Farewell to Fassett February

February was a funny month for me which I can best describe as I was in a mood for not staying on task and felt kind of bad that in less than two months into 2018, I wanted to throw my project lists, which I spent a lot of time planning, aside. After all this was my year for Making it Easy and I was feeling pressure from my project lists so there's no better way to relax is to sew something you want to sew and that's what I did with my Kaffe appliqué quilt.  I finally started working on this quilt, after six years of fermentation which the blocks and leaves were ready for appliqué, when we were vacationing in Texas at the end of January.  I appliquéd 36 blocks in around a week which is doable when you unexpectedly don't have access to WiFi. Once I was back home, I sewed the alternate blocks which I am happy to say I had the fabrics in my stash to make them and once I was ready to assemble the blocks into a quilt, I was pleasantly annoyed that I needed to appliqué four more blocks in order to use the same setting as its fraternal twin quilt.

There are a few quilts patterns which I have made several times and an appliqué quilt pattern would not be one I would want duplicate unless maybe I thought it would be a fun road project.  When the Darlene Zimmerman Going Green pattern was first published by American Patchwork and Quilting in February, 201l, I was inspired to make two versions of this quilt; one with Feedsack fabrics and one with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  I finish the Feedsack quilt top in 2013 and finally finished it in 2015 as part of Country Threads' UFO Challenge and I was in no hurry to work on the Fassett version even though the pieces were ready.

Although I'm participating in Tish's Adventure in Wonderland's UFO addition this year, my Kaffe quilt did not make the list so finishing the top was an unexpected surprise and what would even be more totally unexpected is if I finally finished it this year so it can join the Feedsack quilt. I'm already planning on ordering the coconut buttons so there's a good chance, especially if I get into one of those moods again. 

BTW, Feedsack and Fassett fabrics are some of my first fabric crushes and I have even used them together as you see from the quilt above.  You can read about this combination in my last week's Throwback Thursday post, Feedsack and Fassett Fabrics Go Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, here.

I don't know if March is going to be any better for me to get back on task seeing that I have taxes to prepare, yuck, annual doctor and dentist appointments, big yuck here, and a very big and happy deterrent, Micah, my very precious granddaughter will be celebrating her first birthday at the end of the month.  This means if any quilt is going to be finished, it's going to be hers and it has to have bees because she is the Micah Bee.

Linking up with:  My Quilt Infatuation, Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday, Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday, Tish Adventure in Wonderland

Throwback Thursday: Fassett and Feedsack Fabrics Go Together-Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Well February definitely flew by and I was just finishing up a project for this week's Friday link-ups and I realized that today was Sandra's mmm!quilts Throwback Thursday link-up so I thought I better post since I missed last month's.  I do like participating in Throwback Thursday (TBT) since it gives me an opportunity to show and explain some quilts which were made many moons ago and may explain why I sew things the way I sew.  Sandra, in her last month's post mentioned that when she and her friend first started quilting around the mid 1990's and went to buy fabric for their first quilt class, her friend said "Well, apparently in quilting you can mix prints, no problem...." which is the same thought I embraced wholeheartedly when I started quilting right around the same time, so something must have been in the water back then.  And for me, there were no better fabric mix than Kaffe Fassett and Feedsack fabrics which at the time the above quilt was made I was accumulating a nice stash of both.

I made my Flower Bed quilt in 2003 after seeing this quilt in  Pamela Mostek and Jean Van Bockel's Quilts from Larkspur Farm book and absolutely fell in love with it and as you can see I pretty much duplicated it without a benefit of a kit but a lot of fabric searches on foot before online days. Fortunately, I worked at a quilt shop at the time and was able to buy the Piece of Cake's stripe and some of the floral prints along with some greens and found the Kaffe Fassett lattice print through one of my many quilting jaunts which is what you did before buying online.

I was needing some more floral prints and I found some in my Feedsack stash which I have accumulated through the generosity of my quilting peeps, Mary and Linda, yes, the same friends from the Aunt Amy's Bullseye QAL which I posted about in January's TBT.  I am pretty sure that the original quilt did not have any Feedsack prints and I always chuckle to myself when I think about the fabrics I used in my quilt "Feedsack and Fassett together, who would have thunk."  Another takeaway from this quilt is that I discovered Pat Mostek and after the Quilts from Larkspur Farm book, she published Just Can't Cut It!, Quilts From Fabulous Fabrics, which validated my feeling of not wanting to cut up my large focus prints and started my love of making quilts with big blocks.

