Koby, Jr., A Dreamy Dog Daze of Summer Quilt

I posted the Koby, Jr. flimsy earlier this month and, sew and behold, it is a Finally Finished for August. I am calling this a DrEAMi because it “Sew Happened”, really, right during a long stretch of very hot, humid weather. While rummaging through my stash to find fabrics for my Ole Glory Quilt and looking through my bins of Lights, I found a print which I knew was vintage Country Threads fabric because I had seen it when I visited Mary Etherington back in late May.

When we were in her studio, I had asked Mary if I could see the fabrics she designed for Benartex since I thought I never purchased any and expecting she would have a shelf exclusively for them. Surprisingly she only had a piece of this print which was laying on her sewing table. I’m sure if we looked harder we could have found more. So imagine being dumbfounded several months later when I saw yardage of the same print named Welcome  which probably have been sitting in my stash for years. I’m wondering if I bought it when I visited her shop the first time ten years ago.

After the Ole Glory Flimsy was made, I pulled out some “old friends”of mostly Jan Patek prints because I love making quilts with the color combination of red, beige, black and sage which you will see later. 

I knew the pattern I was going to use was Koby designed by GE Designs and it is a wonderful pattern (not an affiliate link) named after her dog. I love the layout of rectangles and strips or bricks and strips as I call it. The reason for naming this Koby, Jr is because I changed the dimensions of the patch sizes and although I do own three Stripology rulers I did not use them but instead my die cutter. I thought it would be appropriate to refer to Koby, Jr since there are several dog references especially the dog you see in the print which I recognized immediately when I found the Welcome fabric.

This pattern sews up fast and is a great stash buster. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a very versatile pattern and the bricks and strips can be laid horizontally for another great look.

Machine quilting with a CT Essential Thread in Barn Red with straight and wavy lines was fast and easy. The backing from the vault was a Free Spirit Print, My Sweet Sister Emma which was perfect. 

Koby, Jr was finished just in time to bring it the next day to Good Peep Mary’s beautiful house where I could take some photos there. I had to include a photo of Koby, Jr with her two Australian Doodles, Tater (L) and Pudge (R) since there is sort of a dog theme in this post and also I love seeing photos of dogs and cats with quilts, especially the ones posted by Joyfully Tracie with her dog Wally.  Just saying Wally and Pudge would make a cute couple and Tater reminds me of the dog in the Welcome fabric. Good Peeps Mary, Linda and I had a slow stitch day and I’ll be posting what I made and finished in the next post.

As I mentioned earlier in my Post, I love making quilts with the Red, Beige, Black and Sage color combination and since these quilts reside at the GP House because it goes well with the farmhouse decor, I thought I take a group shot of the five I’ve now made. Going from right to left, they are in chronological order of when they were made, the first two made over ten years ago and the third and fourth made around five years ago. The fourth quilt which was the last one I’ve made with this color combination and was finished in 2019, so it’s been four years, another good reason why I made Koby, Jr. By the way, the latest three quilts have a Mary Etherington influence either by fabric, fabric bomb (an unexpected fabric exchange where only one person is involved) or by pattern. Now before the month of August is over in a few days, I have another Post to write because I have three more Finally Finishes. Per usual, I never do what I say I’m going to do in my Posts, as in my July Post, I said I was going to take it easy by only finishing one project but instead I did six. August did seem like it lasted forever especially with the hot weather.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Another August UFO Finish: Ole Glory Flag Quilt

My Ole Glory Flag Quilt is my second finish in August for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.  This quilt is one of my oldest UFOs I’ve listed for this year’s Challenge and was started over twenty years ago after 9/11 when many quilters were making patriotic quilts. Also worth noting for this UFO is that this is the oldest one I worked on during the years of the Challenge and that it wasn’t just a Flimsy which needed to be machine quilted but one that needed the blocks sewn with over twenty-year old fabric. Fortunately, I still love these prints, since many of the red/blue/white and patriotic quilts in my house have these fabrics/prints.

When I was gathering projects in mid June in anticipation of my annual participation in the UFO Challenge and looking in a cabinet which contains mostly kits and some UFOs, I came across the Ole Glory Flag Quilt project box which contained a few pieced blocks, foundation paper patterns, fabric yardage, cut patches ready to sew onto the foundation paper with a layout and some notes. I decided to add this project to this list since I thought of it while I was working on my Wensleydale Quilt which also had foundation pieced blocks with a similar diamond pattern.

