It’s an OFF (October Fabric Foraging) Month

I’m using the word “foraging” loosely in this post since the truest meaning involves the acquisition of food by hunting and in my case I’m replacing “food” with fabric which helps explains how my Finally Finish and Flimsies came to be in October.  It started with my foraging in my Halloween stash  to make face masks after having a funny exchange with Demando asking me to make him a Halloween mask, responding with a “you know you’re 38 years old look” and then realizing he meant a face mask made with Halloween fabric. I came across some wonderful collection of past purchases and decided I needed to make some quick projects with them after putting it off for so many years.  I would like to mention that fabric foraging was very frequent during the days we weren’t at the GP House.

The first project which is a Finally Finished is the Mr. Halloween table runner which I had a charm pack, a fat quarter and some yardage of this past Thimbleberries collection.  I only had a fat quarter of the wonderful focal print which I wanted to keep intact so I designed a table runner around that and used the charm pack as accent squares along with the stripe fabric.

Quilting was simple wavey lines with black Aurifil thread.  Normally I don’t back my quilt with fabric from the same collection but decided to use the orange/black argyle print since I wasn’t able to use it in the top and didn’t think I would have another use for it since I have very few pieces left of the Mr. Halloween collection now; okay maybe enough for some placemats. This table runner measures 20”x38” and it’s a wonderful addition to the other Halloween/Fall quilts adorning the house now.

The next project is the door quilt made with Robert Kaufman’s Eerie Alley which I’ve accumulated some fat quarters and yardage. Again, I had just a fat quarter of the focal print and sort of used the same layout as the Mr. Halloween table runner but I’m calling it a storm door layout.  As I’m writing this post, it is still in a flimsie state and the plan is to quilt it the same way as Mr. Halloween.  This door quilt measures 28”x62”. Sadly, 31 days in October may not have been enough for me to finish in time to hang on the door for Halloween enjoyment.

As I was working on the above projects, I remembered the 8” appliquéd and embroidered Cat block designed by Half Pints made several years ago and waiting to be made into a pillow using the the fabric pictured above.  I am not a pillow person and can only see this in between the mouths of one of our dogs and not sitting pretty on the couch or shelf.  

So, I thought to finally finish this long waiting project, I would make a wall hanging instead by bordering with with a Thimbleberries black print and a wonderful fat quarter of a Simply Spooky print by Indygo Junction foraged once again in the Halloween stash.  Easy straight line quilting with Black Aurifil thread, which is getting a lot of use with these Halloween quilts, paired with the black and white mini check for the binding made this 20” square quilt what I thought was going to be my favorite finish of the month.  But it’s not, it’s the next quilt.

October was #6 for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge which was my Wizard of Oz flimsie made in 2006.  On a side note, that was the year I returned to the office workforce at the community college after taking a brief hiatus when I quit working at the local quilt shop, one of the reasons being I was accumulating too much fabric. I was then trying to balance working and quilting and made this flimsie after feeling bad that the fabric was sitting in my stash since 2000.  A simple quilt of double four patches with a plain block of the focal print which was also used in the border was made.  It was a flimsie for so long, I added it to the Dirty Dozen Challenge so it could be finally finished.  This flimsie, sad to say, was more of an annoyance and something I thought didn’t have any fondness for and was I wrong.  After quilting it with alternating diagonal straight and wavey lines starting at the border with soft yellow thread, I’ve become quite smitten with the many prints in this collection, especially the focal print.  The collection was designed by Beth Bruske, David Textiles and I don’t know the source of inspiration for the prints.  Even though it was approved by the L. Frank Baum Trust these are not from the original books.

I was ready to bind this quilt with a yellow print, not from this collection, but decided to use the perfectly pink gingham I found or foraged in my pink stash. I needed to offset the green and gold to make this quilt a little sweeter. For some reason, I did not set aside the binding in the drawer which I usually do. This quilt measures 40”x50” but it feels and look larger.

