A Razzle Dazzle Finish

Let me start this Post by saying how much I love my Razzle Dazzle quilt which I finished just less than two months after the flimsy was made in late July. I love the Ruby Star fabrics and the Razzle Dazzle pattern of 18” blocks with a fun twist on a Churn Dash block. I think this quilt lives up to the definition of Razzle Dazzle which means “noisy, showing exciting activity displayed and designed to attract and impress.”

The fabric and pattern are from the Fat Quarter Shop’s Ruby Star Society Quarterly Club I received earlier this year. I belong to several Fat Quarter Shop Clubs and do have to admit that I love receiving monthly or quarterly shipments of fabric. However, there has only been very few times that I actually have made a project using both the pattern and fabrics. When I received this pattern with the 12 fat quarter bundle of fabric from the Linear Floradora and Petunia collections, I knew I wanted to make this quilt because the fabric was fun plus I love big blocks especially when I can die-cut all of the patches. I did make one slight change to the pattern by not using a solid light as shown but instead I paired the fabrics with other fabrics, mostly lights, I had in my Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society stash. This made for a very low contrast or “mush” as I call it and like how busy Razzle Dazzle looks.

The only challenge I had was making sure all of the blocks were made and laid out correctly which was sometimes difficult to determine because of the many prints used.

All of my fabric combinations for each block were fun but the above two are my favorite. You wouldn’t think that a color combination of gold, red orange, lilacs and pinks would work but it does.

Machine quilting with both straight and wavey lines using a medium gray Aurifil thread went well until I was thinking this quilt was Razzle Dazzle with No Frazzle. Then, of course afterwards, came a few rows have tiny puckers here and there. You can’t see them but I know where they are. The backing is a Robert Kaufman wide back print. Surprisingly, one of my favorite parts of my quilt is the gold stripe binding which is a Ruby Star Society Warp and Weft print and was not my first choice. I was going to use a fuchsia print from  another Ruby Star Society collection but decided it wouldn’t look bold enough against the warm prints and glad I found the gold stripe binding in my stash. Razzle Dazzle measures 54” x 72”.

Now that Razzle Dazzle is my second finish for September, I am ready for my next project. I didn’t realize until a few days ago that September 16th is National Sew a Jelly Roll Day. I thought it wasn’t until next weekend which meant I would be at the GP House. I was already planning on making a Ernie Quilt in memory of  Mary Etherington’s beloved American Farm Tiger cat, Ernie.

Mary Etherington designed the first Ernie Quilt which was made with a Denyse Schmidt Jelly Roll back in 2016. Here is the link to Her Post.

I will be making a variation of an Ernie Quilt called Rambling Rows and you can purchase this pattern by sending a check for $5 with a self addressed stamped envelope to Mary Etherington, 2343 Palm Avenue, Garner IA 50438. (Not an affiliate link). Once I make my version, I already know that there will be an explanation behind my quilt. Hopefully, I will be able to explain next week.

Koby, Jr., A Dreamy Dog Daze of Summer Quilt

I posted the Koby, Jr. flimsy earlier this month and, sew and behold, it is a Finally Finished for August. I am calling this a DrEAMi because it “Sew Happened”, really, right during a long stretch of very hot, humid weather. While rummaging through my stash to find fabrics for my Ole Glory Quilt and looking through my bins of Lights, I found a print which I knew was vintage Country Threads fabric because I had seen it when I visited Mary Etherington back in late May.

When we were in her studio, I had asked Mary if I could see the fabrics she designed for Benartex since I thought I never purchased any and expecting she would have a shelf exclusively for them. Surprisingly she only had a piece of this print which was laying on her sewing table. I’m sure if we looked harder we could have found more. So imagine being dumbfounded several months later when I saw yardage of the same print named Welcome  which probably have been sitting in my stash for years. I’m wondering if I bought it when I visited her shop the first time ten years ago.

After the Ole Glory Flimsy was made, I pulled out some “old friends”of mostly Jan Patek prints because I love making quilts with the color combination of red, beige, black and sage which you will see later. 