I started sewing the blocks in July while I was at the GP House which turned out to be good timing since this ended up to be one of my August UFO projects.  I did not have a printed pattern for the quilt but I remembered how it looked, so I thought. There were three different types of foundation blocks for the flag quilt; a diamond shape with four points, a square with two points and a rectangle with points. After looking at the few diamond blocks which were already sewn, I realized before I started sewing the blocks that color placement of the fabric was important for each foundation piece so that the reds and blues points alternated around the Moda Georgetown flag print. I also decided that I was not going to make an almost 72” square quilt but instead make a wall hanging measuring 36”x45”. Once I decided on the new size, I had to determined how many of each block type  needed the red patch to be on the upper right or upper left.

After I finished all the foundation pieced blocks, I thought I should find the actual pattern for the Flag Quilt. I had mentioned in a July post that this was a Sandy Gervais Flag Quilt project but could not find the pattern online nor in my pattern library. After thinking about it, I finally remembered that this was a pattern by Jodi Barrows and was in her Blocks by the Square book published in 1999. This block was designed to be used with her Square in a Square ruler which I instead designed the foundation pieces using Electric Quilt’s Sew Precise software so the blocks could be more accurately sewn.

It turned out to be a good thing I found this pattern because I realized my original layout was wrong with using too many of the flag prints and I needed a plain rectangle block for the center row. I looked through my bins of Sandy Gervais fabrics and couldn’t find the right fabric so I then looked through my Navy Blue bin of older and traditional fabrics and found the Sandy Gervais I Pledge Allegiance print there and it was perfect. BTW, when I first thought this quilt was a Sandy Gervais pattern, I was going to name this quilt, I Pledge Allegiance #2 which I will show you why later in this post.

When I was digging around the Navy Blue stash, I found another Sandy Gervais print for the outer border. The light fabrics for the inner border and plain blocks along the sides were found in my older stash of light prints which I also found a lot of oldies but goodies. The flimsy was finished last week and I couldn’t decide how I was going to quilt it because I didn’t want any machine quilting on the flag print. I was thinking that I wouldn’t be able to finish it by the end of August.

While at the GP House this past weekend and looking at a pic of the flimsy, I saw how I wanted to do the machine quilting. I did vertical straight line quilting spaced 1/2” apart on the center row and then horizontal line quilting spaced 1/2” apart on the  rows which did not have a flag print which resulted in the plain blocks with the I Pledge Allegiance print to have grid quilting. I also quilted in the ditch on the outer star points and inner border.

Here are some close-up shots of the quilt backing which is yardage of a Joined At The Hip print, the machine quilting which I used a CT Essential Thread in Caramel and a shot of the blue border print which I also used for the binding, so you can see it had red dots which may not be noticeable in the other photos. I want to mention that some of the photos of this quilt are too yellow/gold and the photo in the lower right corner is the most accurate.

Also worth mentioning again is that the Ole Glory Flag quilt uses fabric I pulled over twenty years ago from my stash and I do remember that I included a light print which had trains (you can see on the top diamond block) in recognition of the Chinese immigrants who help build the Transcontinental Railroad.

Here is why the Ole Glory Flag Quilt was originally going to be named I Pledge Allegiance #2 is because the above quilt is a Sandy Gervais I Pledge Allegiance pattern which I finished over twenty years ago. This quilt is 64” wide and 38” tall and includes the entire Pledge and stars I hand embroidered. I think this quilt may have been one of the reasons why I didn’t finish the Ole Glory Flag Quilt since once I finished this, I may not have wanted to work on another flag project for at least another twenty years. Just kidding, since then I have done quite a few more quilts in red, white and blue and several flag quilts which I may have alluded in previous posts was because it was the color and or theme of my Family Room. I realized while I was working on Ole Glory and wondering if I’ve made too many flag and patriotic quilts, I had a “Duh” moment—I reminded myself I was born on Flag Day and may have not mention this in my posts for several reasons. Like the fabric I buy with Roses because it has my name on it, I can say the same for Flag prints and patterns. 