Some mysteries surrounding the making of this quilt is that I cannot find my remaining stash of this fabric which I know I had. After several time foraging around the studio I decided not to make myself crazy and just go with the thought that I must have donated it when I wanted to stuff the box full and made a mental note that I would remember doing this.  I don’t do good mental notes. But I’m hoping it will appear since I still have 1.5 yards of the blue fabric used for the backing left.  I’m also wondering why I didn’t make a Yellow Brick Road by Terry Atkinson with this fabric which would have been cliche’ but cute.  I know she just celebrated the 20th Anniversary of this wonderful pattern and guess I could commenorate or commenomake with the second collection of Oz prints from the MGM movie but right now I’m not liking these prints so much.  Maybe a little more fabric fermentation or another 10 years will make my heart grow fonder over them.

Some more finishes made possible with more fabric foraging:

A simple Ernie quilt made from Two Canoe Scraps given to me from Kathleen after sort of whining from me and foraging through the Cotton+Steel, Zen Chic and Crazy Mom stash so I would have enough for this 40”x50” quilt.  Right now it is in a flimsie state, but the plan is to quilt it with horizontal straight and wavey lines and then donate it.

And look at the fun greens I foraged from the many green bins for October’s College Challenge hosted by Patterns by Jen for the Ruby Crown Kinglet.  Olive Green was this month’s color and I think it looks awfully wild with the lime green, almost Citronickle print.  If you’re wondering what Citronickle is, it’s a yellow green which I call Citron and Wendy calls Pickle and she came up with this name which is quite fun as the color.

Since I used the word “forage and foraging” so much in this post, I thought I would include a photo of the many acorns I foraged in the park at the GP house during the past weeks to feed my squirrels.  I’ve collected at least three full boxes and am still feeling some aches but it was worth it.  Acorns and fabrics feed my squirrels.  I’m hoping one of the studio squirrels will tell me where the missing OZ fabric is.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween.  Also, please remember to VOTE! I already did.

Sweet September SewJo

Despite making four trips to the Grandparent House and only spending fourteen days at home, I have five Finally Finished which makes this a very busy and productive month for me.  Apparently when only having a limited schedule for quilting, I can be pretty focused.  The first Finally Finished for September was my Shine Quilt which I posted on September 8th.  My next four quilts were for the Jelly Snowflake QAL, a Dreami, Country Threads Dirty Dozen QAL and a surprise finish; here are the photos with a brief description of each.

Emily, The Darling Dogwood, and I decided since we already did two of the same QALs this year without us knowing that neither one of us was sewing together, we would do a third one together and we decided upon Fat Quarter Shop’s Jelly Snowflake QAL.  You can see Emily’s beautiful interpretation Here.  I have mentioned in previous posts that I consider myself a QAL Escape Artist and Emily seem to have followed in my sew steps, in that, we did the first two blocks as per the pattern and then veered off with our own  finishes. The Jelly Snowflake pattern was beautiful and made great use of jelly roll strips but I wanted to showcase more of the fat quarters of the Stacey Hsu North Pole fabric which I received several years ago in one of the Fat Quarter Shop’s Christmas Sampler Box. That’s all I’m going to say about the Jelly Snowflake pattern and named my quilt Frosty Flake because of the snowmen on some of the prints and because it is my favorite breakfast cereal.  After the top was completed, I immediately knew how I wanted to quilt it with the straight-line diagonal quadrants with red thread.  Frosty Flakes measures 48” square and it’s going to be nice to have a new Christmas quilt to hang up this year.  BTW, I thought that instead of calling myself a QAL Escape Artist, I would give myself a new name or descriptor: Sewing Rose-gue, it seems to better explain how I quilt.

