First Two Finally Finishes for 2023

And just like that, after lamenting in my Last post of 2022 that I was feeling I was falling behind in my participation in Country Threads’ 2022/23 Dirty Dozen UFO because I only had flimsies to show for the months of October through December, I machine quilted and bound October’s and December’s flimsies this  week. This was made possible by Mary Etherington declaring that during January and February there would be no number or color drawn so we can catch up especially since these are the months where snow and cold would make it possible for us to stay home and sew. Well, here where I live in the Midwest, we’re experiencing unusual warm weather in the 40’s and 50’s and there has been no measurable snow for the past two weeks, but I still stayed home to sew after returning from the GP House. Despite really wanting to sew a new project with some new fabrics I received for Christmas and Juki Junebug still not sewing perfectly (I really miss my threads being cut automatically) I am happy that Wonderland, the patchwork throw, and FALLoween I, the future wall hanging are finally finished. Here are the deets:

Wonderland was the last flimsy I finished for 2022 and the plan was for this to be a quick quilt finish since I was only going to back it with my favorite Gray Chenille Plush which I will again mention that this makes for a wonderful, snuggly quilt/throw. Since we’re leaving once again for the GP House this weekend, I wanted to take this to give to the darling Granddaughter in hopes I can reclaim the Carrie Bloomston Patchwork Throw I made last May for me to use in her bedroom. She decided that this must be shared with her and I’m lucky if I get at least a quarter of the throw to snuggle under. Like her Grandma, she likes the feel of the plush backing.

The fabrics for this quilt/throw is from Katarina Roccella’s Wonderland collection along with other Art Gallery prints and some Cotton + Steel prints. These fabrics have been set aside for several years and I decided that this collection would be added to the 2022/23 UFO Challenge list. I just love the combination of the pinks, peaches, plum mixed with the grays and  the minty green I call Aquamint. The focal print of the sweet girls of which I only had a fat quarter would determine the pattern since there was no way I could cut this print into small patches. The prints on the lower right were added since I thought I could use these colors, especially the plum/abergine print.

I’m calling this pattern Easy Ernie Eights, since the eight inch blocks are made up of with either 4”x8”(f) Ernie rail blocks  combined with 4”x8”(f) plain rectangle patches, two plain rectangles or two Ernie rail blocks. I first drew out the pattern on my trusty graph paper to determine how many of each rail blocks/patches I needed to cut and sew. You can see that the sweet girl print was fussy cut into 4-1/2” x 8-1/2” rectangles and I used every bit of the fat quarter; I even had to piece together one of the rectangles together and hopefully the darling granddaughter won’t notice.

Since there was no batting in between the top and the plush chenille backing, I only quilted vertical lines between the four inch segments in a gray polyester thread. The binding is the pink xoxo print from Cotton + Steel, one of my favorite prints to use for binding. The Wonderland Patchwork Throw measures 56” x 80”. If the darling granddaughter still won’t give up the Carrie Bloomston Patchwork Throw, then I will be happy to claim this one as mine, hopefully she won’t decide she needs both of them and Grandma will be left out in the cold.

FALLoween I was a flimsy finished last October and would have been quilted then had Juki Junebug didn’t need to go to the Spa. 

I just love the prints and colors in this quilt as they are a collection of Sandy Gervais prints from when I first started quilting in 1996 and she was with Moda to some of her later prints from Riley Blake. I knew these fabrics would look great with the Cinnamon Spice pattern designed by Ledine Watson of Sugar Stitches Quilt Company and this would be the second time I made this pattern with my Cracker Jack being my first one made last April. I did modify the size of the blocks.

The pieced backing was made with yardage of two Sandy Gervais prints sitting in the stash for way too long and it didn’t take me too long to decide that it was time to use it up for  this very deserving top. I machine quilted with a combination of straight and wavy lines with a CT Essential Thread in Camel. The binding is the orange grid print, one of my favorite prints in my stash and may be the first time I ever used it for binding. Because Juki Junebug sometimes is continuing to sew after I release the foot pedal, I wasn’t comfortable sewing the binding down with her so I had to hand sew which was a good thing to do while watching the three crossover NCIS TV shows. FALLoween I measures 60” square, the perfect size to hang in the family room. I also have a FALLoween II flimsy and considered finishing it also but decided to wait since I still need to quilt my November quilt, which I did before starting this post and does it look awful. Guess what  I’ll be ripping out after this post. I love my FALLoween I quilt and can’t wait to hang it up this Fall. I’ve been wanting a new Fall quilt for the last several years but never seem to be in the mood during the Summer when it was too hot to be working with warm color fabrics. I’ll be ready this Fall for sure.

