More Finally Finishes for February

My Plush Phase for backing flimsies continues with my two latest finishes; Baby Bullseye (left), a fairly new project, and Yellow Rose Double Nine Patch, a UFO of at least ten years. Of course, they both have stories or explanations.

I didn’t expect  my Baby Bullseye project which I started last November to be finished way so soon but I was motivated by my other two Peeps, who joined me in making another Bullseye Quilt, almost twenty-four years later (You can read about our first Bullseye Quilt here), who were finishing their Flimsies sooner than me. I was thinking that I was going to be the last one to finish her Flimsie but it turns out I was second, just like the first  time and it was Linda and not Mary who finished first. Did you notice my use of a modern word Flimsie—twenty-four years earlier, I called it a Top. It’s also a good thing that I now have modern technology in the form of a Blog Post, iPhone pics  and numerous Texts to refer to as I recap how the second QAL went, definitely something I could have used before.

After the pattern was purchased from Mary Etherington/Country Threads, and just like the first time, the guidelines planned which were the backgrounds were to be grays and low volume whites, no tans or beiges, modern prints and blenders and definitely no calicos since the Baby Bullseye was going to be modern and the size and number of patches to be exchanged before we met for a morning of merriments which always include good food and conversation. We each exchanged 30 squares of backgrounds and prints in two sizes and most notably there were no duplicates. One Peep did have not much of a modern stash but did provide the blenders which were definitely needed for a bit of calm in the blocks. We were a little bit more looser with the pattern, after all we are older, a littler more ornery with more quilting experience by changing the size of the blocks and one peep exchanging pre-cut circles and quarter circle templates to cut the circles from the folded squares which made the Baby Bullseye blocks less wonky. I will admit that I made a mistake with the Baby Bullseye pattern by not realizing that the backgrounds on Mary Etherington’s  Baby Bullseye  Quilt was not neutral but were different color prints which I love and wished I did. But in my defense, I did write if I ever were to make another Bullseye quilt I would use grays and low volume prints so my mind was already set. After the exchange was made, we each sewed our own way, texting each other with our progress. I would like to mention that my Baby Bullseye is almost true to the pattern unlike the Peeps. I think they were a little bit more ornier than me.

Baby Bullseye was so named because it is a smaller block with only two circles sewn on the background which would have been enough if we used the sizes given for the pattern. But because the sizes was increased for both the background and circles and after playing around with the first four blocks sewn, I thought a third circle could be added, especially after having the left over circles from cutting away the backs of the first circle after the second circle was sewn which was the perfect size for the third circle. I am going to narc on the Peeps now since they kept their circle blocks intact without quartering them so they made their flimsy with whole circle blocks which is why they were finishing before me. I should narc some more by saying one of the Peeps did not cut away her circles. Although I liked the look of the whole circle blocks and was tempted to do it myself,  I’m glad I quartered my blocks although it was a lot more sewing but  I do love the scrappiness which is eye candy to me.

I sewed 140 Bullseye block which was way more than needed but then I hadn’t decided on a layout. After deciding to sew them as nine-patch blocks and making twelve of these blocks, a sashing of a gray dot on black was definitely needed. If I could change anything, it would be the cheddar yellow cornerstones since it looks like post-it notes but thankfully with all of the eye candy it’s not too noticeable, right? While I was sewing the flimsy together, I did sing Baby Bullseye to the tune of Baby Sharks doo, doo, doo,  doo.

One of the big challenges for me to finally finish my Baby Bullseye was deciding how to machine quilt and if it was going to be a quilt or a throw. Before the blocks were sewn together I played with the idea of making it a rag quilt but decided that there would be too much fraying and decided to make it a patchwork throw. It helped that I purchased yardage of a Smokey Gray Plush Minky Dot last summer and also seemed to be in a Plush Phase right now, especially when you see the next throw. I did pin baste 3” apart since I wanted to avoid any shifting since the flimsy was almost as wide as the Plush and it seems like that took forever but was worth it. Machine quilting with straight lines on the black sashing and cross-hatched  wavey lines on the center of each bullseye block was a little challenging especially with the circle seams sometime flipping over and being careful not to sew over it. When I was sewing the circles onto the background, I wasn’t so willy-nilly with the seams like the first Bullseye quilt and tried to sew within a 1/4” seam allowance by remembering the flipping seams. I now know how my long arm machine quilter who did my first Bullseye felt and her frustration and quite possibly her Karma was paying me back. 

The Baby Bullseye Patchwork Throw measures 56”x74”and is a perfect lounge size for the couch which is where it will be laying for awhile before deciding if I should wash it. I do like the way it looks right now without the fraying but as Mary Etherington says it’s not a true Bullseye until you wash it. BTW, I never washed the first Bullseye Quilt which is still happily sitting on my quilt rack. To think the Peeps and I did the first Bullseye QAL together twenty-four years ago when we were just mothers of eight school age and young adults and now grandmothers of sixteen grandchildren between us (allow me a little sniffle and a tinge of envy here because I only have the darling granddaughter), I am grateful we still are friends with fabric who still quilt whenever we can. I think our grandchildren take precedent over quilt time now.  I did mention in a text to the Peeps that with modern medicine working on longevity that it may be possible to live until we’re 120 years old, we could do another Bulls-eye QAL in twenty-four years and maybe after that. And wouldn’t that be a fun project for the retirement home. I did insert three big laughing emojis.

Before I started working on the Baby Bullseye quilt, I finished the Yellow Roses Double Nine-Patch Patchwork Throw.  After the Granddaughter Quilt #1 was finished earlier this month, I was reminded of  this flimsie which was made at least ten years ago from a Henry Glass fabric collection called Possibilities and was designed by Nancy Smith and Lynda Milligan which was purchased twenty years ago. I loved this rose print as much as the Sweet Rose print and after sitting in my stash then for ten years I finally made a quick flimsy with big plain and double nine patch blocks measuring 13.5” finish just to alleviate some quilt guilt. Thanks to Eunice, my quilt alter ego who remembers what I should be sewing,  I finally finish it by making it a patchwork throw by using a pretty butter yellow Mindy Dot Plush I had in my stash which was the perfect shade although it’s hard to tell from the pic. I’m glad this is a finally finish and looking forward to using it as a new travel blanket. With the Three Bear Throws finished in January and these two for February, I have now finished five Patchwork Throws/Baby Boomer Blankies which I’m calling a Royal Plush. BTW, Eunice has now gone from time-out to Jail and won’t be released for awhile since I have some new projects.

Along with a secret project for Demando who is recovering nicely from his recent hip replacement surgery, I have to start working on my project for the Villa Rosa Designs Fast & More Fun Blog Hop. My fabrics has been picked and ready for die-cutting, the pattern reviewed and I am looking forward to working on it because, surprise, it will be for the darling Granddaughter. Maybe that’s how I find time to quilt if I always say it’s for her. Insert Big Wink Emoji.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

First February Finish-The Granddaughter Quilt #1

The Granddaughter Quilt #1 is my February finish for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. Leave it to Eunice to escape from the time-out corner to let me know that it was time to finally finished the Granddaughter Quilt #1 which has been a UFO since 1999. I started quilting in 1996 and after I have made both of my sons’ bed quilts plus starting to accumulate a nice collection of fabric especially after getting a job at the local quilt shop, I had visions of making quilts for my future granddaughters and grandsons. Never mind that my boys were only in middle school and high school back then and definitely weren’t dating, but it was something I felt a quilter should make.