I knew the pattern I was going to use was Koby designed by GE Designs and it is a wonderful pattern (not an affiliate link) named after her dog. I love the layout of rectangles and strips or bricks and strips as I call it. The reason for naming this Koby, Jr is because I changed the dimensions of the patch sizes and although I do own three Stripology rulers I did not use them but instead my die cutter. I thought it would be appropriate to refer to Koby, Jr since there are several dog references especially the dog you see in the print which I recognized immediately when I found the Welcome fabric.

This pattern sews up fast and is a great stash buster. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a very versatile pattern and the bricks and strips can be laid horizontally for another great look.

Machine quilting with a CT Essential Thread in Barn Red with straight and wavy lines was fast and easy. The backing from the vault was a Free Spirit Print, My Sweet Sister Emma which was perfect. 

Koby, Jr was finished just in time to bring it the next day to Good Peep Mary’s beautiful house where I could take some photos there. I had to include a photo of Koby, Jr with her two Australian Doodles, Tater (L) and Pudge (R) since there is sort of a dog theme in this post and also I love seeing photos of dogs and cats with quilts, especially the ones posted by Joyfully Tracie with her dog Wally.  Just saying Wally and Pudge would make a cute couple and Tater reminds me of the dog in the Welcome fabric. Good Peeps Mary, Linda and I had a slow stitch day and I’ll be posting what I made and finished in the next post.

As I mentioned earlier in my Post, I love making quilts with the Red, Beige, Black and Sage color combination and since these quilts reside at the GP House because it goes well with the farmhouse decor, I thought I take a group shot of the five I’ve now made. Going from right to left, they are in chronological order of when they were made, the first two made over ten years ago and the third and fourth made around five years ago. The fourth quilt which was the last one I’ve made with this color combination and was finished in 2019, so it’s been four years, another good reason why I made Koby, Jr. By the way, the latest three quilts have a Mary Etherington influence either by fabric, fabric bomb (an unexpected fabric exchange where only one person is involved) or by pattern. Now before the month of August is over in a few days, I have another Post to write because I have three more Finally Finishes. Per usual, I never do what I say I’m going to do in my Posts, as in my July Post, I said I was going to take it easy by only finishing one project but instead I did six. August did seem like it lasted forever especially with the hot weather.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Celebrating My Country Threads Camraderie

Ever since I began quilting over twenty-five years ago, the Country Threads Quilt Shop (Country Threads) has been part of my quilting life. It started the good old fashioned way before the worldwide web when I received a catalogue around twenty-seven years ago from Quilt Farm, a shop or a mail-order company located in Minnesota and one of the first places I purchased fabric through the mail. Besides offering fabric and notions for sale in their catalog, they wrote tidbits and going-ons and mentioned that they were collecting blocks for a wedding quilt to be made for the then Mary Tindall for her upcoming marriage to Rick Etherington. But our friendship did not start with quilting, so I thought, but after subscribing to the Country Threads Goat Gazette, I was so smitten with Mary’s goat Susannah who was famous for her antics around the shop and most notably being caught inside the UPS truck. Fast forward to more than ten years later during which time, I purchased numerous Country Thread books and patterns, most notably made a Bulls-Eye Quilt, I finally met Mary at the Rosemont Quilt Show in early 2013(?) and did I talk to her about their lovely quilts, No,  it was all about Susannah. It was at that time I decided that I would one day visit her shop in Garner, Iowa which was a Quilters’ Mecca back then.

I finally met Susannah in August, 2013 and brought her many treats which she enjoyed very much. As I was preparing to write this Post and looking through photos, I was surprised to see  that my camraderie with Mary and Connie Tesene is less than ten years old. It seems like I’ve known them forever. The word Camraderie is defined as “mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together” which I think includes time spent online. Although I only visited Mary six times during the past ten years, we keep in touch almost every day through her Blog, emails or text messages. 