While searching for the red binding for my Frosty Flake Quilt in my red stash, I came across the Watermelon fabric with the matching large red gingham print and immediately knew I had to make something for the darling Granddaughter.  Since I’ve been spending so much time with her, I’ve become quite fond of the CoComelon videos which are fun and addicting to watch. Even when we’re not at the GP House, Hubby and I are humming and singing many of the tunes.  A simple patchwork blankie was made with some fun green prints from the stash and another red print.  I had the perfect shade of a coral pink Minky yardage in the stash and a quilt was made before the next GP visit.  This Blankie measures 40”x56”, which is a nice size for snuggling for one person but I would have made it bigger if I had more of the watermelon and red gingham print.

The month of September also meant a new UFO finish of our #11 for Country Thread’s Dirty Dozen which was my Flea Market Square. The top was made over seven years ago and it seems that during this time, I made a lot of square quilts and some of them I have committed to finishing for this QAL.  I didn’t keep any notes on the making of this quilt and I was able to ascertain that a charm pack of Moda’s Three Sisters Flea Market II was used along with some yardage.  At first I didn’t remember even what fabric line was used but was able to guess after looking at one of the charm squares which had a Paris map and was able to connect it to one of the Flea Market lines.  I was happy that I found the quilt top with the backing and binding safely tucked away together.  

I’ve mentioned in previous posts how I was inspired by Mary Etherington of Country Threads to do straight line quilting on traditional quilts so I thought since I was finishing this quilt as part of her QAL, it would look appropriate for Flea Market Square.  I quilted it with a very pale pink Mettler thread to keep the quilting  quiet and simple. I usually don’t back my quilts with fabric from the same line, partly because of cost and not wanting to waste it especially for a wall hanging, but I must have purchased the plaid when it was on sale because I had three yards of it.  I do love pairing plaids with florals.  Now that this quilt is a Finally Finished, I have a place to hang it on my bedroom wall since I’ve been meaning to replace the current artwork which has been hanging around for over twenty years.  Sad I won’t see the backing, but I’ll know it’s there.

Since I had a day left before the end of September when I wanted to post, I thought I would squeeze out one more Finally Finish with the Big Blinky Bill Blankie. I made the top earlier this year and is one of the flimsy made during my Flimsy Frenzy February.  The top was inspired by my Slinky and Pinky Quilts which is a simple pattern using squares and rectangles.  When I wrote the posts for these quilts, I mentioned I was inspired to make more and keeping the “inky” in the names.  Good Quilt Mentor Sue of PatchworknPlay offer up Blinky Bill which is an Australian Children Book Koala character.  Since I didn’t have any Koala fabrics I thought the next best thing would be to use my stash of Aboriginal prints which have been sitting far too long in the stash with solid squares of Shot Cotton, Peppered Cotton and Aged Muslin.  I thought this top could be a quick Finally Finished if I made a Patchwork Throw by only backing it with my favorite gray Chenille Plush.  It measures 52” x 82” which would make it a throw according to my rules, but since I love alliteration in my quilt names I’m calling it a blankie, thus the name Big Blinky Bill Blankie.  Since Hubby’s name is Bill, this will be his, especially since with the other patchwork throws I made with the plush for the backing, I’m always telling him how wonderful they are for snuggling and napping.  Now he will have his own to find out how true this is.

I still managed to find time to start others projects and keeping up with my 2020 Color Challenge blocks.  I’m calling this a month now and maybe rest for the remaining few hours left.  But no, I still have 1.5 days left before we leave for the GP House again and the studio here is still where I’m the most productive; probably because I don’t have a sweet distraction beckoning me to play with her.

Septe”MMM”ber Shine

It’s been awhile we’ve been home for at least a one week stretch and one of the projects I needed to finally finish was my Shine Quilt designed by Sandra (mmm quilts).  The flimsy was finished in early August but in between the numerous visits we made to the Grandparent’s House since then, this was the first time I had a decent block of time to tackle the quilting.  To tell you the truth, if you’ve seen Sandra’s Shine Quilt and admired the exquisite quilting she did on her quilt, you would understand my hesitancy in quilting straight lines which is the only type of machine quilting I do besides wavy lines and thinking that it would look too bland.  Surprisingly, I love how the straight lines looks and doesn’t the sunlight dappling through the tree branches onto the quilt make it “Shine”?