Although the flimsy was finished in 1999, I’m pretty sure I purchased the Jennifer Sampou’s Sweet Rose fabrics before I started working at the quilt shop. I remember seeing Sweet Rose advertised in a quilt magazine and went to Joann’s to look for it. One of the first things I learned as a new quilter was the difference between buying from a chain fabric store and a quilt shop. And another thing to remember was that if you really loved a fabric, and I thought Sweet Rose was the most beautiful fabric with roses, to purchase yardage which I did along with the blue stripe. I didn’t have a pattern in mind until after I started working at the quilt shop and one of the patterns to make with a large focus print was a simple Irish Chain made with plain squares and nine patches. It still is one of my favorite patterns. The red and white fabrics in the nine patches were not from the Sweet Rose collection but from Robert Kaufman and Moda.

I have wanted to finally finish the Granddaughter Quilt #1 (GD#1) since 2022 after the Grandson Quilt #2 and  the Granddaughter Quilt #2 were finished. I had listed all three quilts for the 2022/23 UFO Challenge but didn’t feel like quilting another twin size quilt when it was GD#1’s turn. I committed to finishing it for this year’s Challenge when the number came up so that’s how the GD#1 was finally finished with Eunice, my quilt alter-ego who always sew the right thing in my Studio, reminding me. Ironically, I did purchase the light blue backing fabric from Joann’s in 2022. I machine quilted with CT Essential Thread in a light blue with horizontal and vertical straight line quilting with crosshatch diagonal quilting. After the horizontal and vertical straight line quilting was done and while I was quilting  the diagonal lines, I was thinking that the quilting was going well, better than the Granddaughter Quilt #2, and  I thought too soon. After two rounds of the diagonal lines, the quilting felt too tight and some of the stitches were popping when I ran my hand over it.  There could be several reasons why this happened; it was Quilt Karma for finishing Granddaughter #2 quilt first, the bobbin thread was too tight or quilting with ricochet diagonal lines which is when you quilt the first diagonal line until the end of the row and then pivot the quilt to quilt the next diagonal line until the end again and so on until there’s no more space left to quilt. I spent several hours removing all of the diagonal quilting lines and redid the diagonal lines but with no ricocheting and quilting one row at a time. I also made sure whenever I started a new bobbin to check the tension to make sure the thread wasn’t tight. I did a combination meander and straight line quilting for the border. The binding was always going to be the blue stripe and has been sitting in the binding drawer for all these years. I hand stitch the binding down which is what I would have done if the quilt was finished earlier. I did check the Granddaughter Quilt #2 to make sure the binding was hand stitched also and it was. The Granddaughter Quilt #1 measures 63”x86” and is the smallest out of the four quilts by a few inches.

I am pretty sure this is going to be my biggest finish this year even though there are a lot of month left to sew. It was pretty ambitious of me, as a 20th Century new quilter to want to make four twin size quilts for future 21st Century grandkids. Two of the quilts were made from Jennifer Sampou fabrics and all were simple makes which is still my favorite way for quilting. One thing I very rarely do now is making quilts with borders. When Julie Herman’s book Skip the Borders came out in 2012, I fully embraced  this modern concept. It’s so much easier for machine quilting.

Here’s the quilt quartet, almost twenty-five years in the making, not a saga, just my determination to finish them despite only having one darling Granddaughter. To me, the fabrics are timeless and I still have these fabrics in my stash. The two granddaughter quilts will be going to the GP House and it’s time to look for a chest or hutch to hold her growing quilt collection.

With my February Dirty Dozen Challenge project a big finish, I am looking forward to having the rest of the month to work on current projects and maybe start new ones. I do have on my must-do plate a request from Demando and my project for the upcoming Villa Rosa Designs Fast & More Fun Blog Hop next month. Eunice is also bugging me with another project and if it’s finished this week, I am sending her to jail. It’s always a battle between Peace and Piece in my quilting mind.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