On several occasions we have exchanged fabric bombs and gifts through the mail or in person. On my recent visit in May, I brought Mary and Connie one of my feedsack mats in a wire basket (which I will write about someday) and I received a lovely pouch made by Connie who also makes the best rhubarb pie.

There is a “business” side to our Camraderie and that is my participation for the past three years in the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge which I listed twelve UFOs which mostly have been flimsies needed to be quilted. The Challenge starts in July and ends in June of the following year and I have been successful each year in finishing twelve quilts, one for each month and some of them being UFOs for over twenty years. I like to say that by participating in this Challenge, it has made me an honest quilter by making me work on projects I call “have to dos” and giving me some sort of focus. The 2022/23 Challenge was a little different than previous years whereby besides working on an UFO which was determined by the number drawn, you can now work on a project determined by a Color drawn for the month. I added something to the challenge with three more categories which included a Designer, Fabric Stash and Scraps which gave me a choice of sixty projects for the year. I thought I didn’t do to well but if you base it on only ten projects needed to be finished because we were off in January and February and that flimsies counted, I did pretty well because I finished thirteen quilts and made seven flimsies.

While I was on vacation during May/June and remembering that the old Challenge was ending and a new one beginning in July, I came up with my projects which I make a monthly photo collage so I know what was up when the number and color was drawn. I want to mention that I’m not doing a project based on color but am doing a true Bakers Dozen by coming up with thirteen months and five categories which are, Flimsies to be Quilted, UFO- Projects Started or Kits,  Fabric Designer, Fabric Stash and Scraps. This makes 65 projects to choose and it’s going to be a fun year. I’ve added the seven flimsies made from last year to this year’s Challenge. BTW, Mary added something different to this year’s Challenge by including another category called an Extra Credit Challenge which you can read about in this Post.

No. 7 was pulled for July and I am so excited because I have five projects to choose from: the FALLoween # 2 to be quilted, the Wensleydale blocks to be sewn together, the Fat Quarter Shop Razzle Dazzle pattern to be made with Ruby Star Fabrics, the Lucy June fabrics designed by Lila Tueller and scraps from Crazy Mom Good Neighbor fabric line. One of these projects will hopefully be a Post in July.

Now back to the fun part. Mary sent me a very lovely “exchange” several weeks ago which was her “Oh, Susannah” book and I waited to post until  today which is Mary’s birthday and she’s posted about this Book. It might not be unusual now to have a Goat in the House but back then it was and I made a friendship because of this. I love seeing the photos of Susannah and I should mention that I have several photos of her in my studio.The Master Quilt Holder who has been butted by Susannah and still complains about it was wondering why this wasn’t mentioned in the book. Mary said if she had listed everyone who Susannah bestowed this love tap too,  the book would have more pages, maybe the size of  a phone book—that’s a good old fashioned vision, isn’t it. Mary is selling Oh Susannah and you can order one for $20 which includes shipping and tax. You can send a check made out to Mary Etherington, 2345 Palm Ave., Garner, IA 50438 (this is not an affiliate link). I will be reading this book to the darling Granddaugher and I will be protecting it as she has a rather mean hand with a crayon.

Now that I realize that this year is a ten-year anniversary and needs to be celebrated, I’m going to have a Camraderie Chat with Mary. We were already planning on sewing an Ernie Quilt in September but maybe I need to do a two day visit in the Fall with sewing in the Shop, entertainment by the Master Quilt Holder and Mary’s sister Becky Rose who have formed a musical duo and maybe order Pizza from any place other than the last place we ordered. I mentioned earlier in this Post, that our friendship didn’t start with Quilting but maybe in a way it was prophetic because the wallhanging above was purchased for my Family Room at a craft fair in 1997. I did not find out until years later that this was a Country Threads pattern. It is a small world when Quilting is involved.

A Nice and Not So Crazy November

For a lack of a clever post title, I'm calling what this November was all about despite being another month which went by so fast that I didn't realize until last weekend that Thanksgiving and the end of the month was happening this week.  Since deciding to only post once a month now, it seems that this only makes the month go by faster, especially when you're traveling to and from the Grandparent House.  It seems that again my Finally Finishes involve two quilts for the month; one being a have-to-make and a very old UFO which both was needed to decorate the walls at the Grandparent House.

