Sweetwater Rambling Rows Xmas Quilt

 

It’s been over a month since my last Post and I have been absent from the studio with several visits to the GP House, attending Hubby’s final band gigs and, most importantly, prepping the house for the darling Granddaughter’s visit to our house in almost five years. And when she was here with her father (my youngest son) this meant there were several visits to family and friends, a Baby Christening which my son was the Godfather and a fun children theme park which she would have like to go there everyday thereafter. I, also, have been spending some time with some EPP projects and will be a topic for another Post.  Despite nursing a Cold along with Hubby, I finally spent some time in the studio this past weekend and have three finally finishes, one the Sweetwater Rambling Rows Xmas Quilt which I’ll share some details in this Post and the other two finishes will be another Post for later in the week.

I finished the Sweetwater Xmas Quilt back in early November. It was on my project list to finally make a Rambling Rows Quilt with several of Sweetwater fabrics lines I have acquired during the past years which  included On Dasher, The Cookie Exchange, Main Streeet, Hometown and Countdown to Christmas. Sweetwater fabrics hold a special place in my quilting memory since I made my Hometown Christmas Jelly Roll Charm Chase Quilt for Moda back in 2017. To be honest, since designing this pattern for jelly roll or 2.5” strips, I much rather use my Staggered Strips and Squares pattern or the Rambling Rows Pattern designed by Mary Etherington, Country Threads. The difference between these two patterns is that the strips sets are either made with two or four different fabrics. They both have the randomness look of a Jelly Roll Race quilt but eliminates having to cut a strip set of thirty-two rows apart and you can plan the layout of your fabric strips. I modified the Rambling Rows pattern to include 8” four-patch and rail blocks.

For the backing, I used a teal plush which I had in my stash. Normally when I use a plush fabric, there is no batting in the middle and I call it a Throw/Patchwork Blankie. This time because the plush was thin like a jersey knit fabric, I did include batting and this quilt has a nice weight. I machine quilted using a white polyester thread with both straight and wavey lines. The binding was one of the black Sweetwater prints used in the quilt. Sweetwater Rambling Rows Xmas Quilt measures 56” x 80”.

Here’s a pic of the Sweetwater Rambling Rows Xmas Quilt with the Hometown Jelly Roll Charm Chase Quilt. Even though they were made seven years apart, they do look similar, don’t they? The Ramblng Rows quilt will be gracing the darling Granddaughter’s bed at the GP House, just in time for Christmas. Because of our Colds, our GP visit has been delay which means I might be able to finish a Christmas UFO.

The Scrambling Ernie Quilt

Last Saturday was National Sew A Jelly Roll Day and my plan was to make an Ernie Quilt which uses 2.5” strips in memory of Mary Etherington/Country Threads late cat Ernie who passed away in late May. Even though I didn’t sew a Jelly Roll which I had a few in my stash, I think my bases were covered by using all Moda prints and Mary’s latest pattern Rambling Rows which is a variation of an Ernie Quilt. What’s especially nice is that Scrambling Ernie only took me six days to finish despite having a busy weekend involving Hubby having two band gigs and  an outing with the Peeps and our husbands.

First, a little background on the Rambling Rows pattern. Back in July, I sent Mary a pic of my FALLoween II quilt which was my July finish for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. Several of her followers asked her for a pattern for this quilt which was my own design based on the Sandy Gervais fabrics I had in my stash.

I gave Mary the measurements of the blocks and then she tweaked, wrote and drew up the pattern and she made the above quilt. When she first sent me the photo, I thought it was a Jelly Roll Race quilt but it’s the pattern we named Rambling Rows. I love how scrappy Mary made hers with Denyse Schmitz scraps and how much more random her layout is versus FALLoween II. This pattern really is versatile since you can improvise by changing the size of the blocks/strip sets which Mary did since she ran out of Denyse Schmitz scrap and used other fabrics in her stash. I love how her strips sets are not like the usual Ernie strips which uses only two fabrics,  which contrast with each other by color or value and looks like stripes, but four different fabrics. 

I wanted to make a Rambling Rows quilt using my Moda’s Sweetwater stash of different collections: Authentic, Pure, Hometown, Sew Noteworthy, Make Life, Road 15, Wishes, Branded, etc. and needed some help with the gray and black fabrics which are from Jen Kingwell, Basic Grey, and Blackbird Designs. I love Sweetwater fabrics and they have a special place in my quilt memories since I used their Hometown Christmas fabrics for the Jelly Roll Charm Chase Quilt I did for Moda Bake Shop. I love that their collection always include some text prints and the special green I call Citronickle. I thought I had a lot of Sweetwater fabrics as my bin is full, but apparently I missed buying fabric from forty of their other collections.

After my blocks and strip sets were made, I first laid them out randomly and did not like the way it looked. To me the problem were the red blocks which after looking at Mary’s quilt, I should have used two different fabrics for the top and bottom strips and not just one. So, I was scrambling to make what I had work which meant putting back the red and yellow strips I had taken out and adding more blue and green blocks. BTW, the yellow strips reminded me of scrambled eggs which is another reason for naming this quilt Scrambling Ernie. At first, I wasn’t happy with the layout I ended up with thinking that it was too planned but realized that this is the layout for Rambling Rows. It helps to make the strips sets with four different fabrics instead of two. I already have another one in the works and this time for it to look more random,  I will use four different fabrics in four different for the strips so it will not look like stripes and two different strips for the blocks.

Here are some close-ups of the fabrics from different collections which played so well with each other. The multi-color orange peel print on the bottom right, just above, was what I used to based my fabric selection. Machine quilting using CT Essential Thread in Stone and there was no problem with my usual straight and wavey line quilting. I had wanted to use a black/white mini check by Urban Chix but I did not have enough and was resolved to used another Moda print for the binding which ended up to be the gray and white Pinwheel print by Sweetwater. The backing which is the only print not by Moda and is a print I purchased several years ago from Joann’s. I thought it went well and there’s less yardage now in the backing vault. Scrambling Ernie measures 56” x 80”. 

Here are the three Rambling Rows together where you can see how the layout and fabrics used makes a difference. I can see for myself now that making the strip sets with four different fabrics does really make the Scrambling Ernie fun. I remember when I finished FALLoween II, I wasn’t too thrilled with it and probably because planning and balancing the layout was so tiring. I really love the improv look and randomness of Mary’s Rambling Row. The Rambling Rows patterns can be purchased by sending a $5.00 check with a SSAE to: Mary Etherington, 2345 Palm Avenue, Garner, IA 50438. This really is a fast and fun pattern which can be used with scraps or stash. There are other patterns in her shop and purchasing a pattern helps supports her blog, which I found out fees can be expensive, as well as leasing a copier, etc. You can read about Mary’s blog about “Nothing” Here. This is not an affiliate link, just introducing someone who is fun to know.

I was hoping to take some outdoor photos of  Scrambling Ernie at home or at the GP House but it’s been rainy at both places so I only have indoor photos. Now that we’re at the GP House, I realized that Scrambling Ernie will be staying here in our bedroom where it will hang on the quilt rack directly across from the Sweetwater Road 15 wall hanging. Sweet, right?

Update: Of course the day after I posted, the Sun came out so I could finally take a photo outside.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT