Strips Ahoy, a Nice Nautical Not Naughty Finish

Back in the early part of February, I finally had the chance to work on a new project and was going to play with Janet Clare’s A Field Study fabric line but soon jumped ship when I saw the stash of blue fabrics from her Hearty Good Wishes and More Hearty Good Wishes fabric lines in the stash. My plan was to make another version of my Staggered Strips and Squares pattern but this time instead of using 4.5” Squares I would make 12”x16” blocks to go with the 2.5” strips.

I decided that I didn’t have enough different fabrics from just the Hearty Good Wishes fabrics, so I added fabrics from Janet Clare’s Nocturne and Aubade, some Japanese/Asian prints and a Jennifer Sampou Dot print as well as fabric from Moda’s Indigo line which is over ten years old.

The above are quilts/projects, Skyfall (left) made in Fall, 2021 and the Indigo Tiles Quilt and Everything Bag made in 2017. My Strips Ahoy quilt is now part of the trio of quilts made with Janet Clare’s fabrics in blues and gray and I never get tired of seeing these think these colors together.

The 12”x16” blocks were made from the Hearty Good Wishes and More Hearty Good Wishes charm packs along with yardage of a blue and a tan print. I wanted the Tan Prints only to be used for the blocks and I think this accents nicely against the blue and gray strips. The strip panel was made from over 100 2.5” strips cut in varying lengths and were sewn in four rounds ‘ala jelly roll race to make an eight row panel measuring 16-1/2” high. I also included in this mix a strip panel leftover from the Skyfall quilt.

My initial plan was to randomly place the blocks among the strips but decided on a controlled layout of two different row settings; one with a 36”(f) strip panel framed with a 12”x16”(f) block and the other with three 12”(f) strip panels alternated with two the two blocks. This measured 60” x 80”. I finished the flimsy by the third week of February and could have quilted it then and glad I didn’t. Lessons learned from the Celestial Moonrise Quilt and the Tell Tale Blues Quilt were forgotten and then remembered after looking at this photo when I was at the GP house later and that is I do not like the way blocks look when they are on the edge. 

 

Thankfully I had enough leftover strip panel to take apart to add two rows on the sides and the top and bottom. I think it looks so much better when the blocks “float” next to the strips. Some of the previous Staggered Strips quilts mentioned in this post, the strips were set vertically instead of horizontally but for the Strips Ahoy quilt the strips were set horizontally because I didn’t want the whale and fish prints to be swimming upstream but it looks okay on the side borders.

The backing is a map print that I have been saving for when I ever did make something with the Janet Clare blue fabrics. I only had four yards of it and had to add a gray clamshell print on the sides. I already made the backing with the smaller measurements and thankfully I only had to add a strip on the bottom to accommodate the larger size.

Machine quilting in Aurifil #2610 Blue/Gray thread was done with my usual but favorite straight with meandering lines horizontally but I also added the lines vertically to the side borders to create a grid pattern. The binding is the stripe print from the Hearty Good Wishes line and sad to say I’ve used the last of the yardage. Strips Ahoy measures 68” x 88”. I also like to mention that with all of the changes made, not once did I use any salty language which I have been known to do on previous quilt with a blue or Sea theme.

Strips Ahoy was finished a week ago and I delayed posting about it because I wanted to include some outside photos but the weather has not been co-operating. The first photo we tried to take outside, I realized that it was a tad too wide for the Master Quilt Holder. The plan was to take it to the GP House where the darling Granddaughter will be babysitting us for the next thirteen days and again had to wait several days until the rain stopped. Also, next door is where the Rookie Quilt Holder resides.

The Rookie Quilt Holder assisted the Master Quilt Holder to finally get a nice full-size shot of Strips Ahoy.

I do like this shot also since the house and sky matches the colors of this quilt. Would you believe after these photos were taken and we were inside, the Sun made an appearance.

We will be traveling to the East Coast mainly Maine and Niagara Falls and will be taking this quilt with us since I think I need some photos of Strips Ahoy by the Ocean and Falls. We will be meeting up hopefully with my Bee Sista, Kathleen McMusing, and I’m sure she will know some places to take photos. I’m also pretty sure she won’t be able to hold up the quilt though (a little inside joke here). I do have the perfect bag to carry Strips Ahoy in.

Linking  up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Skyfall

Since I wasn’t home on National Sew A Jelly Roll Day on September 18th, I still wanted to observe it and just finally finished my Skyfall Quilt this past weekend. Looking at this quit, you may think it’s an improv quilt made without a specific intention, but it’s not, it’s more improvise to me because it was made from fabric already set aside and a pattern which didn’t quite worked out as planned.