We're at the stage where quilts are migrating to the Grandparent House, mostly quilts for the beds and chairs and a few for the walls.  I needed a wall quilt to hang on the wall in the living room opposite to my Country Threads 2014 BOM Quilt which I finally have a place to hang it up.  Fortunately the stars were aligned for me to make just the right wall quilt to complement the BOM quilt.

This is the year that I've been able to make quilts with fabrics sitting too long in my stash and I've been wanting to make something with a Kaye England collection of fabrics called Birds of a Feather purchased years ago along with some never-used Civil War prints.  Having just received my copy of Country Threads A Country's Call which is their latest book featuring traditional/Civil War prints and my wanting to make the "First Lessons" quilt pattern, I knew this would make the perfect wall quilt to complement the BOM Quilt.  With a little modification to the pattern because of the size of the Bird of A Feather panel and adding sashing to make the quilt bigger, this quilt was a dream to make.  If I had a Good Quilt Karma Reward Card, I got to use it for this quit.  The fabrics played nicely together, having the black and white crosshatch fabric, which is a ten years old print, in my stash for the sashing and binding and the backing was an old Jinny Beyer print already sewn and I was going to cut it up for rug weaving and I didn't--how lucky can one quilter be.  The "First Lessons" pattern is great for using a focal print/panel and strips in various widths.

One of the things I like about the quilts in all of the Country Threads Civil War Quilts series is the straight-line quilting which is may be unusual to see modern quilting on Civil War/Reproduction fabrics but it looks wonderful together.  For my Birds of A Feather Quilt, I did vertical straight line quilt, 1" apart, thank you quilting guide which made my stitching nice and even, with Connecting Threads' Essential Thread, Silver on the top and Gray on the bottom.  This quilt measures approximately 48" x 60".

Here's a photo of the two quilts on the wall and besides both of them being Country Threads patterns, they also feature Kaye England fabrics.

Here's a photo of Hubby, aka, Master Quilt Holder and House Fixer Upper, demonstrating he is also a Master Quilt Hanger getting ready to hang the Bird of A Feather Quilt next to his new recliner.  This is going to be a cozy corner for he and the Granddaughter who likes birds and the alphabet.

The other Finally Finish is another wall quilt which was a really old UFO from the twentieth century and had it not been for my creating a Cowboy Corner in the front hallway and coming across it while I was searching for something else in the cabinet, this may have not ever been finished.  The top was sewn over twenty years ago and I remember when I made it, the day after Roy Rogers passed away in July of 1998.  I used a Mary Ellen Hopkins pattern and some Cowboy prints I had in my stash.  Yep, this old quilter who had a 50's childhood liked her Cowboys and horses, especially Roy Rogers and Trigger.  I called this quilt Happy Trails and I know why I never quilted it because I wasn't quite sure back then how I wanted to and it just took me twenty years to figure out that simple diagonal lines quilted in black would do.

Happy Trails measures 30" x 38".  Like some of my other quilts finally finished this year, the weather did not co-operate, and I had to take indoor photos.  Hope you can see how vibrant the colors are in this quilt.  I love the Alexander Henry Cowboy print as well as the Cowboy riding the tornado which I remember a Pecos Bill cartoon with the same theme. I thought I was going to have a problem with binding this quilt because since this top was made so long ago and I had not yet instituted my learned practice from binding boo-boos of always putting away fabric for the binding right away in the drawer, I thought I was going to have to spend time looking for the right fabric.  Lucky for me I found a half yard of the black and natural Debbie Mumm print used in this quilt right away in my stash.  Whew!!!! And when the Roy Rogers prints came out years later,  you know I did buy yardage of it and made the quilt on the right  which is already sitting on the chair in the hallway at the Grandparent House and waiting for Happy Trails to hang right next to it.