Here’s some photos taken outside which usually is hard to do in January with the snow and cold. The Master Quilt Holder definitely did not have any problems assisting me. Once my November quilt is finally finished, I am so looking forward to sewing a new project, but then again, I may feel like machine quilting some more flimsies, especially if I order my new machine next week.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Saying Good Bye to 2022

It seems rather funny to write that this is my last post for the year being that the last time I posted was on November 3rd which I explained my lack of productivity in October which now has extended almost through the end of December. The main reason is that my beloved and partner in quilt fun, Juki Junebug, was at the Spa or inoperable until mid December. Sadly, upon her return she still is not 100% since the thread cutter does not work even though it did before, she continues to sew a few stitches after the foot pedal is released or when the needle down and up is pressed and also was not a problem before but at least the needle threader was replaced. The sad thing about owning a Juki is not having a reliable service center by me so I already decided to purchase a new machine next year. I’m eyeing the Janome HD-9 which is a straight stitch machine and the local dealer is thirty minutes away from my house, is one of my favorite quilt shops and I know the owner. I am hoping that Juki Junebug will be able to machine quilt some of my flimsies which have accumulated this year and I still plan on keeping/using her.

Upon Junebug’s return, my plan was to finally finish the Heading North flimsy which I detailed the happy making of it on my last post. There were several reasons why I wanted to finish it; this was my fourth MMM Quilt project I did this year with Sandra being the mmmajor immmpetus and the other three quilts were finished so I wanted my Heading North to be part of the quadruple finishes and thus earning points for my Get Bella card. Also, knowing that I like to have twenty-four finishes a year (two for each month) and so far I only had twenty-three, I really needed to quilt it and I knew it wouldn’t take more than a few days, well before the end of the year. I wanted to keep the quilting simple so I only quilted in the ditch with CT Essential Thread in Latte. Junebug performed magnificently although I managed to swerve in some open places which usually happens to me when I stitch in the ditch. 

I didn’t mention in my post that while I was sewing my Heading North quilt I kept thinking that the colors looked so familiar, that I knew these colors, especially the blue but couldn’t place where I’ve seen these colors.  I even looked at my quilt album to see  if I had made a quilt with these colors but saw nothing. It was really bugging me. After the flimsy was a finish and posted,  while I was at the GP House sitting in the living room where I can look into the dining room, what did my wondrous eyes see, the area rug laying under the dining room table and there was my answer.

I decided that my Heading North Quilt was perfect for the dining room, also known as ESP (Eating, Sewing,Play) room hanging from the blinds on the large windows in the back where I have my small sewing studio. I think it looks quite nice there with the area rug.

I was hoping to have another finally finish to end the year but unfortunately I was only able to sew a flimsy made with mostly Katarina Roccella’s Wonderland fabrics which was one of the projects listed for December in my Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I feel I am so behind because I did not even do a project for November since I wanted to machine quilt but Junebug was unavailable. I will write more about this quilt once it is finished which I plan to soon since this will be a patchwork throw for the darling Granddaughter. I was really hoping to finish it today but due to my latest cold which she gave to me before Christmas I was just not feeling up to it. I now have eleven flimsies for 2022 which I think some of them will make my 2023/24 UFO Challenge list.

I’m calling it a year now and closing with a photo of the darling Granddaughter in one of her Christmas dresses which may have inspired my latest flimsy-love that color I call Aquamint. I’m hoping to feel a whole lot better for 2023 because I have quilts I need to machine quilt. And yes, plans are already in my head as what I plan to hopefully sew next year. I should mention that although there wasn’t a whole lot of finished during the past three months, I did indulge in some lovely fabric purchases, big wink here.

Wishing you a healthy and prosperous New Year. Stay warm and safe!

New Pattern Launch: mmm quilts/ Heading North

Surprisingly for me, I did not have a quilt finish for October for a number of reasons from working on reorganizing the house, doctor appointments, vaccination and booster shots, granddaughter time which included catching her cold, Fall decorating which involved hyper-extending my right knee,  but the most important reason of all is that my partner in  Quilting, Juki Junebug, needed to go the Spa for a much needed treatment. This meant there was no machine quilting, only piecing on the quiet sister of my trio of Juki sewing machines, Hazel which is a HZL F600 and used when a scant 1/4” is needed for certain blocks.