I'm still keeping my tradition of Feedsack and Fassett (F&F) fabrics, although separate now. For the past few weeks, I have been working on the Fassett version of Darlene Zimmerman quilt which I made in Feedsack fabrics and finally finished in 2015 during Country Thread's UFO Challenge. When I first saw the pattern over ten years ago in American Patchwork and Quilting, I decided that I wanted to make two versions of it and after finishing the feedsack version, I wasn't in a hurry to finish the Fassett version. I just need to add the borders to this quilt and will post about the latest F&F quilts later.

And now for some stats for my Flower Bed Quilt:

Size:  68" x 82" (approx.),  Ninety-nine  7.5" Square in the Square Blocks, funny I just mentioned the other day that Square in the Square Blocks were not my favorite and now I may know why.  Also, the original quilt was 84" x 98" and I probably made it smaller because I didn't have enough of the Kaffe Fassett Lattice fabric but bought more after the quilt was finished.

Pattern:  Flower Bed by Pam Mostek and Jean Van Bockel, 2001

I've been going a little bit modern in my quilts for the past few years but after pulling out the Quilts from Larkspur Farm, there really are some lovely quilts using floral prints in this book, and I could easily make another quilt from this book--after all I still have lots of floral prints from the 1990s in my stash.  And finally, for a few days this week after the announcement of Free Spirit Fabrics closing and the uncertain future of Kaffe Fassett fabrics, I thought my stash was going to be a real treasure chest but am glad they found a new home with Jaftex.  Yay.  More Kaffe Fassett fabrics to buy!

I'm linking up with:  mmm! quilts Throwback Thursday

Fassett February

This is my first February post and there's no better way to start off the month with a Finally Finish--my Kaffe Fassett Zig Zag Patchwork Throw.  This was a top I finished last year after taking his workshop last October and was on my 2018 Quilty Confessions- UFO Addition list to finish.  

I love the colors and fabrics in this quilt, they look velvety, don't they? I have a confession--this was not what I had envisioned; out of the twenty fabrics I brought to the workshop, I only ended up using eight of them and had to purchase the black and purple print from the vendor mall and my friend Carol, who brought her entire Kaffe stash in her suitcase with wheels, let me have one of her red stripe prints since she wasn't going to use it.  On a side note, I almost suffered whiplash at the beginning of the workshop because Kaffe mentioned that the Zig Zag pattern would look good in black and white fabrics, which I am pretty sure no one brought any, including Carol and myself, and he would be happy to help students choose black and white fabrics which could be purchased from the vendor mall. Carol decided she would like to do that and I turned my head in a snap at her and said "What!". Boy, what some people would do to get a little extra Kaffe time.  If I wasn't set on using the fabric I brought, I may have been tempted but then again no because I already have too much black and white fabric in my stash.

I'm pretty sure I was the only student whose color palette was inspired by the Grand Canyon so I bought fabrics with golds, browns, light grays and whites in addition to the eight I ended up using. When I showed this photo to Kaffe and Brandon Mabrey along with the fabrics, I don't know how they got me to change my mind or see things their way.  I did come away knowing the difference between low contrast where the fabrics accent each other quietly but nicely versus high contrast which would be a white fabric against dark fabric and according to Kaffe looks like a plastic shopping bag stuck on my quilt.  As you can see, my quilt is definitely low contrast.

It wasn't easy, but I managed to come up with a quilt top with just using ten fabrics compared to some of the other students who bought their entire stash to class and used the same  Kaffe color palette of blues, greens, reds, etc. in his books.  I'm pretty sure I was the only one who used my color palette of purple, gray, black and orange and if there was another one I would have been over at her table rummaging through her stash.  BTW, that's Carol's quilt on the left with the fabrics selected by Kaffe.  I don't do too well in workshops, I get too distracted by what others are doing and I sure was overstimulated seeing all those wonderful Kaffe fabrics on the other students' tables and worse of all, I had to rotary cut the diamonds myself.  I really would have liked to have used my die-cutter but the instructions were no pre-cutting before class.

And yes, I finally got a photo of Kaffe and me which for me is a pretty good momento along with the quilt.  I think we might have the same haircut.

And getting back to the quilt, I decided once the top was finished, it seemed that it should be a throw so I backed it with this wonderful rich purple Minky with zig zags.  There's no batting and only light quilting which is perfect for a throw.   Funny during the critique of my top in the workshop, Brandon said that I should back my quilt top with mink and good friend Carol said Minky and that's what I did; it really is perfect for this quilt.  While finishing this throw, I kept humming Lara's theme from Dr. Zhivago since I thought this would be perfect for a sleigh ride with a white horse pulling it but knowing me with the impending winter advisory with lots of snow we're having on Friday, I'll settle for snuggling with it in the warmth of my living room sipping some hot cocoa.

