Kitty Corn Mix-A Halloween Quilt For You Know Who

Since the beginning of September when the Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge project number and color was announced, I’ve been busy working and finishing the two projects I designated. My first project, the Kitty Corn Mix, was made possible with Mary Etherington’s choice of the color Orange to be September’s color. Normally the color is drawn but she thought with Fall approaching that the participants wanted to work on projects with pumpkins. I was more than happy to switch to my Orange projects from the Neutral projects which was my #11, the number Mary did pull, because I did want to finally make something with the Kitty Corn fabric purchased last year. Also, this would be a quilt for my favorite recipient, the darling Granddaughter.

With the jelly roll and one yard-cuts of two focus prints and the black and white gingham, I came up with a version of the Ernie Quilt. I did make a slight change later to not making the kitty blocks with the black and white gingham because I didn’t have enough fabric plus the kitty print is just that cute.

The blocks are 8.5”x12.5” and there is a mix of five different types; two were just plain cuts of the two focus prints, one was a four patch block with the two focus prints which was made because there wasn’t enough of either focus prints and two type of rail (Ernie) blocks made either with two prints or somewhat scrappy since again I was out of jelly roll strips.

I spent some time arranging or tweaking the blocks in a controlled layout; the rail blocks with black were in the center, the rail blocks with teal green were next to the black blocks and the blocks with the light green are on the outside. The plain blocks with the kitty print are in the center and the blocks with the black focus prints are on the outside. There were some blocks made with the plum prints and I decided not to include them in the quilt. After the above pic was taken, I did make one more “tweak” and then I was ready to sew.

Machine quilting in a light Apricot Essential Thread with my go-to straight and wavey lines went well. The binding was the black and white gingham print and I’ll say it again, I just love binding my quilts with a gingham print. Also, I was lucky to find the gray and white dot print in the backing vault. The Kitty Corn Mix Quilt measures 56” x 84” which is a nice size for both the darling Granddaughter and I to snuggle under. It’s nice to already have a quilt finished in time for Halloween and I will be taking it to the GP House this weekend.

I really have to stop making my quilts so long as it’s getting hard for the Master Quilt Holder. Fortunately, he was able to hold it up by standing one the front porch and letting Kitty Corn Mix hang down. I’ll be posting soon another quilt finish for the UFO Challenge and this one we needed the ladder. Stay tune!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Mori Girls Quilt

My Mori Girl Quilt is my official finish for the August CT Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I was confused at the beginning of August when I forgot I compiled my list a little differently from Mary Etherington who is pulling from two lists, one for a number and one for a color. I combined her two lists by using her color list which she numbered as my list. This month she pulled #12 and Yellow and my #12 is any UFO/project which were stripe or contained stripe fabrics. My Mori Girl quilt was a flimsy made in December of 2020 and this finally finish has hit a sweet spot with me. No surprise that the Mori Girl print reminds me of the darling Granddaughter, the one time baby who has morphed into a little girl.

I had purchased a remnant piece of Mori Girl along with a gray ticking stripe from Bernie/Needle and Foot and knew I would have no problem finding fabric from my stash to go with it. My palette for this quilt was black/white, gray, gold and coral pink. I love the black and white print with the red dots used for the QST which was perfect for the Mori Girl print with its crosshatched lines. 

And speaking of the QST, my plans originally was to use four-patch blocks but when I was drawing out the layout on my trusty graph paper and rather than marking the squares with a plus sign, I used an “x” and decided that this was a better block since it mimics the hair bows and butterflies in the Mori Girl print. I should also mention that this is a Dashwood print, the fabric line was Mori Girls and this print was called Paper Girls but I like the sound of Mori Girl better. This is a version of a Strip and Brick Quilt which I love making since it involves two of my favorite sizes; 2.5” strips and 4.5” x 8.5” rectangles. After the prints were paired, I made 4.5” x 8.5” rail blocks. Each row contains (5) rail blocks with (1) QST and (1) 4.5” patch, either a rail block or focus print.

Sewing the flimsie was quick and has been finished since late December, 2020. It languished since I was debating on whether to quilt it with a combination of diagonal quilting on the top portion with straight line on the bottom. I was still undecided as I was preparing Mori Girl for machine quilting and finally went with straight line quilting 1” part with diagonal quilting lines on the QST

Here’s a pic showing the cute Mori Girls, the sometimes straight quilting lines with light gray Aurifil thread and the fabrics. The binding is the black print used in the QSTs and the backing is a Waverly print. Mori Girls measure 48” x 60” which is a nice size lap quilt for which I intended, but have decided since I love this quilt so much it needs to hang in my studio. I think my Smitten Quilt which has been hanging in my studio for several years now deserves a much need rest.