I was looking forward to not having to shop both online and in the stores for the Grandparent House since I think we're pretty much done but now it time to shop for the holidays.  I'm starting on the Christmas quilt makes and hopefully things will sew well.  A nice and not so crazy December would be something to have now, wouldn't it.  I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving week and am glad I had one.  Have fun with all of your holiday sewing and let's not do crazy.

Kaffe Fassett Stripe Quilt: Another Ernie Quilt Finally Finished

It's been awhile since I've made an Ernie Quilt and it's one of my favorite patterns because I just love making quilts with 2.5" strips.  I've had the Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton and Woven Stripes strips die-cut and ready to sew since last year and finally had the opportunity to make this quilt since buying my new, sweet, very portable Juki HZL-70 HWA sewing machine which meant I am now able to sew in the kitchen while watching TV, a cause for much of my quilting downtime.

I posted several times about Ernie quilts HERE, THERE and IN BETWEEN.

While my Postcard from Sweden Quilt was being made, (you can read about it here), I started working on the Kaffe Stripe Quilt because I was loving the Shot Cottons and knew I had this project on the back burner--talk about constant Kaffe.  I consider this to be a DREAMi project and finally have something to cross out from one of my project lists I made too many of for this year.

I have to show you my "No Rose, You Didn't" backing for this quilt.  I do not like making pieced backings. To me it's just like making another quilt top and when I'm in a hurry to finish a quilt, I don't want to sew another quilt top.  I have a pile of quilt tops laying around in my studio and I knew laying in the pile was an 84" square top made from big patches of Kaffe fabric which may have been a modified Turning Twenty pattern, a pattern when it was first released, I couldn't stop making them.  It took me a couple of hours to remove some of the rows of this quilt top so I could use it for the backing since I really didn't have anything else in my stash vault that would be as neat as this quilt top was and besides I've come down with a slight case of not wanting to buy any new fabric (I hope this "virus" goes away real soon). Who knew five years ago I was making a future quilt backing when I made this top.  I just love the big purple cabbages. I'm thinking I may have made several quilt backings already and may be making more now without knowing it.

I don't usually talk about the color thread I use for machine quilting because I not very good at choosing a color and I mostly quilt with a light gray.  I knew gray wasn't going to work well with this quilt and luckily I had in my Connecting Threads Essential Thread stash (no affiliate link here) a spool of the Fawn thread which is an apricot beige thread which worked very well with blending in with the many colors in this quilt.  I am loving the quilting which sewed like butter on my Juki 2010Q and I could have finished the quilting in one sitting if I didn't have to go to bed at 3am in the morning--I didn't want to stop.  The quilt is bound with a solid Chartreuse Shot Cotton which was the only solid color that I had enough for the binding and fortunately worked very well.

I was really hoping to take a perfect photo of my Kaffe Fassett Stripe Quilt while in Myrtle Beach; one with it laying on the sand, sunset on the sea with a whale breaching in the background, perfectly centered on the horizon (just for Sandra) but it was not to be had--the wind was something fierce--20 to 30 mph.  It wasn't fun for the Master Quilt Holder on the balcony nor could the quilt stay on the railing at the beach. The best photos were taken either in the elevator lobby or inside the condo where we were staying.  Plus, there was no way I was going to lay it on the sand since I had visions of it parasailing over the Atlantic Ocean and onto the whale's back (again this vision prompted by Sandra's request and maybe to make it a tale, Louise (Quilt Odyssey) will rescue it during her sea travels).

I had planned to sew the binding while traveling to Myrtle Beach, but I ended up finally finishing the quilt right before we left (I'm beginning to like the look of machine sewn binding).  I definitely wanted to take photos of this quilt and my Postcard from Sweden Quilt here in warm, sunny weather since we're experiencing far too little of it in the Midwest as you can see from this photo taken on a snowy Sunday, the day before we left.  I really put the Master Quilt Holder to the test when I kept repeating to make sure the quilt does not touch the ground and get wet.  He did a practice stoop down before we went outside.  I think the quilt photographed better in Myrtle Beach, despite the wind, don't you agree?