To give you a little back story on how the quilt got to be made, Sandra asked me a few months back if I would like to be a pattern tester for her Shine pattern which you may wonder why she would ask me since I”m a little rebel or tend to “misbehave” when I joined her QALs which have been, according to my calculations, five.  I’ve always did something a little different with either the background or construction and did not always follow her pattern but the finished quilt always looked the way Sandra designed it.  I promised Sandra that I would be a good pattern tester and would follow her instructions completely.  I chose to make my Shine quilt with Carrie Bloomston’s Wish fabric line with Ruby Star Society Spark fabric for the background.  I chose this for the background since I thought the Silver Gray fabric would help the letters and stars stand out and also I wanted a background fabric with a little detail to make up for the inevitable lackluster quilting.

This is the first time I had the opportunity to be a Pattern Tester and I took this task very seriously.  I read the cutting directions very carefully to make sure it was accurate.  I did order an extra half yard of the background just to make sure I had enough in case I made an error cutting or in this case my iron acted up and splashed rusty water while I was ironing it and ruined a quarter yard.  Thankfully I still had enough.

It didn’t take me to long to break my promise to make the quilt according to her instructions.  Sandra let me deviate from her Flying Geese method since I like to make them using my die-cutter and that was the only time I “misbehaved”. 

I wished I could had a video of me sitting by the sewing machine, concentrating on following the instruction with my finger running over each line to make sure the patches were sewn together correctly and then lifting my head up and staring into space when I realized then that I wasn’t a Pattern Tester but Sandra gave me a pattern test to see if I could really focus and follow her instructions. This happened when the patches were almost all sewn together into blocks. Talk about getting schooled for my “bad” QAL behavior.  At least the “test” was easy and also very fun to sew, I’m not saying this for extra credit.

I think I passed and learned some patience in sewing the top together.  I’m never one for pinning rows together but for this quilt I did to make sure they lined up.  Funny fact about the making of the top was I was really tempted to only finish the left half of the quilt since I thought that the Shine panel would make a nice banner especially for a classroom but my determination to be a good “Pattern Tester” prevailed. Also, I like to mentioned that this is the first time I ever pieced letters and really enjoyed making them.  I even told Sandra she has to come up with the rest of the alphabet.

Once the straight line quilting of 5/8” apart started, it was a breeze, no pinches or puckers.  It was really nice using Aurifil thread for both the piecing and quilting.  I really thought the straight lines would be boring but I think it gives the quilt a nice graphic look.

While I was machine quilting, I was listening to “The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding” by Jennifer Robson which was recommended by Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts.  It’s a story about the embroiderers who worked on the wedding dress which inspired me to embroidered some of the stars around the flame with yellow floss. 

The backing was yardage of a gray dotted fabric I had in my stash which I love when that happens.  I originally wanted to bind the quilt with the same solid yellow fabric as the small stars but decided the gray and white geometric print would accent the colors of the quilt better; the yellow would have been overwhelming.

Shine was a Finally Finish this past weekend and of course rain was in the forecast so I didn’t think I would be able to post until later this week. Surprisingly the sun was shining on Labor Day and we had the opportunity to go to a friend’s house which has acreage to gather acorns for my squirrels.  I brought along Shine so I could take photos of it amongst the trees and, of course, with Honest John, the twelve-foot road sign on the property.  They look good together don’t they?

Here is the Link to the Shine Pattern which is available to purchase from Sandra’s Etsy Shop.  This is not an affiliate link and just wanted you to know where you can purchase this fun pattern. I still am tempted to make just the Shine panel which would make a nice door quilt or a banner for a future classroom.

It’ll be a few more days before we leave for the Grandparent House and my Shine Quilt will be living there now in the darling Granddaughter’s bedroom.  I’ve already made her another Patchwork Blankie which I will share on my next Post along with other projects done during the rest of September.  It seems like Summer is leaving us too soon. Hope everyone stays healthy and happy.

Best Finally Finished:Pipertown

I’m participating in Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge which started in July and I have committed to finishing twelve UFO’s, one for each month, for the next twelve months.  I’ve done a few QALs and BOM with Country Threads in the past and always have stayed on task.   So far, I am now two for two with my big finish this month of a top which I made in 2000, twenty years ago.  I used to keep a spreadsheet of my quilting activity back in the early days so I checked it to see when this top was finished and much to my surprise as to how long ago it was but I also forgotten who my inspiration was for this quilt top which has been hanging around in my studio for too long. I mistakenly had referred to this top as my Pluto Dash quilt; Pluto being our dearly departed Blue Tick Coonhound but when I looked at my spreadsheet, this quilt was named after Piper, a Black Lab whose owner I worked for some years at her quilt shop.  Whenever I worked at the quilt shop, Piper was my charge and I seemed to be the only one he would listen to which I attributed to me being the one who gave him good cookies.  I need to remind Carol, my Quilt Peep of this important fact from our quilt shop days who is also tasked with verifying that Amy Butler once gave me a quilt pattern. 

When the conversation print of the dog came to the shop, I knew I wanted to make a quilt to showcase the print, I loved it so much, I bought all three of the color ways it came in; brown, black and blue (which is the color I would use for Pluto).  This is the  black color way and although it looks more like a hound like my Pluto, the black was going to be for Piper, who was named after a plane but to me his name reminded me of Scottish Bagpipers.  

I can’t remember the inspiration for the pattern but I remember designing it on EQ which is simply 8” Churn Dash done in two different colors, one with red HST and black HST with 8” HST in the dog print and black and 8” plain black blocks arranged in a barn raising layout. This quilt measures approximately 60” by 75”.

Here’s a close up view of the seven prints used in this quilt, many of them old friends like the black eyelash print by Jinny Breyer, which is one print I wished I still have some more. I chose the red plaid print in keeping with the tartan sounding name of Pipertown.

When the top was finished I knew back then that I wanted diagonal straight lines going around the center of the quilt which wasn’t common back then for a longarm quilter to do and I didn’t want a pantograph.  Also back then, I knew I couldn’t machine quilt it myself, it took twenty years for me to get up the courage to quilt it the way I wanted.  There were a few times I wanted to quilt just straight vertical lines just to get the quilt finished, but I’m glad I stuck with my initial plan.

At first I had a problem with pin basting on the diagonal until my 3” wide ruler came to the rescue in keeping the pins straight and 4” apart.

And keeping me up the night before I started the machine quilting was thinking how I was going to mark the quilting lines but the guide on my quilt foot was the answer to keeping my lines 1” apart.  I used a black Aurifil thread for the quilting and liked the way it turned out.  

I started the machine quilting at the corner ends which is where I usually start when I straight line quilt and was worried that once I started quilting towards the center it would be a puffy mess but glad it turned out just a little puffy with no tucks or pinches.

Another worry I had about this quilt, was if I would be able to find more of the red plaid for the binding and was lucky to find that when I was setting up my binding drawer I had put some of it away thinking that this quilt would eventually be finished.  Big Whew here. The backing is another Jinny Beyer print which I must have purchased at least ten yards of it since I used some of it for another quilt.  I’m pretty sure I must have bought it on sale.