One outside pic is a must. The Master Quilt Holder obliged me with a little stoop and clarified this by saying this is what I mean when I call him “Stupid”, Uh huh, wink.

In my last post, I mentioned that my plans were to quilt Mori Girls upon my return from the GP House unless the Squirrel distracted me with another one of my August Projects. I made this flimsie with Sherbet Pips fabric BEFORE leaving for the GP house. I thought I would show it since I love making quilts with 2.5” strips. My plans for making this a patchwork throw next has now been changed to another flimsie which needs machine quilting. There’s no surprise here with plans ever changing-the Focus Force is not strong in me. At least I can say I could be finish with this month’s Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

The Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt

August started a new month for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. After I finally finished one of the flimsies from the July Challenge, I was ready to start quilting the August flimsie this past weekend when I was distracted by my bundle of Lotta Jansdotter fabric which I had chosen as the designer for this month. I could hear the Studio Squirrel chanting “Ya Gotta Lotta” so I did.

These are the original fabrics I pulled maybe last year when I had planned to make another Strips, Squares and Brick Quilt,  similar to my Mackinaw Island Row Quilt which is a pattern I designed to use up charm squares and yardage of the same fabric collection which I seem to have accumulated, intentional or unintentional. I had several charm packs of the Follie prints and yardage of other Lotta Jansdotter’s lines such as Glimma, Mormor, Lucky, Lilla Prata and Homemade. These are fabrics from the 2010’s and I haven’t purchased any of her recent collections. The gray fabric on the left is a Figo print which I purchased on sale to use for the backing. I decided after looking at this bundle and then looking what was still in my stash that I wanted to use different fabrics for the bricks and strips and didn’t want to use all of the colors which were in the charm packs. After eliminating the orange, brown, blue, purple, fuchsia, beige and lilac fabrics, my palette for the Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt is Black, Gray, Citronickle (yellow/green, not Lime), Golden Yellow and Teal. I find these colors to be a pleasing combination despite not having a focal print to tie these colors together in this quilt.

This pattern is what I called a stir fry; much time, almost the whole day was spent on die-cutting the strips, squares and bricks and then laying out the patches on the design board. Rather than sewing in rows, the quilt is constructed with 8”x16”(f) blocks which I found was easier to sew together rather than separate patches. The block on the top is (8) 4.5” squares in a two by four layout and the blocks on the bottom are the 4.5” x 8.5” bricks sewn with 6.5” x 8.5” strip sets. The bricks in this quilt are the Lucky Jerry Cat print, the inspiration for the name of this quilt, which paired so well with the Citronickle line print. Once the blocks were sewn, assembling the flimsy was quick just like a stir fry recipe. 

I should mention that I was first drawn to Lotta Jansdotter prints because of her use of Citronickle a name for the yellow/green which Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts and I came up with — a tomato/tomahto moment of our blog friendship. I also changed the strip sets to be the black/white and golden yellow prints from the Lucky and Lilla Prata lines which contrasted nicely with the bricks. Aren’t the teal prints a nice pop against the Citronickle prints? While I was laying the blocks onto my design wall I was saying to myself that this looked so Scandi/IKEA  that I realized another change to my plans needed to be made.

The backing for this quilt went from the gray Figo print to making this a patchwork throw by backing it with my favorite plush chenille to my Aha! moment that my long treasured and last yardage of the IKEA Nummer print which I’ve been saving for just the right quilt was to be used. You can see I quilted with a combination of straight and wavey lines. I think the Lotta Jansdotter and the Nummer print are a perfect and a great combination which was meant to be.

I used the black/white Lilla Prata print for the binding which at first I didn’t think would look right but now glad that I did. A light gray Aurifil thread was used for the machine quilting which went well with all of the colors. I thought I would include a closeup of the blocks and quilting. The Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt measures 56”x74”, approx.

One last photo of the Lucky Jerry Lotta Quilt taken outside with the assistance of the Apprentice Quilt Holder. I can’t complain about his right hand showing because that’s his injured hand which is nicely healing and it’s good physical therapy for him to be holding up quilts, right? The Master Quilt Holder was resting after a long band practice so I didn’t want to bother him. We’ve been experiencing some rain this week so it was nice to take a photo outside.