While I was on vacation, I decided to take my Kaffe appliqué project which has been fermenting for well over five years and I just kept putting this project off. I'm so glad that I brought it because it turned out that the resort where we were staying at had no Wi-Fi for the entire week.  It finally came back on the night before we were scheduled to leave so these blocks kept me occupied.  If I were fifty years younger, I would have been lost without Wi-Fi, but in truth, it's nice to have but really not needed as long as there's free Wi-Fi elsewhere.

And last but not least, I will be joining Sandra of mmm! Quilts who will be hosting the Postcards from Sweden QAL which will be starting next week.  It should be no surprise that I've picked out my fabrics which are Kaffe Fassett Shot Cottons with a few Peppered Cottons added.  I also will be happily die-cutting my 4-1/2" HST.

You can read about the Postcards from Sweden QAL here:

Sandra, with all of the other Linky parties she is hosting, pattern designing and an Island Batik Ambassador, is also one of the Co-hosts for the 2018 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop which is near and dear to my heart.  I participated in it last year and it was an invaluable learning experience as well as being fun and definitely a "must do" if you are a new quilt blogger as I was.  This is a great way to meet new and experienced bloggers, introduce yourself to Blogland and many new friendships will be formed.  Registration started on February 1st and you can read about the 2018 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop here:

Now that I'm getting back into my quilting groove, I have some catching up to do with the other QAL's (Classic Meets Modern, Squiggy, and Scrap Attack) I started before I left on vacation which means I have to stay focus for a little while.  It should be no surprise that I bought some fabric while on vacation and really would like to make something with it now.  Stay warm and if you're going to be experiencing snow like I am, i'ts going to be good sewing weather.

Linking up with:  My Quilt Infatuation, Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday, Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday,  Tish's Adventure In Wonderland, UFO Addition

Some Show and Tell Before I Take A Holiday Break

Now that my commitment to the Blanket Ministry has been met, the rush to complete my other projects before the end of the year is on.  This past weekend was a productive one and I must have been still working off of the adrenalin from completing the six baby quilts from last week.

It's great to have another quilt cross the finally finish line and in time for the holiday. I sewed the binding for the quilt made from this past summers 12 Days of Christmas QAL hosted by Sarah Craig of Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  you can read the post here.  Jan, my longarm quilter, again did a wonderful job. While I was making the top, we were experiencing crazy hot weather with lots of rain and now the weather is still sort of unpredictable, cold, rainy and cloudy.  I think the days of taking photos outside when it's sunny are going to be few and far between. 

This is one of the few quilts I've made which has a pieced backing and I used scraps from this project and from stash.  I think the reason why I don't like to piece my backs is the time it takes to make a backing to fit the top; it's like making another quilt top. My son, who held the quilt up for me while I took the photo, does not have the same knack as his father who has earned the title of Master Quilt Holder because father knows how to lower himself so his shoes doesn't show, made the comment that he liked the back of the quilt better than the front of the quilt.  The son also does not have his father's knack for knowing what to say about my quilts.  

The quilt is already hung up in the family room  thanks to father and son who knew I was taking their photo to provide some beefcake to liven up today's post.

The sewing and layout for the Splash of Color QAL blocks, hosted by Myra of Busy Hands Quilts,  you can read about it here was also done this past weekend.  I still have to decide on the sashing and once the top is made, I can write more details about the making of this quilt.  Just to give you a heads up, this quilt was supposed to be pinwheels.

Last month in early October, I attended a Kaffe Fassett workshop and the blocks have been hanging on my design board since then.  I finally sewed the blocks together and added the border and cornerstones.  I needed the design board so I could lay out the Splash of Color  blocks and also was afraid that someone or something was going to knock the blocks off. Here's a sneak peek of the top with the luscious purple Minky which I'll be throwing together and will write a future post about my wonderful Kaffe experience once the throw is completed.  I was tempted to finish it yesterday when the Minky arrived and do a late nighter but decided not to push it since I had to get the house ready for the holiday.

And speaking of taking a holiday break, here is my precious granddaughter who is providing the cupcake to this post to sweeten it up.  Micah will be occupying most of my time when she and her parents arrive this weekend for an eight-day visit.  I don't think I'll have too much time to sew, and if I do, it's probably be something for her.  With this sweet face she's going to get pretty much what she wants.  As you can see, Micah already has the pout down pretty good.