One of the reasons why I chose this quilt to be one of my “Dirty Dozen” was that it would go with the other red and black quilts at the Grandparent House where it is now residing.  Right now it’s covering one of the chairs in the living room but don’t know if it’s going to stay there since I have a dog, Sophie, who likes to scratch and snuggle on the quilts and a granddaughter who likes to throw quilts off the chairs.  I’m not looking forward to the day I have to wash this quilt and pray the reds won’t bleed onto the light dog print by using a gazillion color catchers. Hopefully the quilt won’t get ruined and if it does, I have more of the dog print and it won’t take me twenty years to finish it. I have the machine quilting experience under my belt now.  All the worries which came with the finally finish of Pipertown ended with a big sigh of big happy relief and happy dancing for me.

I now have made typing peace with the new Blogger Interface with my very recent purchase of a keyboard for my iPad.  Why I didn’t think of this before is a mystery, even more why no one suggested it before, Kathleen—this is a game changer.  Since my last post, I now know how to add links which there are none in this post and labels; almost back to the good old Blogger days.  I’m also pretty proud that I realized all by myself that I didn’t have to switch the iPad from the keyboard case to my usual pink case which is the one my granddaughter knows for her video watching, the keyboard is portable and isn’t attached to the keyboard case. Hopefully this new Blogger Interface is going to stay awhile because I don’t how much more adaptability or flexibility I have left in me.

July/August Blog Break

It’s been six weeks since my last post and I decided to give the new Blogger interface another go, despite reading other bloggers’ comments about problems they’re experiencing and also seeing how elongated photos are appearing on their blog. For the past few days I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to leave  Blogger and join Wordpress which comes at a cost I’m not sure would be worth it. This afternoon I had some luck with editing my 2020 Quilts and Project page and was comfortable with using the editing tools once I knew how to access them. So, here I go with posting what I’ve been sewing/finishing in between the three visits to the Grandparents’ House, mostly photos with brief descriptions.  And if my photos are experiencing the same problems with elongation, I might be posting photos of myself since my Twiggy Days have been long gone.

I’m participating in Country Threads 2020 Dirty Dozen QAL which started in July and I committed to finishing twelve UFOs. Coincidentally, the number pulled was for a Country Thread’s Pinterest Kit for a table runner purchased before the shop closed over five years ago. The runner is now a Finally Finish and sitting prettily on the dining room table at the GP house.

Sandra, mmm Quilts asked me if I would test her latest pattern “Shine” which I was happy to oblige since it was an opportunity for me to use my recently acquired Carrie Bloomston Wish fabrics. The flimsy was finished several weeks ago and the pattern is available from Sandra’s Etsy shop “SandraJaneQuilts”. Once my Shine quilt is a Finally Finished, I’ll write more about this quilt and my adventures of being a “pattern tester”.

Emily, The Darling Dogwood, and I decided our third QAL together would be Fat Quarter Shop’s Jelly Snowflake and both of us decided independently of each other that our quilt would be a little different. My modified version doesn’t look like a snowflake but there are snowmen in some of the prints so I named this quilt Frosty Flake, so apropos since it is my favorite cereal.

Two baby quilt tops were made for Jack’s Basket.

Granny Squares blocks were sewn for an QAL between Sistas and waiting for sashing and border.

My August block for the 2020 Color Challenge is sewn and the color this month was Pink for Flamingos.

Last of all are two feedsack fabric projects which I was able to work on while at the GP House. Surprisingly, the darling granddaughter showed no interest in my sewing machine, supplies, fabric-it’s a good thing we have a lot of good toys and videos to distract her, along with snacks.

I gave myself a little pep talk these during my blog hiatus to spend more time in my studio and try to commit to a number of hours each day to my “craft”. I should mention that I haven’t done a very good job in recording my activities in my planner and not tracking my fabric log but pretty sure it’s negative, maybe barely. Also it was a little tedious typing my post on my iPad, just don’t like my index finger doing all the talking and also the uncertainty with the new Blogger interface. I’m glad to be able to post before we leave for another visit to the GP house. Here’s to better Blogger Days and to figuring out how to insert links and labels.

P.S. before I published this post, I learned that I inadvertently typed this as a Page and not a Post and thankfully nothing was lost. My index finger could not handle the retyping.