Week Days with Ernie & Friends

I'm back from Garner, IA after just spending over a little over 24 hours with Mary & Connie and Gang for a little bit of sewing, a lot of talking, laughing, eating, fabric exchanging and getting over- stimulated with new ideas and projects.  You can see our activities on Mary's blog here:  Country Threads Chicken Scratch.

 I thought I do a quick post of the photos I took that aren't on Mary's blog.

Here I am with my quilt muse, Ernie Joe Mauer, the inspiration for the Ernie Quilts.  Boy, is he one big, heavy dude!  And yes, he blessed the Ernie II quilt, although I had to bribe him. The visit would not have been complete without feeding Emma and Charlene.

We took a quick visit/tour of Connie's studio.  Both Connie and Mary have studios to die for, a separate space from their house.  Connie lives in the city proper and her studio is above the garage. (BTW, I am not the best photographer when I'm excited, so I apologize for the lighting, shadows, etc., plus I really need a new iPhone.)

This is the stairway leading up to Connie's studio and photos of some of her creations she has in her wonderful space.  I wish I took more photos since her walls were filled like a gallery.

I'm sorry that I didn't take photos of her actual studio because by that time I was over-stimulated with all of the visual yummies and projects she had going.  You have to believe me when I say her space was wonderful; there was even a full bathroom!

Here's the group project which Connie has put together for us: Red Pepper Quilts Pickle Dish Variation Quilt.  On a side note, Mary and I decided that Connie couldn't propose one until she completes one of the projects we did as a group, i.e., Gypsy Wife, rug, etc. but somehow she managed to slip a few in like the Wildflowers.  I was open to doing this because I know I can die-cut the pieces and it is a great pattern for the modern fabrics.

And look at the portfolio/envelope she is making with Kraft-tex, something I never knew about and have to check this out because next to fabric, I like paper and boxes.  I have some little orphan blocks that would work with this idea.  And Kraft-tex comes in different colors too.

In between all of this, we ate out at Matt's and the Pizza Ranch, stayed at the Garner Inn which was very nice, did a quick visit at Farm Chicks Quilts,  I really needed to stay longer. But when you have dogs and a son who could only dog sit for only a day,  Bill and I had to go home.  BTW, while I was sewing, Bill did a bike ride on the Trolley Trail in Clear Lake, drove by the Surf Ballroom which unfortunately was closed, had a guitar sing along with Becky and visited with Rick.

I have to admit I almost changed my mind about coming to visit with what happened this week but decided to Sew Forth.  Even though I have my differences with Connie and Mary, most notably, I like to die-cut and they don't, Connie likes appliqué, paper-piecing and small pieces while I like the big patches and Mary and I do crazy while Connie is the sane one, I am glad for this time we had together.  Sometimes you have to disconnect from the big world and connect with your small circle where differences aren't as bad as they seem. WE bring good things to life.  I know when I resume working on the Marcia Derse Alphabet panel and fabrics, my original thought of just using her fabrics have changed to Mary's & Connie's rule of never using just one designer's fabric but using others to make it your own.

 If I ever run away from home, you know where I will be.  Here's to good sewing friends to make life happy and bright!

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.