As I put it, I was innocently sewing Flying Geese Blocks with Hazel in mid-October, when I received an email from Mmmajor Mmmpetus (Sandra, mmm quilts) asking me if I would like to volunteer to make a quilt from her Heading North pattern which was published last year in Make Modern and would be released as a pattern this week. She stressed that it was not a “pattern test” since it has already been tech-edited. Sandra said it was an easy FPP pattern, which I admit is not my favorite technique, but since I made some Wensleydale Blocks last month and am pretty comfortable with the technique now and after a few moments perusing my stash for the right fabric, I told her I would be glad to make the baby size (36” square) version. As much as I liked the throw version, I knew there was no way I could machine quilt it as lovely as Sandra did.

Usually, I spend way too much time just choosing five fabrics but this time once I found my focus or inspiration print which is a 2013 Jessica Swift/Blend print named Geometriska I was able to find the other four prints, which are #30150 Grunge (white), Marcus Bros. Aged Muslin in Dapple Dots Magenta, Zen Chic Spotted in Citrine and AGF Indie Bohemia (blue). I prefer to use tone on tone prints rather than solids and was glad that these prints all from different fabric lines went so well with each other. Because I wanted to feature the Geometriska print more, I did change my fabric layout for the Heading North pattern by using it for the center, as one of the strip prints and the border. I’m glad to have finally been able to use the Geometriska print which I think was perfect for this pattern.

Here’s a collage of the block making and the Heading North pattern which gives the measurements for cutting the fabric for piecing. For any pieces involving HST I would cut the larger size to give you wiggle room to make sure it fits right. Like Sandra said, it is an easy pattern but FPP can’t be sewn fast. I can see why this pattern is done as FPP because you really need for the blocks to click together to show the lovely angles and lines. As mentioned earlier, Juki Junebug went to the Spa after my Heading North flimsy was finished and she so deserved a tune-up.

One pic of the Heading North Quilt taken outside. For a 36” square quilt, it seems larger, doesn’t it? I’m glad the Master Quilt Holder and I figured a way to hold the quilt up, otherwise he really would have had to do some deep stooping. I think Heading North might me the most enjoyable of the mmm mmmakes I did this year (this is my fourth one) even though it involved a little more time. There are five of us who volunteered to make this pattern and you can check out Sandra’s post to see their quilts. Here is the link to purchase The Heading North pattern which will be 30% off until Sunday evening, Nov. 6th (not an affiliate link). I think this pattern would look absolutely wonderful in Christmas/Winter/Holiday fabrics.

After the Heading North flimsy was a finish, I resumed the innocent sewing of the Flying Geese Blocks for my FALLoween Quilt #1, a flimsy, and is considered my October finish for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I am loving these Fall colors. I will write more about this quilt once it is machine quilted. Juki Junebug is going to be very busy upon her return. Right now, I feel like I’m FAlling behind.

FALLing into Piecing

For the past two weeks, which involved the darling granddaughter babysitting us for a week which we recovered nicely and being home this week, I have no finished quilt to post; only some new projects in the beginning stages and a hopeful solution involving fabric.

During the week we were at the Grandparent House, I started making Jen Kingwell Wensleydale blocks with foundation paper piecing after much hesitation but was finally inspired to make them thanks to my down under Quilt torMentor Sue of Patchwork and Play who is doing a wonderful job with her blocks. I won’t give too much details right now but only to mention before finishing the very first block, I was ready to call it quits and was planning an Escape from Wensleydale quilt. After much careful ripping of patches and finally making the first block which took more than three hours due to some fabric patches being too small and some distraction, I decided to do another block but this time cutting my patches larger resulting in some waste but was worth it. I originally precut my patches based on the templates in the Quilt Recipe book and adding 1/4”around. For me adding 1/2” around worked much better. I’m using several Jen Kingwell fabric lines which  include some bright colors and prints and to tone it down, I’ll be making neutral blocks to alternate with these colorful blocks.

Before I can continue with the Wensleydale blocks, I had to decide what I was going to do with the Jen Kingwell Glitter Blocks which I paper pieced last year. After making forty of these blocks, I decided to stop since I couldn’t see making a large quilt with these blocks. I came up with a plan to make a wall/door hanging for the recently vacated bedroom using  the gray/tan Radiator Cover print, designed by Amanda Nyberg purchased several years ago, for sashing with apple green cornerstones. Now that I have a plan for the Glitter blocks, this will free up the fabrics set aside and can now use it for the Wensleydale Blocks which will give them even more variety.