One last pic of the Master Quilt Holder holding Ole Glory from behind a tree which is a great way to photograph a small quilt without him having to stoop. I thought this was going to be a quiet Post but it turned out I had a lot to say/explain about this over twenty-year old UFO and that a lot of memory muscle, searching for pattern facts and rediscovering old fabrics went into the making. Now when I start a new project, I take a lots of pics on my iPhone so I have a record of when I started, a pattern pic and the fabrics used but I also should include some written info since I never know if one of my current projects is going to be a future UFO finished by the darling Granddaughter who is becoming quite a Quilt lover.

The Big Easy Quilt #Tula

 

It’s only the first nine days of the month and I was thinking that this Post title should be the Mary Month of August. Ever since Mary Etherington posted on August 1st that #10 is the number and Pink is the color for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge, I’ve been almost behaving myself with focusing on two of the projects I listed. I had already made two flimsies first, which will be shown later in the post, before starting the Big Block Quilt #Tula which was a flimsy made a year ago in July, 2022. My first priority in the UFO Challenge is to always finish a flimsy. If you’re wondering about how I came up with the name for this quilt is that I made a Big Easy Quilt #1 with Carrie Bloomston fabrics almost three years ago, you can see it Here. Since this is my second version or #2 made with Tula Pink fabrics, I thought #Tula which sounds like two, would be more fun.

The Big Easy Quilt has 16” blocks made up of either 2.5”strip, 4.5” squares and strips, 8.5” squares and 8.5” x 16.5” bricks. I drew the blocks on my trusty graph paper just like I did for the first Big Easy Quilt based on the large focal prints and accent fabrics in my Tula Pink stash. 

I love making big blocks especially with fun and beautiful fabrics. I used various collections of Tula Pink fabrics and the above blocks include some of my favorite prints.

I wasn’t planning on machine quilting the Big Easy #Tula quilt yesterday but somehow managed to prep the flimsy and backing, baste, machine quilt and bind it in less than eight hours which worked out great since we’re leaving tomorrow for the GP House. The machine quilting was wavey lines two inches apart, done while listening to Hawaiian Ukele music, with Aurifil #2415 Pink on the top and #2605 Gray on the bottom. I thought using pink thread would be so appropriate for Tula Pink and it is the color for the August UFO Challenge. The backing was a wide-back multi dot print found in the backing vault and the binding is the Tula Pink Tent Print in Pink/Orange. The Big Easy #Tula quilt measures 64” x 80".

As mentioned earlier in this Post,  I made two flimsies prior to finishing the Big Easy Quilt #Tula which you can see above. The Flag Quilt flimsy on the left was one of the projects listed for August  and I was lucky to have started working on the blocks last month. I will write more about this quilt after it is a Finally Finish which I hope will be by the end of August. The Strip and Brick quilt which is based on GE Design Koby Quilt was not on any list and I was inspired to make it after I found yardage of a print which was designed by Country Threads and never knew I had. I’ll reveal which print it was after this too is also a Finally Finished, and again, hopefullly by the end of this month. I did jokingly asked Mary if she would like some of this fabric

And the last piece of the Mary-ment to this Post is while having a text exchange with Mary about the dog fabric in the middle which lead to her discovery as to it being a 5 yard piece, I ended up receiving yardage of it. It is a dec weight/canvas fabric and I just so happened to have in my stash the colorful fabrics on the left and right, also dec and linen weight which would go well with dog fabric. I’m thinking this would be great for a tote bag and when I do make one I’ll be sure to make one for Mary.

One last pic of the Big Easy Quilt #Tula reclining on the front porch bench. I wish a high back chair, like a throne was available instead. The Master Quilt Holder had a hard time holding up this quilt during photo taking; I’d forgotten that a 64” wide quilt is hard to hold up without fingers showing especially if it’s also 80" long so asking him to move one of the wing back chairs from the living room was out of the question. I think he might be making one of those quilt holders for photo taking that I’ve seen on other quilters’ blogs. I did confess to him finally that such a holder could be used but then I’m still holding out for a clothes line in the back yard.