 

Involved in the making of Skyfall was a Jelly Roll of Janet Clare’s Aubade along with a charm pack and yardage of the same line paired  with HST blocks and yardage of her Nocturne fabric line which came out afterwards. Four years ago, I designed a pattern for Moda Bake Shop called Jelly Roll Charm Chase and always wanted to make another one with the Aubade Jelly Roll and Charm Pack but never did partly because I designed another pattern later called Staggered Strips and Squares which for me is an easier pattern to make. If you’ve made a Jelly Roll Race quilt, there comes a point in the pattern where you have to cut a panel consisting of 32 rows and maybe 120” wide in half vertically and I always have a problem cutting up two equally sized panels. There has been several times I had to even up the panels by at least six inches. I find it easier to sew the rows with strip sets already precut to size rather than cutting the rows to size later. Also with the Staggered Strips and Squares pattern, you can space the fabrics more evenly and avoid globs of the same fabric/color being the same spot which can happen with a Jelly Roll Race quilt. My original plan for the Skyfall quilt was to use the Staggered Strips and Squares pattern but  modified it so the strip sets were 8”(finished) instead of the usual 4” to go with the 8”(finished) HST blocks made several years ago and four-patches made from the Aubade charm pack. Also, the rows would be set vertically instead of horizontally.

After the strip sets were sewn, I knew it wouldn’t look right with them mixed together with the 8” blocks on the same row so I decided to make separate panels of  strip sets  and 8” blocks. Fortunately this change did not affect the the number of strip sets already cut. 

But “dabnabbit” as one says while in the act of improvising, the panels of 8” blocks sewn together were shorter than the strip set panels by 2.5” or 3.5” so extra strips needed to be added and weren’t too noticeable. Of course I didn’t find out the differences in size until I sewed the two panels together the first time because I assumed the block panels were going to be the correct length. I found out while working on Skyfall, that Aubade and Nocturne fabric lines was inspired by the music composed for either the evening or morning skies so I should have been able to hear maybe Claude Debussy “Clair de Lune” playing in my head. But no, instead I heard the sounds of pounding, sawing and jackhammering trying to improvise to get these panels to fit together along with some salty language. 

After much noisy improvising, the top was done and surprisingly while working on it, I did not have a final name for this quilt. When I was going to make a quilt with just HST, inspired by a quilt made by Crazy Mom, Amanda Nyberg, I was going to call it Nightfall. Since there were a lot of light fabrics mixed in with the blues, I wanted to name it reflecting both the night and morning skies and maybe a little disappointment with the way the quilt looked at first, so I jokingly considered calling it Nightmare or Downfall.

Happily while quilting it with a combination of straight and wavy lines, I came up with the name Skyfall which came with a song with the same name by Adele. And yes I was singing it and playing the song while machine quilting which went well and liking Skyfall even more partially due to this quilt finally getting a nice proper name. I used Aurifil #2610 Light Blue Gray for the top and #2605 Gray for the bottom.

Here’s a photo of the backing which is the Jungle Jive print from Blank Textile found in the backing vault.  I thought showing the backing would answer any questions as to why I used  a different color thread for the bottom. The binding is a very dark Navy print from Aubade which I almost wasn’t going to use because it was too dark but decided to use it to justify the dark prints in Skyfall. Plus I had ordered it from a shop in Alaska several years ago after much searching for it and didn’t want the trip to be for naught.

Skyfall measures 64”x80” which is a little too large for the Master Quilt Holder to hold up comfortably. We went to the park for a photo shoot and he was willing to stand up on a park or picnic bench in order for the quilt to hang right but the Wind was just too breezy. Maybe Mother Nature thought I should have named the quilt Windy since there is a song that goes with that name.

Well it turned out the best photo was taken after our park visit from our front porch off to the side where all of the blues showed up beautifully, especially the medium blues. The Wind did not follow us home which made me think of the adage “there’s no place like Home” and did confess to the Master Quilt Holder that we didn’t need to go the park after all. I don’t think he really care since there was no falling off the benches involved.

I had a pretty productive month in September; four Finally Finishes which two commitments were met, a DrEAMi and Skyfall which I’m calling a just because I could when you’re home for five days. Also, with these Finally Finishes meant writing four posts in one month which is something I have not done in awhile. When I started my Blog, I used to write weekly posts which have now evolved into monthly posts for the past two years. But surprise, surprise, I will be writing another Post for October 1st which is the Five Year Anniversary of my something rosemade Blog. I’m doing this mainly to have a record of this milestone and mostly will be just stats, so now I’m off to do some compiling.

P.S., On my last post, I mentioned that I’ve been on a fabric purchasing binge lately which I attributed it to observing my 25 Anniversary of being a Quilter and maybe instead of buying 25 yards of fabric I should instead buy 25 lbs. Well, I am just loving the comment made by Nancy’s husband who said I should purchase 25 bolts of fabric which immediately put him in contention for Best Quilt Husband Ever and had me thinking which bolts of fabrics I would buy. So, maybe a new laptop for my 5 Year Blog Anniversary would be a nice way gift since there’s only so much fabric one can buy, right?

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT Thursday