The October Project Number for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge was Five and in my group of projects for  this number was two quilts using Sandy Gervais fabrics which I am calling them FALLoween #1 and FALLoween #2. I still have a nice stash of Sandy Gervais fabrics and my favorites are the ones she designed for Fall and Halloween. This week, I’ve been busy die-cutting  HSTs and squares plus sewing 2.5” strips together which were die-cut last year. BTW, the skinny strips leftover from die-cutting the strips were used to make what I call fabric marbles seen in the top opening photo of this post. I am hoping I will have both of these finished by the end of the month.

When we were with the darling Granddaughter last week and observing the napkin war she was having with her father who thinks she shouldn’t be throwing her paper napkin on the floor after one use or not using one at all, I decided to make her some fabric napkins. I know when we eat at Olive Garden she uses the fabric napkins and doesn’t throw them on the floor and may take disposable napkins to heart by throwing them on the floor. I remember seeing a post about fabric napkins made with terry cloth so I purchased a pack of 18 for under $7. These inexpensive washcloths are the right weight to go with the fabric. I trimmed the wash cloths to 10” square since the size of each one differed which turned out to be a good idea since I could use a 10” cut x width of fat quarter to make two napkins. After top-stitching around the napkin edges, I also did diagonal stitching on the center to make sure the fabrics stayed together after washing. I have washed the napkins after sewing 18 of them and I can say they are nice and soft, not wrinkly and probably will get softer after each washing. Here’s hoping the darling Granddaughter will use them so I don’t have to hear her father say “Napkin” at least twenty times during meals. In her defense, I will say her father was a very messy eater when he was her age.

Another thing that kept me busy was the slow makeover of the recently vacated bedroom once occupied by Demando along with other rooms. My yarn stash which has been residing in the dining room and the spare bedroom will now be residing in this bedroom since the nice IKEA shelf unit was left behind. And if I didn’t have enough Jen Kingwell during the past two weeks, my Gypsy King bedroom  ensemble was finally laid out this week; the king-size quilt was finished October of last year. So far, there has been no bad dreams sleeping under the Gypsy Wife quilt.

We’re once again heading off to the Grandparent House. It’s nice to know that upon my return I’m going to have some wonderful projects to sew but then again there’s also more room/closet reorganization to do. I need a magic nose.

The Tell Tale Blues Quilt

I thought that my Tell Tale Blues quilt, which was one of the eight flimsies made since July, would be the one I would finally finish. This quilt was made with a Jelly Roll, last Saturday was Sew A Jelly Roll Day and I seem to be sew-lebrating with making quilts with 2.5” strips this month since The Kitty Corn Mix quilt was a finally finish earlier this month and another flimsy made which you will see later in this post. I mentioned this quilt in a July post when it was a flimsy and called it a dream/scream project: I’m thinking a better name for a project of this type would be a daydream since I worked on it for one day and then set it aside.

Like some of my quilts, I wasn’t planning to make my Tell Tale Blues quilt. Every day, I receive a memory photo feed from either Apple or Amazon, and I just so happened to receive the above photo of The Opposites 2.5” strip roll taken in October, 2020 which was when I purchased it. Of course, it prompted me to make another Staggered Strips and Bricks quilt like my Celestial Moonrise Quilt.

After pulling additional fabrics from The Opposite collection from my stash of Marcia Derse fabrics since the roll was not going to be enough, I decided to use the yardage of The Blue One which was a nice accent against the black, gray, white and natural tones of The Opposite fabrics.

Here’s a photo of my yardage of The Blue One before it was cut up into 4.5”x16.5” bricks, both horizontally and vertically.

Lessons learnt from the making of The Celestial Moonrise quilt on the right was applied to The Tell Tale Blues quilt. I wish I had more of the blue fabric since I think it almost gets lost against the black, grays, white and natural and not liking it too much after the flimsy was finished. It sort of looks “spooky” doesn’t it, which how I came up with the name because thumping sounds and Edgar Allen Poe came into mind as I was sewing this late into the night.

I had the perfect backing for The Tell Tale Blues quilt which was my last piece of IKEA’s 2010 Beckmans of Design print which fits the spooky feel. Even though the backing was 60” wide, I still had to sew additional strips on the side to accommodate the width of this quilt.

I was happy with my choice of using #4060 Aurifil thread for the top since it blended nicely with all of the colors and silver was used for the bottom.

Here’s some close-ups of the fabrics and the machine quilting of straight and wavey lines. For the binding, I used leftovers from The Blue One along with additional blue prints from the Marcia Derse stash. The Tell Tale Blues quilt measures 60”x80”(approx.). 

It was just a little bit windy this morning when an outside photo was taken and the Master Quilt Holder had no problems holding it up. It looks so pretty in the morning light.

