I'm linking this quilt up with Sandra's (mmm! Quilts) monthly DrEAMi (Drop Everything and Make it) monthly party even though I now realize that this quilt may not meet all of the criteria since I made this quilt in stages rather than all at once like a true DrEAMi project is. But I figured since Sandra was the main mmmPetus for this quilt being made since it involved sending me Squirrel Mail I'm sure she won't mind.
Since we became Blog Buddies back in 2017, Sandra and I have exchanged emails which included much laughter, Squirrel Talk and, of course, some fabric exchanges, which meant using the Drop-off Point Dayna because International postage rates are just so outrageous. Last February, I received this brown paper envelope from Sandra which reminded me of the ones that Mr. Briggs or Mr. Phelps received their instructions in the beginning of each episode of the Mission Impossible TV series. To protect the innocent, which would be me, I've covered up the addresses.
Although there was no taped message in the envelope, I heard the Squirrel tell me that my mission was to make a quilt with this lovely stack of Island Batik's Dear William 10" squares and the eight 2.5" strips of another collection which are on the left of this photo. I immediately found some other batiks in my stash, which are on the right, some of which I received earlier from Sandra, so I could make a lap size quilt. After that, I didn't start making this quilt until the beginning of May because I wanted to finish some quilts the other Squirrels already put on my plate. I like to modify the DrEAMi criteria to include a quillt/project which wasn't planned but not made right away because sometimes you are surprisingly focused. One of the projects which preceded the Oh Sanada! quilt, was my Jolly Jinny Jungle quilt (you can read about it here) which was also a quilt made with mostly batiks and Sandra was also involved in my making of it. It's funny that I don't work with batiks much and this year, I now have made two, both involving batik fabrics being given to me and both involving Sandra, the Master mmm-Nabler.
I purchased yardage of a Hoffman batik, black with sage green lines (lower right) to go with these fabrics since I knew this quilt was going to involve some rail fence blocks because of the 2.5" strips.
Based on the colors and the amount of fabric on hand, I came up with making four different 8" blocks: Rail Fence blocks made with the black with sage green lines with the 2.5" strips and some of the 10" squares which went with these strips, Eight-Patch blocks made with the gold and navy prints, Boxed Squares made with either green or navy frames and Four-Patch blocks made with the gold and fuchsia prints. I also made Eight-patch blocks with the black batik I had in my stash and gold prints but decided not to include them in the quilt since they look so stark next to the other blocks.
My original layout was to use a random layout of the different blocks but decided to do a controlled layout instead with the blocks which had gold placed in the center of the quilt surrounded by the green blocks. I thought I need to contain the Four Patch blocks in one area since they did not look good when they were randomly placed throughout the quilt. You can see Oh Sanada! has an inner glow with the gold and fuchsia blocks which radiates softly towards the outside with the green blocks which has a touch of fuchsia in it. Surprisingly, I made enough of each blocks needed for this layout.
One of the nice thing about sewing with batik fabrics is that there's very little thread shedding which makes getting the top ready for quilting go fast. In order to back the quilt and there was no batik yardage in the backing vault, I had to buy yardage of a batik print which I found at Joann's. It had most of the same colors in the top and best of all I had a 40% off coupon. I quilted it with wavy lines around 1" apart and some of the wavy lines intersected along the seam lines. I used a thread from Connecting Threads in Cornsilk. The binding was machine bound with the black with sage green lines print. Oh Sanada! measures approximately 56" x 72" before quilting and I'm sure it's a little bit shorter now with all of the machine quilting I did.
If you're wondering about how I came up with the name "Sanada", it's the name I use when I have conversations with my Hubby involving Sandra and it's a combination of her name and Canada. It really is a lot quicker to say this rather than Sandra from Canada. (Some of my other blog buddies had combo names also like Wendy, Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting, who lives in Minnesota so she is called Wendy-sota. Believe me, these names help Hubby know whom I'm talking about.) I included the "Oh" in the name of the quilt since I like to hum "Oh Canada" long before it was heard a lot lately thanks to the NBA Finals.
I had to include another photo of Oh Sanada! since the weather was so co-operative the morning I took photos. Now that this quilt is finished or should I say mission completed, I think I'm hearing the Squirrel tell me that Sandra's beloved cat Bella should be my reward. Doing this quilt, along with the Jolly Jinny Jungle Quilt and the Beothuk Star QAL so far this year, as well as the three other QALs Sandra hosted, I think my Get Bella Card has enough punches. With that being said, I'm sure I'm going to be receiving some lively email exchange from Sandra. I'm sure if Bella had her way, she would be sending me Rufus, the dog, who may still be tormenting her. Now that would be one big brown paper envelope for Drop-Off Point Dayna to handle. Seriously now, I would like to donate this quilt to a Canadian Charity/Cause so Sandra and I need to discuss options and to give Drop-Off Point Dayna a heads-up.
After I finished the top, Sandra posted her Luminous Layer which she made with, yep, a stack of Island Batik 10" squares. And if she decides to do a QAL of this pattern, I most definitely will buy my own Island Batik fabrics, this time yardage would be nice.
Lastly, beware of Squirrel Mail!
Linking up with MMMiQuilts DrEAMi