Since I’ve been writing about squares and bricks in this post, I thought I should share the finally finished quilt of a flimsie from July’s UFO Challenge which is now ready to give to baby girl whose mother is sometimes a carer for the darling Granddaughter. This quilt is made from one of the first fabric collections by Lella Boutique and I had both charm packs and yardage of this collection. Once I saw the baby registry in March I knew this fabric would be perfect but sadly I could not find where I put the fabric and too stubborn to pick other fabrics from my stash. Once I started collecting projects for the 2022/23 UFO Challenge at the end of June, I finally found it. I didn’t have enough yardage of the floral print to do a complete border so the side borders were made with alternating bricks of the floral and pink print. I like the way this looked and will have to remember to do this again. The flimsy was finished during the last week of July and I could have finally finished it but was distracted with another quilt. I thought since the mother didn’t know I was giving her a quilt, the quilting could wait. But wouldn’t you know it, last week the  mother asked my son if she could pay me to make her a baby quilt so I knew I had to finish it and it will be a gift. I will be bringing the Baby B quilt when we leave for the GP house this weekend. 

Once we return, I will start quilting what I consider to be my #12 of the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge unless a squirrel brings me one of the other projects. This is what happens when I give myself choices.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch Quilt

The month of July started the Country Threads 2022/23 Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge and I was busy. New to the challenge is besides a number being pulled for a UFO project, a color will also be pulled (a list of colors and the corresponding number was posted in June) and you have the option of working on a new or old project. This gives the participants a choice of working on a UFO or a new project which I thought was a great idea since there were several months that I wondered if I wanted to continue participating since I was getting tired of finishing UFOs. I also added another twist to this challenge by gathering five projects for each month corresponding to the Color which were a flimsie waiting to be quilted, a UFO project (in a block stage or less), a designer whose fabrics I’ve have in my stash and always wanted to make something with it, a fabric bundle waiting for a project and a scrap project. I have a choice each month of deciding which one of these projects I want to work on and given myself the allowance that new projects can be a flimsy finish. Number 10 and the color Pink was pulled for July and I chose to finally finish my Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch which was a flimsie I finished in 2000 or twenty-two years ago.

One of the reasons why I wanted to finally finish this quilt is because of the other name I gave it; the Granddaughter Quilt #2. The Granddaughter Quilt #1 is also on this year’s challenge list. I was working at the Quilt Shop when I purchased the fabrics for this quilt; it was during this time when other fabric companies were coming out with their own reproduction fabrics which before only Marcus Bros, Julie Rothermel was designing. The fabrics used in the Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch Quilt were from Moda (Sharon Newman), In the Beginning (Sharon Yenter) and Chanteclaire (Darlene Zimmerman). When I made this flimsie, my two sons were still in high school and middle school and thought that someday this quilt would be for a future granddaughter. Now this future granddaughter, the darling granddaughter is now five and may be ready for a big girl quilt or several big girl quilts so I thought this would be a great finish to start the Challenge. You would think this would be my oldest quilt finish but it’s not if the Granddaughter Quilt #1 is finished.

I would like to say that the machine quilting was a breeze but it wasn’t. My plan to do simple in the ditch quilting combined with diagonal crosshatching on the nine patch did not go well with the Ditch Quilt Foot which I used before. I should have realized after the first line of quilting that something was wrong but I ignored it. Two thoughts came to mind after I quilted it the first time, you’re never too old to make stupid quilting mistakes and if the first line of machine quilting isn’t right, stop and get the seam ripper out. You can see on the top pic how badly puckered the machine quilting was and my thought was maybe this is what it would have looked like if I had machine quilted it twenty-two years ago and maybe it wouldn’t be too noticeable if I photographed it at a certain angle. But I decided I needed to rip out all of the quilting which took two days. It should be no surprise that I binge watched crime and murder mysteries. The second time I machine quilted this quilt I used my walking foot, the ditch quilt foot has been placed in the time out corner on my sewing table. You can see how much better the machine quilting  looks on the bottom pic. When I showed my Hubby these photos, he commented that if I left the quilt alone the first time,  I could have called it the Puckered Pink Quilt.

I did hand sew the binding down which I would have done twenty-two years ago because doing it by machine was almost unheard of back then. You can see the backing is the pink Chanteclaire ticking stripe which I almost wasn’t going to use because back then I thought I might need it for another project but now I’m pretty sure there won’t be and it was just perfect for the backing. I normally am a cheapskate when it comes to backing fabric; I use sale fabric which sometimes is not part of the fabric line or used in the flimsie. BTW, the Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch Quilt measures 60”x80” which was a pretty big quilt for me back then.