Before The Tell Tale Blues quilt was a finally finished, I worked on another daydream project for several days with my 2.5” strips leftover from previous Staggered Strips and Squares quilts. Once this is quilted, I’ll have more details but wanted to show you a pic of the Master Quilt Holder and the Apprentice Quilt Holder who both were needed to hold up this 80”x92” flimsy. The Apprentice Quilt Holder is leaving the Nest which means he may not be around much to help hold up the quilts. I don’t think this was an incentive for him to finally move but it sure is nice for me to have his old bedroom for another creative space. BTW, this quilt will be for the bed which will still remain.

We’ll be heading to the GP house tomorrow where the darling Granddaughter will be babysitting us for a week. Trips to the Zoo and Pumpkin Patch are planned and maybe a little chance of some sewing and knitting.  Upon our return, some home reorganization and makeover will definitely keep Hubby and I busy.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Rainbow Forest, A Grandson Quilt Finally Finished

 

The Rainbow Forest Quilt is my September finish for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. Although you have a choice of either working on an UFO or a new project and I have done both during the past two months, I still like to finish an UFO, especially one that has been a flimsy for over sixteen years as the Rainbow Forest Quilt was. (Sorry for the rather dark photo, but it was really hard taking a good pic and had to rely on photo editing).

I used to maintain an Excel spreadsheet of my quilt projects and stopped when I started blogging in 2016. According to my spreadsheet, the flimsy was finished in 2006 and measures 68” x 90”. At that time, both of my sons were in their twenties and wouldn’t have appreciated the wonderful Jennifer Sampou Rainforest prints but probably would have if the quilt was made ten years sooner. So, according to my recollection, I referred to this flimsy as the Grandson Quilt #1 which turns out to be wrong and was actually the Grandson Quilt #2. I can’t remember the source for the quilt pattern but the spreadsheet noted that this pattern as Contemporary Patchwork which today would be considered Modern with the six patch blocks using various shades of the same color group. Some of the prints in the blocks were from the Rain Forest collection but some were prints from other contemporary collections. I still love the bright colors with fun prints and was glad to be reacquainted with them when the flimsy was pulled out.

When I first pulled out the flimsy, I was excited to start quilting it but then had second thoughts since it measured 68” x 90” which is a little bit outside my comfort zone. I was so sure that the green yardage I found in the backing vault would be enough but was 12” too short so I had to piece the backing with some of the leftover blocks I was lucky to still have. Even more luckier was finding the blue fabric from the Rain Forest collection in the binding drawer. I decided to machine quilt wavey grid lines on the center blocks and straight lines on the border with a variegated thread on top and green thread on the bottom. My sweet Juki Junebug was acting up on the final few lines of quilting and I was lucky to be able to finish it. I was debating on whether to sew down the binding by machine but decided I better hand sew it since there was a good chance Juki Junebug was too tired to finish. I know I should take her in for a Spa Treatment but am not happy with the local service center. I am entertaining thoughts of buying a new machine but really love my Juki Junebug.

I thought I include another close-up photo of the wonderful focus print and the border fabric. I know it wasn’t too hard to find fabrics in my stash then which went well with these prints.

As mentioned earlier, I thought the Rainbow Forest Quilt was the Grandson Quilt #1 but it turned out the blue quilt on the right was the Grandson Quilt #1. This quilt was made with then contemporary blue prints like batiks and from the Animal Attraction fabric line and was finished in 2002. Thank goodness I still have a printout of my spreadsheet to set me straight. This quilt also uses a border print and the pattern is a four-patch log cabin which was a class I taught during my quilt shop days. I can say that I still like my bright fabrics, fun prints and simple patterns; making quilts with borders, not so much.

Here’s a side by side photo of the two Grandson Quilts which is nice to have finally finished after starting them when I had vision of grandchildren back in the 2000’s. In July, I finished the Granddaughter #2 Quilt and the Granddaughter #1 Quilt is down for this year’s UFO Challenge and it’s another big one made with another Jennifer Sampou fabric line. The Master Quilt Holder had a real workout today with the pic taking  of the Grandson quilts and as mentioned in my earlier post, I need to stop making long quilts because they’re getting harder to photograph. I’m calling my participation in the September UFO Challenge as done even though there’s 20 days left in the month and there are three other projects I can do. Since July when the new Challenge started with the new rules, along with some dreaming, I have eight flimsies. I’m hoping to quilt at least one of them this month although September is going to be busy with the darling Granddaughter babysitting us for an entire week at the end of the month as well as October since I am determined to finally clean out the bedroom closets. You have to believe me that it is going to be one huge undertaking. Wish me fun.

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