maybe purging any thoughts of doing a Jen Kingwell pattern, I would use her fabric from my stash and challenge myself to make a quilt with what I had; taking the easy way out once again by doing something with just strips and squares.

Since I had a Gardenvale charm pack which I received in a giveaway, I considered using either my Jelly Roll Charm Chase or my Staggered Strips and Squares patterns, but the two packs of the Speck mini charms and not having much variety with the yardage I had to make long 2.5" strips, I came up with a pattern to spread out the dots, stripes and the multi-color check print in some kind of order. This quilt is made up of 4.5" squares from the charm pack and yardage, 2.5" x 8.5" rail strips from yardage and 2.5" x 6.5" rail strips from the Speck charm pack and yardage.  It measures approx. 54" x 72".

How do you like this backing?  Would you believe that I bought this from IKEA around 2010 and is not quite the Nummer fabric that I loved and has been discontinued. I thought I make my annual mention/plea that I wish IKEA would bring back their sheeting fabric, especially Nummer, which was perfect for quilt backing.  The home dec they now carry is just too heavy although the prints are fun.

Here's a close up shots of the quilting (my go-to wavy and straight line  with black Aurifil thread) and backing.  I showed it to my son, Demando, who promptly called the backing a Nightmare and questioned who would want that on the back of their quilt.  Obviously, someone like me who thought it was sort of representative of my fear of Jen Kingwell patterns and thought it would add a quirky touch to the S3 quilt. This backing does have it's limitation, I would never use it for a baby or child quilt so I had it for awhile until the perfect quilt top for it was made. I guess it also proves that I've haven't had to make a quilt for someone I don't like because that would be the perfect time to use it.  Let me say I was getting kind of spooked when I was quilting it during the wee late hours in my downstairs studio.  The only non-Jen Kingwell fabric in this quilt, besides the backing, is the black with white dots used in the binding.

I had to include a close-up of the screaming monster which I think my mind looks when someone mentions they're working on one of Jen's patterns. Doesn't it look like it's screaming a long, expressive "Noooo!" I'm glad I could finally let others in, which I may have already done, on my Fear of Jen Kingwell patterns in this post; it's all in good fun now. Knowing me, I wouldn't be surprised after this post, I'll probably do another since I do have her Glitter templates which have been sitting around for awhile. 

They say that good things come in threes or is it three times the charm. So after thinking about this, I have done three Kingwell patterns, Gypsy Wife, Smitten and Flutterby and I've now made three quilts with Jen Kingwell fabrics so I think I've earned an unofficial merit badge and I should be pretty good for awhile before I attempt another pattern. Leave it to my beloved Quilt torMENTOR Sue who left me a new comment, thus a new challenge, on my Pinky quilt about making another one called Blinky after an Australian book character named Blinky Bill.  I'm going to need some Koala fabric. BTW, I never responded to Sue for her Jen Kingwell comment so I hope she accepts this Post as my reply.  Also, do check out her Delilah quilt, it is absolutely stunning; it inspired some of my fabric and color choices for some of my quilts last year.  Send her some love but don't tell her who sent you.

Linking up with MMMiQuilts DrEAMi, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework, Oh Scrap! and My Quilt Infatuation NTT

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.