And here’s a photo of the darling Granddaughter with her Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch Quilt wearing her matching pink shoes. If you’re wondering how I came up with the name, it’s a combination of the periwinkle blue and pink fabrics used in this quilt.

The Peri-Pinkle Nine Patch Quilt was a finally finish before mid July so I thought I would have time to work on other projects I had designated for the month. I spent the last week in June organizing my projects, a total of 60 projects and making a photo collage of the five projects for each month. I have to mention that I love each one of the projects chosen and that there were lots more which could have been included. The left top photo is the flimsie, the bottom left is the UFO, the top right is the designer bundle, the center right is the fabric bundle and the bottom right is the scrap project which I have to mention since Pink was the color of the month, my scraps are Tula Pink. There are some months I tweaked some of the designations and changed one of the fabric colors from stripe to neutral or free for all. We’re only traveling to the GP House every other weekend now which gives me a nice block of time to do some serious quilting and that I did.

Four Flimsies in four days-leave it to me to turn a Challenge to a Choice and then to a Am I Crazy Challenge by working on the other four projects which I don’t expect I will do each month. It helps that these patterns were fast and easy. And you know what’s even crazier….

I finished another flimsie, instead of quilting one of the other four flimsies, which was a DrEAMi but right now looks more like a Squirrel Scream. This flimsie did not sew fast as the others and glad it’s a finish. I’m hoping once the blue binding is on, I will like it better. I’ll post more about these flimsies once they are finally finished. I’m thinking some of these flimsies finished during this year’s challenge are perpetual and are going to appear on next year’s challenge list. I do like the idea of having less fabrics sitting idly in my stash.

Even though the month of July isn’t over for another three days, I’m tired. We’re leaving for the GP House this weekend and I don’t think I’ll bring any sewing but who knows what I’ll come up with after I clean my table. There are some interesting scraps laying around…..

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

A Happy Stripes Quilt

When I first saw Emily Dennis’ Happy Stripes  pattern, I knew I had to purchase it because it was a great stash buster pattern for 2.5” strips. If you seen my other quilts, you know that I love this combination. The fabric in my Happy Stripes quilt might look familiar since I just finished in April my Carrie Bloomston Unruly Patchwork Throw.

A little bit of happenstance with the making of the Happy Stripes quilt which made me wonder if I really have a Fairy Quilt Godmother in my studio. After I ordered the pattern and I was thinking of using my Carrie Bloomston stash since it was fresh on my mind after making the patchwork throw. I really do love my stash which includes several of her fabric lines which work so well together. I just so happened to see a purple tote bag sitting on the bottom of my project cart and decided to look to see what was inside. It contained approximately 150 2.5” strips cut from my Carrie Bloomston stash maybe last year and had forgotten about it. I just needed to die-cut 25 more strips and HSTs from the Newsprint fabric and I was ready to make this quilt.

Over 60 different prints were used. After grouping the strips in sets of four, there were sixteen different combinations,  After sewing the strip sets which made four rail blocks, the connecting corners were sewn on different sides of the rail blocks so it would look like there were more combinations.

The Flimsy was finished by the end of May and I had to wait until after my busy June was over before I could finally machine quilt the Happy Stripes quilt.

No surprise with the machine quilting with my go-to combination of straight and wavy lines with CT Essential Thread in #20858 Stone. The binding was a Stoffabric gray/black dot print with gold metallic and not from the Carrie Bloomston stash since there wasn’t enough yardage of a solid print which would work and  I thought a scrappy binding would look too busy. Lucky me for just purchasing a yard of this print when I was in Colorado last month.

The Master Quilt Holder had a little trouble holding up this 64”x88” quilt to show some of the backing which is the Pueblo Stripe print from the Carrie Bloomston stash. I purchased beaucoup yardage of this several years ago from Bernie Kringle’s Needle and Foot Shop and I knew one day I would make a quilt to finally  use it.

Here’s another photo of the Happy Stripes quilt. A sad note about the finishing of it; after spending Saturday and Sunday with friends with holiday get togethers,  my plan was to spend the Fourth of July machine quilting. Instead, I spent the morning and early afternoon glued to the television because of the awful shooting at a parade which happened in a town just 27 miles away. This is a beautiful town I am familiar with, visited and even dreamed of living there. I finally made it to my studio late afternoon and quilted with a heavy heart once again. It is days like these which I find comfort in quilting and it’s happening much too often.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

French Garden Patch Quilt

My French Garden Patch Quilt was a lovely finish to end the month of June and also the last quilt to be finished in time for the end of the 2021/22 Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.