I hope you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving  next week. I am grateful that I will be spending the holiday with family and friends and am thankful for the many things life has brought me this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, Thursday Needle and Thread, Crazy Mom's Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop Friday, and Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday

Hot Flash, The Quilt is Finally Finished

After over a week of 90 degrees weather, it seems rather timely and appropriate that I finally finished my Hot Flash quilt during this heat wave.  I purchased the Hot Flash fabric by Luella Doss and Andrea Schuster around 2012 and but didn't make a quilt top until several years later.  I've been meaning to finish it for the past several years but it still didn't make it on my 2017 Project List.   Since I was sending some other quilts to Jan, my Long Arm Quilter, I decided to add the Hot Flash Quilt top to get it finished once and for all.

I didn't use a pattern for this quilt; I just let the fabric dictate the design and it helps that I have a penchant for making big block quilts whenever I'm working with wonderful big prints.  Only two rows of this quilt were pieced and the rest of the rows were made with just solid pieces of the two large focus prints. Because of the simple design, the quilt looks like it is a panel or cheater cloth and since I backed it with another print from the collection, it hard to tell which is the front and which is the back so I guess you can say I made a reversible quilt.   I mentioned in my last post that I normally don't back my quilts with fabric from the same line but for this quilt I did--I definitely bought this fabric when it was on sale.  

This is the second of the five quilts which were sent out to be quilted. Jan did a wonderful job with the big organic scroll machine quilting and she used a variegated thread which picked up the different colors in this quilt.

I thought I provide some quilt stats so you can see how simple it was to make this quilt.  All of my measurements are divisible by four which helps to make it an easy design.  It's also a quick quilt to finish, either you do it yourself with straight or organic wavy lines  or send it to your long arm quilter.  I spent more time thinking (also known for me as wasting time) if I was going to quilt it myself but again I am glad I decided to send it to Jan.  

Size:  56" x 72"

Side Borders (A):  8"(finished)

Black & White Sashing (B):  4" x 40" (finished) (there are six rows)

Top & Bottom Rows (C): 8" x 40" (finished)

Rectangles, 2nd & 4th Rows (D): 4" x 8" (finished) each row has 10 patches

Center Row (E): 16" x 40" (finished)

Since the in-law arrangements are almost done at my son's house, I will be leaving this quilt there since my sweet granddaughter, Micah Rose, just loves looking at prints, especially ones with black and white.  I'm thinking her eyes are going to be extra stimulated with the Hot Flash Quilt.

And speaking of Micah Rose, when she was visiting several weeks ago, I started working on her first Halloween Quilt.  I happened to be digging around my studio and found a bundle of Halloween prints by KP Kids/Kari Pearson which I know I purchased over ten years ago.  I just love these prints of bright colors which to me don't seem to be as popular today as they were when I first started quilting.  Since the bundle included a panel which featured Kitty Cats in costumes, I thought this would make a cute quilt for Micah, after all there are four cats in their house, but I wanted to make sure her Mom liked the fabric.  She did.

Again, I made a quilt which looks like cheater cloth but only the left side is a panel, the right side is made with twenty-one, 2-1/2" x 20-1/2" cut strips and the black border is 3-1/2" cut strips (the only print which is not a KP Kids print.

Also, I shouldn't call this a quilt but a coverlet since I decided to only backed it with a piece of purple Minky which I had in my stash.  I wanted to put batting in the middle to make it a quilt but if I had, then I wouldn't have been able to use the Minky.  And the purple Minky looked so pretty against the quilt top.  I'll be mailing this quilt to Micah so she has the whole month of October to enjoy it.

So happy to say that I finished two projects which were unplanned but nevertheless is a finish.  With the end of the year fast approaching, I really need to get some more projects on my list finished.  As for my Minus 100 Yard Challenge, it was looking good but since I'll be taking a workshop with one of my first Quilt Idols, Kaffe Fassett in early October, I had to purchase some new fabrics to prepare for his class.  We need twenty half yard cuts and then some for this class. And that doesn't include the border fabric since he wants to help us decide what the border print should be, therefore, won't be purchased until after the class.  Once the new fabric arrives and other things are added and subtracted, I'll be ready to post an updated tally.  I'm still hoping I'm going to meet my challenge.  And if I don't, I'll just have to say it was Kaffe Fassett's fault which wouldn't be the first time I said this.

Linking up with:

My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday

Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish It Up Friday

Confessions of a Fabric Addict:  Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?

Busy Hands Quilts:  Finish Or Not Friday