We’re going to be busy at the GP House this weekend since The Master Quilt Holder and his fellow band mates will be performing at the Illinois State Fair on Monday, August 14th. This and spending time with the darling Granddaughter will leave little time for quilting which is fine since I need to take a break.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

An Oh My July: FALLoween II, Flimsy Frenzy, Etc.

With a busy July which included three trips to the GP House, attending two of Hubby’s band gigs, a day with my Peeps whom I haven’t seen for  many months and other activities which I don’t usually do like baking cookies from scratch, I had a pretty productive month with one Finally Finished, Five Flimsies, one Test Block and working on two twenty year old UFOs. And did I mention making Spider Balls which I wrote about in this Post. I thought that this Post would only include a brief mention of my FALLoween II quilt which was my Finally Finished for this month. It was included in my July projects for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge and am always glad when I can cross a project off this list. After I sent this pic to Mary Etherington/Country Threads  and she asked about which pattern I used, I realized that I should include some details about this quilt.

Last year, I was having a sewing fling with my lovely stash of Sandy Gervais Fall fabrics which mostly are from her MODA days and are 10-20 years old. I made two flimsies: FALLoween I and Fallowween II. FALLoween I (pictured above) was one of my first finally finished for 2023 and you can read the details Here. Right around the time FALLoween I and II were made, I was experiencing problems with my Juki 2010Q so machine quilting was delayed until the arrival of Jinny Janome. FALLoween I was quilted first. Since I wanted Falloween II to be finished sooner than later, I added it to my Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge for 2023/24 and as luck would have it, it was drawn to be finished this July in time for Fall.

I did mention beforehand that I have a lovely stash of Sandy Gervais Fall fabrics and after the FALLoween I flimsy was made, there was enough to make FALLoween II which is a another version of the strips and bricks pattern I like to make. The rail blocks are what I like to call the Ernie strips which are 2.5” and were cut either 8”(f) or 16”(f). The brick blocks were made with focal prints cut 4.5”x8.5” and framed with 2.5” strips. A sample of these blocks are in the upper right corner of the above pic. For such a simple pattern, I did have to spend some time on determining the layout of the blocks and the colors, plus making sure I had enough fabric to make it work. This quilt measures 56”x 72”.

I remembered after the flimsy was finished and feeling a little disappointed with the way it looked, I’m happy to say after machine quilting it with an CT Essential Thread in variegated greens with straight and wavey lines, I am liking FALLoween II now. I used yardage of a Robyn Pandolph green stripe fabric found in the backing vault but did looked in the Fall stash to see if I could make a pieced back.

While looking in the Fall stash, I came across some 2.5” strips and yardage and remembered that a FALLoween III quilt was planned. I decided that I didn’t need another quilt but could make table runners instead.

While at the GP House this past weekend, I made two runners, which are two of the five flimsies made this month, the left one measuring 32” x 66” which will be for our primary house and the one on the right measures 20” x 36” and will be for the GP house. I had leftover fabric to make some placemats but decided to wait. I am glad once the table runners are machine quilted that it will be nice have them ready for Fall decoration.

Here are pics of the other three flimsies made during July. The top quilts, Wensleydale and Mazed were mentioned in my last Post and I will write more about them once they are a finally finished. The bottom quilt is Razzle Dazzle which is a Fat Quarter Shop pattern which came with a bundle of Ruby Star fabrics. I had die-cut the pieces in May and thought by sewing the flimsy in July I was working on a DREAMi project and feeling a little guilty but realized that this was one of my July projects I listed for the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. This quilt plus Wensleydale can be crossed off my July list as flimsies count as a Finish.

Here is the test block I did for Sandra Healy Designs which I used Alison Glass fabrics. While I was sewing this block, I realized that I could used to make a pillow to go with the darling granddaughters new bedroom ensemble. I’ll be sure to post a photo once the pillow is made.

While I was searching for possible projects for the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge, I came across two twenty year old UFO projects. The top pic are the 4” block exchange from a quilt guild I used to be a member and the bottom pic is a Sandy Gervais flag quilt. Once these projects are finished, it will be a post for another day.

I’m a day late with my July post because I lost track of the days thinking I had a few days left. So, I’m posting after Midnight which makes it August 1st and this means another new number will be drawn for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I think I’ll take it easy and only work on one project because there’s some house projects, like finally organizing some closets I really need to do.