I do hope you check out the links for the Ernie Quilts, especially the first one since it's about my dear friend Mary Etherington who started me on my Ernie adventures.  Like the old commercial saying goes "Try It, You'll Like It!".

Hubby and I will be traveling back home this Friday and look what awaits me when I return, my Dot Dot Dash blocks from Christa Watson's Piece and Quilt with Precuts book which were made during upstairs sewing time with my sweet little Juki. Also, Sandra of mmm! Quilts will be starting her Second Annual Quilt Along: Adult Plus Playtime Quilt, (you can read about it here) on April 24th. I had a fun time doing her Free Fall QAL last year and this year's pattern is not going to disappoint since I'll be using some of my Alison Glass Chroma fabrics. I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove since there's not much sewing happening in Myrtle Beach because I wanted to give my hands some rest.

And one more thing, this Sunday, April 22nd, I'll be posting my project for the 30 Quilt Block in 30 Days Blog Hop so I hope you'll check it out. (you can see it here)

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

Throwback Thursday: My 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt

Sandra of mmm! Quilts is hosting or as she is calling it "babysitting" the Throwback Thursday Linky Party which I am happy to be participating for the very first time. I've only been blogging since October, 2016 and may have come across a few posts while scrolling through Blogland but may not have know what this linky party was all about until I read Sandra's posts (you can read about it here) and (here) and thought that this something I could do. After all, one of the reasons why I started blogging was so I could better explain some of my quilts which I couldn't do on Pinterest nor Facebook.  I've been quilting for over twenty years and some of my quilts were made with stories. The quilt I thought I share my first story on Throwback Thursday is my 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt.

There's a number of reasons why I thought this quilt would make a good story because it was started at almost the end of the 20th Century (1999) and finished right at the almost beginning of the 21st Century (2000) and was made by three quilting friends and myself which at that time we didn't realize this was a QAL.  We were inspired by the cover quilt on the book Quilts by Aunt Amy written by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene whom I now know personally and I've done some QALs and fabric exchanges, willing and unwilling with them.

At this time, we're talking traditional quilting being the way norm, the Bulls-Eye quilt was so "radical" (I don't think the word "modern" was used then) with the raw edge appliqué and the wonkiness (and I also think "improv" wasn't used too) of the circles, cut freehand not matching up.  I loved this quilt as soon as I saw it and appealed to me as the failed appliquér and somewhat a rebel because I didn't prewash my fabrics.  So, the four of us came up with some ground rules once we decided we wanted to make this quilt and to the best of my recollection this is what we did:

• we had a fabric exchange party when we swapped squares of light and printed fabrics in a certain size of what we considered "ugly" fabrics which were the calicos, florals, reproductions and the "inexpensive" which also meant no new fabric was suppose to be bought; we had to use stash-- sort of ahead of our quilt time, weren't we?
• the circles were precut and the different sizes were placed in separate bags and you had to use the one pulled and the only time you could put it back was if it was the same color as the previous circle--fun, right?
• we agreed that the circles would be sewn with a running stitch and not a fancy stitch like a zig-zag, etc; after all speed was part of the plan
• we exchanged quarter circle blocks within a certain time frame so the Bulls-eye blocks could be made 

I thought I add a little tidbit about what happened after we exchanged the quarter circle blocks is that the one who complained the most about making this quilt was the first one to complete her top and another one who thought she would be the second one to be done was overtaken by me who rounded the corner and beat her to the finish line.  To this day, these two are still my dearest peeps and we still get together but not very often does it involve quilting.

Here are some close-ups where you can get a better look at the wonderful wonkiness and "ugly" but interesting fabrics used in making the Bulls-eye blocks.  Part of the fun in making this quilt was that the edges of the circles would fray after washing and as you can see, I never washed it because this quilt is a permanent fixture on my quilting rack and doesn't get used.  My quilt was sent to a longarm quilter who was just starting her business and she quilted it with wonderful swirls.  She did mention that the quilting wasn't easy because the edges of the circles would flip over and she would have to pin them down.  I worked with her then at the quilt shop and she may have sent me some daggers with her eyes. I think she may have said she never wanted to quilt another Bulls-eye quilt which may have been hard for her to refuse because these quilts were getting popular to make.