A little background on the making of this quilt which was started around 2006, I think. One of the nice things when I used to work in a quilt shop was seeing all of the new fabric arrivals and being able to purchase entire collections of 1/4 yard pieces. This was how I was able to indulge myself with Sandy Gervais, Pieces of My Heart fabrics which I still dearly love but have not purchased new lines for quite awhile now. This is okay since I still have a lot of what I now call vintage Sandy Gervais fabrics designed for Moda Fabrics.  I think I was inspired to make these 9” blocks of three squares and three rectangles in her French Garden collection when I was studying the floor tiles in my home. I didn’t keep good notes of the making of this quilt but I do remember I made around 100 of these blocks in this fabric collection because I love mixing florals with plaids/stripes. The plaids and stripes in the French Garden collection were called “brush” because they were homespun on one side and flannel on the other side. You had the option of choosing which side and I always chose the homespun side for the top. I used some of these blocks for a baby quilt around that time and the remaining 65 blocks have been sitting around for the last fifteen years. I decided last year when I was planning my projects for the UFO Challenge to include these blocks for a finish since it was time.

Since I knew this quilt would be the last one for the UFO Challenge, I started working sewing these blocks in a 7x9 layout and positioning the blocks so the seams would nest during the last week of May. The flimsie was finished on June 1st. I was afraid that I would not be able to finally finish it though since I was participating in MMM Quilts’ A Roll of the Dice Pattern Launch and Pop Star QAL and we would be traveling during the last two weeks of June. But as luck and good Quilt Karma would have it, when I arrived home from our final trip on Tuesday, the 28th, I immediately started machine quilting that evening and was able to finally finish it yesterday. It was a good thing that this quilt was basted before I left.

Machine quilting was straight grid lines combined with wavy crosshatched lines in the most perfect #5014 Aurifil thread in a teal mint shade. It went perfect and fast which sometimes isn’t easy with a 63”x81” quilt. The only challenge in finishing this quilt was that I did not set aside any binding, highly unusual for me, nada was in the binding drawer and there was no yardage of any of the prints in the Sandy Gervais stash. Quilt Karma luckily, I found in my other stash a Moda Aqua/Teal Weave print which was perfect and accented the fabrics perfectly. I wasn’t so sure of my choice until after the binding was attached.

I have to mention the backing which was a flimsie I made in 2007 using Sandy Gervais Baby Talk fabric and Jan Patek’s Pool Party pattern. This measured approximately 50”x70” so I added some additional strips of plaid fabric from the Sandy Gervais stash so it would be large enough for the backing. I’m thinking this is a great combo quilt for a girl, start off with the baby side and when she’s older you can flip it over to the garden patch side. Maybe the darling Granddaughter who’s becoming quite a Quilt collector would like it. Coincidentally, for the 2020/21 UFO, I ended making it a Baker Dozen Challenge since I finished 13 quilts and I guess you can say I did it again this year although I combined two flimsies together. I now have one less flimsie hanging around the studio and this is the second time I used a flimsie for a backing which is a great way to make the UFO load lighter.

I thought I include a collage of the 2021/2022 Challenge quilts. For this challenge, I thought I would step it up by not including any UFOs that just needed to be quilted but only projects which were in the block stage and may have needed additional piecing or the layout still needed to be determined. What was I thinking I asked myself several times during the year especially for the larger quilts. I am so glad I met the challenge, although I was late several time, and can say although sometimes there were quilts I thought I was so over the fabrics, I fell in love again with them after the quilts were finished-especially this month’s French Garden Patch Quilt. 

This quilt was my oldest UFO for the Challenge and although the colors may not be current and not as bright as the other quilts, I know they’re going to make a comeback just like Calico is this year.

Mary Etherington, Country Threads, is changing the Challenge for next year which you can do either two ways. The number she pulls will correspond with a color she already chosen for the month or it can still be for a UFO. I’m planning on doing something a little different, a Que Sera, Sera QAL where the number she pulls will give me the option of working on either a UFO, Scrap Project, Designer/Color fabrics or finally finishing a flimsie. I decided to make commitment a little bit more fun for this Challenge so I need to come up with my list of 48 possibilities today. I hope this is going to be a good idea.

Wishing you a Happy and Safe Fourth of July.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT