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

Celestial Moonrise

After finishing my UFO project commitments, studio reorganization, taxes, QALing, a somewhat secret sewing project, etc., I was finally ready in April for easy sewing involving some new fabrics.

Ever since I received my Fat Quarter Sew Sampler box in February which included a junior Jelly Roll of Zen Chic Celestial, I’ve been wanting to make a version of my Staggered Strips and Squares Quilt. It also helped that I already had in my stash another junior Jelly Roll and Fat Quarters of Zen Chic’s Modern Background Even More Background. I still needed to buy additional yardage of the Celestial fabric since I wanted to include more pink and feature the main focus print of the circles and text which ties in most of the colors.

After die-cutting the additional 2.5” strips, I then subcut the approximate 110+ strips into various segments of 5” to wofq depending on the colors. My initial plan was to do a horizontal layout of the strip sets with an 8”(f) square of the focus print but changed it to a vertical layout with an 8”x12”(f) rectangle of the focus print since I love this print so much.

My favorite part of this pattern is first sewing the strips together, then sewing the very long strip together to make two rows and then sewing the two rows together to make a four-row strip set. After this was done, I then subcut twelve 8-1/2”x16-1/2” and three 8-1/2” x 84-1/2” strip sets/panels. This was going to be a quick quilt I thought with a row of the rectangle focus print with an 8-1/2”x16-1/2” strip set alternated with an 8-1/2”x 84-1/2 strip set.

After the flimsy on the left was sewn, the layout looked off balanced with the row of rectangles on the top. I realized I should have started and ended this row with an 8-1/2” square of the strip so I trimmed 8-1/2”off the bottom and then sewed it to the top. But I still was not happy with the way the rectangles looked with the strip sets.

I decided that I wanted the rectangles to “float” more so I added a two row strip set to each side of the flimsy which was an easy fix since I had almost enough left over from the original strip set sewn, I just had to seam rip it apart and then sew some more patches. 

Once I was finally happy with the flimsy, I can say finishing Celestial Moonrise was easy. I had to piece a backing which is something which I do not like to sew but I only had a four-yard piece of the gray Good Neighbor strip. Normally when I use a stripe print for a backing, I like it to run vertically but since I wanted to use this, I was okay with the stripe running horizontally and in order to have enough length, I inserted an 8” strip of the gray Impressions Newsprint which is another print from Connecting Threads (not an affiliate link). Machine quilting went well, and it helped that I was able to use my laser light to keep the lines straight whenever I had to quilt over the rectangles. BTW, when I cut the rectangles, I made sure to cut it so that the circles would be centered on the strip set.

The machine quilting was a combination of straight and curvy lines which is my favorite whenever I make  this pattern. I used the focus print for the binding also which I love how it add an interesting touch to Celestial Moonrise. It almost looks scrappy which I am one who does not like to do scrappy bindings but I might consider it now for the right quilt. This quilt measures 64” x 84”.

I wanted to take a photo of Celestial Moonrise outside and this was the best I could do since today we’re having high winds up to 60+ miles. I really need to stop making such long quilts since the Master Quilt Holder has trouble demonstrating his ability when they’re this long especially since he is experiencing some knee problems now (nothing I did but maybe the darling Granddaughter was involved). As for the Apprentice Quilt Holder, his right arm is in a cast and neither I nor the Granddaughter was involved in this.

Once last photo of Celestial Moonrise and I think the colors of the fabrics look better here. It’s nice to finally make a quilt you’ve been just “itching” to make but you surprisingly stayed on task plus getting to use some new fabric. Now it’s back to the Quilt Mines since I have to start working on my April quilt for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.

Wishing you a Happy and Blessed Easter.

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 

Sandpiper Fling: Fun and A Finally Finished

I mentioned in previous posts that this year I am on a Fabric Fast with a goal of reducing at least 100 yards of fabric from my stash. So far, the stash has been reduced by over sixty yards. My Sandpiper Fling quilt is the first quilt I've finished this year, which includes some new fabrics purchased this year, the Sandpiper and the accompanying solid gray print by Michael Miller, as well as stash. Since the Sandpiper is the focal print, the name of the quilt definitely had to include Sandpiper in it.  When I checked online to see what a group of Sandpipers are called, much to my surprise they are a Fling. Another meaning for "fling" according to the dictionary, is a short period of enjoyment or wild behavior which I think I was experiencing when I purchased this fabric in April which, then, was only the third time I've indulged in some fabric buying.  So, I'm thinking Sandpiper Fling is a pretty appropriate name for this quilt. FYI: all of the photos are in color, they just look like they're black and white or monotone.

When I saw the Sandpiper fabric (upper left corner) in Bernie's Needle and Foot Shop on Etsy, (not an affiliate link) I knew it would go with some of the black,white and gray fabrics in my stash.  This is what I pulled as soon as the Sandpiper and accompanying solid great print arrived.

I was really tempted to make another quilt with my  Staggered Strips and Squares pattern but since I've made four of them last year and have not yet made one this year, I thought I should do something different with the 2.5" strips I die-cut.

I designed an easy quilt with Rail Fence blocks using three different fabrics, Nine-Patch blocks using the same gray solid and brown/black/gray Basic Grunge prints, and then solid patches of the Sandpiper fabric.  The design sheet also helps me to know how many of each blocks are needed but I always make extras.

The Rail Fence blocks are two different sizes:  6-1/2" square and 6-1/2" x 12-1/2" (cut), the Nine Patch blocks are 6-1/2" square and the Sandpiper patches were cut both horizontally and vertically   6-1/2"x 12-1/2".

Using my design sketch as a guide, the blocks were laid out as the same time as the top.

The 12" finished blocks consisted of three patches, one 6-1/2" x 12-1/2" and two 6-1/2" squares.  Since my Sandpiper Fling measures 54" x 72", there is a 6-1/2" x 12-1/2" vertical patch in each row of the quilt.

Once I was satisfied with the layout, i.e., making sure any patches with the same prints were not next to each other,  the blocks were then sewn together and then the Top. Yes, it was sew slowing since I did not want the blocks to get mixed up. Surprisingly, there was only a few times, Sir Seam Ripper was used.

Once the top was finished and I was wondering why I didn't just make this quilt 60" wide instead of 54" wide since I had enough backing fabric of a stripe print and leftover patches. I realized my subconscious or divine intervention was telling me that this top would be perfect for the 60" wide black and white IKEA print sitting in my stash which I've been wanting to use for just the right quilt and Sandpiper Fling was perfect. Doesn't this print look like feathers? I did toy with the idea of using the IKEA print as a guide for machine quilting wavey lines but really would have made me dizzy even though I could hear Roseanne telling me to put on my Big Quilting Gal pants on and just do it.  I opted instead to do my usual wavey lines, 1" apart, gray variegated thread from Connecting threads and the binding sewn by machine was the brown/black/gray Grunge Print.

Sandpiper Fling is definitely a lot quieter that the previous quilts finished this year which were more colorful and bright. It's hard to capture the true colors of the prints in my Sandpiper Fling quilt but there is a purplish gray cast which is quite lovely.  There are so many different shades of gray and I am particularly fond of the ones which I call lilac gray and am glad I was able to use the ones that have been in my stash for so long.  When I was looking for photos on my iPhone for this post, at first glance, I thought they were black and white photos.  It's a good thing I was able to take photos outside so you can see some color.  Otherwise, I needed to add a watermark stating that this is not a black and white photo.

These quilt photos remind me of a current TV commercial where the main actors are in black and white because they are disappointed with their cell phones and the surrounding store and other actors are in bright colors. Same effect in these photos but happy to say that I am not disappointed with all how well these fabrics worked well together and how Sandpiper Fling turned out. But, I am thinking the next quilt I make needs to have some color, bright colors. With next week being the start of the sidewalk sale at a local quilt shop,  I'm hoping I won't be tempted to go shopping. I know I have projects waiting with colorful fabrics and I am on a Fabric Fast.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, NTT