My 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt is one of the very few quilts I made that I've labeled and the reason for doing this, remember this was made during traditional quilt time and there was a lot of talk about preserving our quilt history,  I envisioned this quilt being one of few of mine which survived in the far future and possibly people wondering what was I thinking when this quilt was made.  I figured I save them some research time and also to let them know I wasn't crazy then when this quilt was made.  Sorry, I blocked out the names of the other quilters in order to protect their sanity.  Looking back now with the modern quilt techniques well into place, this quilt really doesn't need any explanation (modern versions of this quilt are being made) except maybe for the fabrics which are so yesterday, but  I might add, I still love looking at them.

Around ten years after the first Bulls-eye quilt was made, I made a second one with the leftovers from the first one and additional "ugly" fabrics accumulated since then as part of a UFO Challenge which Mary and Connie hosted in 2012 or 2013.  I might mention, making a Bulls-eye quilt is like starter dough for a friendship cake, the circles you cut just keep on going, you'll understand once you know the construction method. The second quilt, laying on the chair, is still not finished and I've been tempted to finished it with simple quilting in the ditch.  It would be too funny if I happened to find the longarm quilter who quilted the first one and jokingly ask her if she would be willing to quilt the second one for me--funny, but not nice.

The 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt was really a lot of fun to make and it is a great way to use up the stash.  I'm thinking I could make one with "modern" fabrics against gray and low volume fabrics since I've built up quite a stash of these fabrics now.  This definitely would make a great DREAMi project.

To paraphrase a line from the 50's TV Series "Naked City", there are eight million quilt stories out there, this has been one of them.  I'll be linking up with Sandra and hopefully you will join in the Throwback Linky party with one of your stories.

It's the Ernie Interruptus Quilt's Turn To Be Finally Finished

I made and finished this quilt while I was waiting for the birth of my first granddaughter, Micah in March, and previously posted about the inspiration, stats and the thinking behind the making of this quilt, you can read the post here.  It only took me four months to finally quilt it and I was probably working off the adrenalin from quilting the Dear Tula Pink quilt last week.

I backed this Ernie Quilt with some of the few remaining yardage I have of the Ikea Nummer fabric which I dearly love and only use it for my modern quilts which are Nummer worthy.  If I could be granted one quilting wish, it would be for Ikea to bring back this fabric because it is so perfect for backings.  As you can see, I did straight line quilting along each strip row with intermittent diagonal quilting. The quilt feels so nice and soft.

This is the fourth quilt in the Ernie Quilt series I made which was inspired by Mr. Quilt Muse himself, Ernie Jo Mauer, the American Farm Tiger owned by Mary Etherington, Country Threads, who also made the first Ernie quilt, you can read the post here.  The Ernie Quilts are strip blocks made with 2.5" strips which can be made any size depending on the fabric or jelly roll you may have.  This is one of my favorite patterns since I can use my die-cutter to make the strips and also a great way to use up stash and scraps.

These are the other three "Ernie" quilts I've made and you can see this pattern is so versatile and can be made with modern, traditional, reproduction, etc. fabrics.   I have other "Ernie" quilts lined up to make which I can't wait to make--I have some new Cotton+Steel prints in my stash--whoo-hoo!

I'll wait until the next post to give an update to my Minus 100 yards Challenge. I thought I finally stopped shopping but then Crazy Mom's new fabric line "Emma & Myrtle" came out and I had to buy the four yards I just had to have now which should be arriving soon.  Hopefully I can get some quilt tops done to reduce the stash down before then.

Linking up with:

My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday

Confessions of a Fabric Addict:  Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?
Busy Hands Quilts:  Finish Or Not Friday
Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework: Oh Scrap
Main Crush Monday