A Week Down Under

A little fun with the Post title since it doesn’t refer to traveling to Australia but to the time I spent in my sewing space which I named Studio UP (Underground Palace) which is the finished basement where most of my quilt joy happens. One of the disadvantages of sewing done under are the spiders who are not spinning me fabric but instead are annoying me with their nasty webs and sometime appearances. One of the ways I deal with these unwanted studio mates are with “Spider” Balls. After spending this past week down under,  I decided I needed to replenish my supply after I made two flimsies which you will see below. They’re quick and easy to make with the leftover skinny fabric strips made when die-cutting, which I hate to discard, and the never ending batting scraps. I fold a 2” batting square in quarters and then wrap at least a 20” x 1/4 wide strip around the batting square. I do add a spot of glue before and after wrapping to hold the strip in place and trim any fabric frays. They are not round as balls and remind me more of oyster crackers but naming them spider crackers just didn’t appeal to me. Like moth balls, my Spider Balls are repellants once I add a few drops of peppermint essential oil. I could use white cotton balls but these are way more prettier. I put the Spider Balls in glass jars, group them in lids or push one in a water bottle cap which would also make a compact pin cushion. I do have to refresh them with the peppermint essential oils every few days but I see it as exercise since they are placed all around my 20’x30’ studio and it does make my studio smell good. As you can see, my latest batch of Spider Balls  filled an empty oatmeal container and were made while watching TV upstairs. I will admit that the Spider Balls don’t deter the spiders entirely and in which case I have to use my voice activated Spider Man system which is my screaming and Hubby running down the stairs. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work when he’s not home.

The Spider Balls were made mostly from trimmings from Jen Kingwell (JK) fabrics, another reason for the reference to Down Under, used for the two flimsies finished this past week. The top quilt is the Wensleydale pattern designed by Jen Kingwell, the Down Under Quit Extraordinaire, a foundation pieced project, which I started last October and finished sewing all 60 sixty blocks in early June. The bottom quilt was made with a JK’s Fine and Sunny Jelly Roll plus some of her other fabric lines in order to make the Running Doe Quilts Mazed pattern larger which I’m definitely going to make again. Once these quilts are a finally finished I’ll do another Post. And to add to the Down Under vibe is while I was sewing these two flimsies, I was listening to one of my favorite authors, Kate Morton’s latest book Homecoming which is set in Australia.

We’re heading to the GP house where Hubby is finishing the basement and planning a studio space for me. I know when that happens I’ll definitely will make more Spider Balls which I already have the makings needed and way more courage since I still have not gone down under there still after four years. (For those who don’t know, the GP House is the Grandparent House which we purchased this 100 year old fixer-upper and is next door to the darling Granddaughter. It is our second home where we visit every other week. I have avoided the basement after Hubby found some meat hooks hanging around and I don’t like horror movies). I would rather fly to down under and I don’t like to fly despite claims from my menfolk that I fly on a broom, than go down to the GP basement.

Happy Sewing wherever you sew!

Celebrating My Country Threads Camraderie

Ever since I began quilting over twenty-five years ago, the Country Threads Quilt Shop (Country Threads) has been part of my quilting life. It started the good old fashioned way before the worldwide web when I received a catalogue around twenty-seven years ago from Quilt Farm, a shop or a mail-order company located in Minnesota and one of the first places I purchased fabric through the mail. Besides offering fabric and notions for sale in their catalog, they wrote tidbits and going-ons and mentioned that they were collecting blocks for a wedding quilt to be made for the then Mary Tindall for her upcoming marriage to Rick Etherington. But our friendship did not start with quilting, so I thought, but after subscribing to the Country Threads Goat Gazette, I was so smitten with Mary’s goat Susannah who was famous for her antics around the shop and most notably being caught inside the UPS truck. Fast forward to more than ten years later during which time, I purchased numerous Country Thread books and patterns, most notably made a Bulls-Eye Quilt, I finally met Mary at the Rosemont Quilt Show in early 2013(?) and did I talk to her about their lovely quilts, No,  it was all about Susannah. It was at that time I decided that I would one day visit her shop in Garner, Iowa which was a Quilters’ Mecca back then.

I finally met Susannah in August, 2013 and brought her many treats which she enjoyed very much. As I was preparing to write this Post and looking through photos, I was surprised to see  that my camraderie with Mary and Connie Tesene is less than ten years old. It seems like I’ve known them forever. The word Camraderie is defined as “mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together” which I think includes time spent online. Although I only visited Mary six times during the past ten years, we keep in touch almost every day through her Blog, emails or text messages. 

On several occasions we have exchanged fabric bombs and gifts through the mail or in person. On my recent visit in May, I brought Mary and Connie one of my feedsack mats in a wire basket (which I will write about someday) and I received a lovely pouch made by Connie who also makes the best rhubarb pie.

There is a “business” side to our Camraderie and that is my participation for the past three years in the Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge which I listed twelve UFOs which mostly have been flimsies needed to be quilted. The Challenge starts in July and ends in June of the following year and I have been successful each year in finishing twelve quilts, one for each month and some of them being UFOs for over twenty years. I like to say that by participating in this Challenge, it has made me an honest quilter by making me work on projects I call “have to dos” and giving me some sort of focus. The 2022/23 Challenge was a little different than previous years whereby besides working on an UFO which was determined by the number drawn, you can now work on a project determined by a Color drawn for the month. I added something to the challenge with three more categories which included a Designer, Fabric Stash and Scraps which gave me a choice of sixty projects for the year. I thought I didn’t do to well but if you base it on only ten projects needed to be finished because we were off in January and February and that flimsies counted, I did pretty well because I finished thirteen quilts and made seven flimsies.

While I was on vacation during May/June and remembering that the old Challenge was ending and a new one beginning in July, I came up with my projects which I make a monthly photo collage so I know what was up when the number and color was drawn. I want to mention that I’m not doing a project based on color but am doing a true Bakers Dozen by coming up with thirteen months and five categories which are, Flimsies to be Quilted, UFO- Projects Started or Kits,  Fabric Designer, Fabric Stash and Scraps. This makes 65 projects to choose and it’s going to be a fun year. I’ve added the seven flimsies made from last year to this year’s Challenge. BTW, Mary added something different to this year’s Challenge by including another category called an Extra Credit Challenge which you can read about in this Post.

No. 7 was pulled for July and I am so excited because I have five projects to choose from: the FALLoween # 2 to be quilted, the Wensleydale blocks to be sewn together, the Fat Quarter Shop Razzle Dazzle pattern to be made with Ruby Star Fabrics, the Lucy June fabrics designed by Lila Tueller and scraps from Crazy Mom Good Neighbor fabric line. One of these projects will hopefully be a Post in July.

Now back to the fun part. Mary sent me a very lovely “exchange” several weeks ago which was her “Oh, Susannah” book and I waited to post until  today which is Mary’s birthday and she’s posted about this Book. It might not be unusual now to have a Goat in the House but back then it was and I made a friendship because of this. I love seeing the photos of Susannah and I should mention that I have several photos of her in my studio.The Master Quilt Holder who has been butted by Susannah and still complains about it was wondering why this wasn’t mentioned in the book. Mary said if she had listed everyone who Susannah bestowed this love tap too,  the book would have more pages, maybe the size of  a phone book—that’s a good old fashioned vision, isn’t it. Mary is selling Oh Susannah and you can order one for $20 which includes shipping and tax. You can send a check made out to Mary Etherington, 2345 Palm Ave., Garner, IA 50438 (this is not an affiliate link). I will be reading this book to the darling Granddaugher and I will be protecting it as she has a rather mean hand with a crayon.

Now that I realize that this year is a ten-year anniversary and needs to be celebrated, I’m going to have a Camraderie Chat with Mary. We were already planning on sewing an Ernie Quilt in September but maybe I need to do a two day visit in the Fall with sewing in the Shop, entertainment by the Master Quilt Holder and Mary’s sister Becky Rose who have formed a musical duo and maybe order Pizza from any place other than the last place we ordered. I mentioned earlier in this Post, that our friendship didn’t start with Quilting but maybe in a way it was prophetic because the wallhanging above was purchased for my Family Room at a craft fair in 1997. I did not find out until years later that this was a Country Threads pattern. It is a small world when Quilting is involved.