January Joy

Before I retired over ten years ago, I hated the month of January with its thirty-one days of the worse Winter weather involving commuting to work. If there was a month for me to hibernate, now that I’m retired, it would be January where there would be no traveling or leaving the house but with the GP House and weekly visits to the Chiropractor and fitness center, it’s not possible. With the freezing cold and snowy weather during the middle of January, the only good thing was that it made for great sewing conditions and I appreciated this long month. After my Happy Bubbles Quilt was finished, there was only one flimsy, the Sherbet Pips Brick Rows (the one on the left) I planned to finish which was for the January Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. As a result of finishing Sherbet Pips, three more flimsies came across the finally finished line, which brings a total of six finishes for January. There is an explanation as to how these four were quickly finished and, if you noticed, I did not refer to them as quilts because they’re all Patchwork Throws/Baby Boomer Blankies or all backed with Minky/plush fabric with no batting in between which I have always said are quick makes. 

The Sherbet Pips Brick Rows has been a flimsy since August, 2022 but it seems longer than this because this fabric line designed by Aneela Hoey for Moda was purchased at least ten years ago and  had been a mind bug for me to finally make something with the stash.

I purchased thirteen half-yard cuts of whatever prints were available out of the forty-two (I’m thinking maybe they were purchased from fabric.com before Amazon bought them out and 1/2 yard cuts could be ordered). My first thought was to make a simple one patch quilt of rectangle blocks set vertically.

I somehow realized that some of the prints had movement and would look better cut horizontally. Twelve  prints were paired and cut into 3.5” strips, sewn together in strip sets, then subcut into 6.5” x 9.5” rail blocks and set with an alternating layout. Six blocks were needed for each row and was repeated  again. After the flimsy was sewn, my plan was to back it with minky/plush as I was glad to have finally made something with the Sherbet Pips fabric. I set it aside as I wasn’t in any hurry to finish it since I really didn’t want to use any of the remaining gray Chenille Plush by David Textile which is no longer available. It is my favorite plush which I have used for several patchwork throws, as with Carrie Bloomston Throw which is the darling granddaughter’s favorite bedtime blankie. I am saving the remaining Chenille Plus for another bedtime blankie in the hopes of finally getting my Carrie Bloomston throw back and I may succeed since it will be made with Carrie Bloomston fabrics which has rainbows and leftover from the Happy Bubbles quilt.

After becoming reacquainted with Sherbet Pips Brick Rows, I realized that this was a fun and easy pattern for 3.5” strips. I did rethink my idea of backing it with Minky/plush and instead making it a quilt but decided I needed a patchwork throw more than another quilt. I used a gray Minky Fleece Fabric Dots recently purchased and I have to say is now my new favorite plush and also comes in several shades of gray.. I machine quilted straight lines on the edges of each 6” row and then did a wavy line between the rails. Any reservations I had with Jinny Janome sewing plush are no more. The binding was one of the stripes. Sherbet Pips Brick Rows measure 54” x 72”. Since I had almost two yards left of the Minky I thought I would save it for one of the flimsies below.

I have lovingly referred these flimsies as the Three Bear Trip as the focus print used was named Bear Trip and I made three flimsies with a little tongue in cheek with the Three Bear name. My plan was to always finished them together at the same time and finished them as quilts. These were the last of the twelve flimsies made in 2020 and I am glad they are finally finished as patchwork throws/Baby Boomer Blankies. The quilt on the bottom right is the one I thought I could used the leftover Minky from Sherbet Pips Brick Row and was just going to set it aside. But Eunice, my alter-ego of quilting the right thing in my Studio, thought since Jinny Janome was already set up with a Jersey Knit Needle used for quilting plush fabric and gray polyester thread that I could easily finished the Three Bear Trip flimsies since I had other Minky fabrics in my stash. I thought it was a good idea until once I started I realized I would only have six days before leaving for the GP House and during this time had laundry, housework, chiropractor appointments, a get together with the Peeps and our hubbies and a band gig was planned. Like I said, backing a flimsy with Minky is a quick finish and was able to bind Sherbet Pips and finish the Three Bear Trip in three days. I spent the remaining days, before leaving for the GP House, recovering and playing with fabrics along with the household chores. I did send Eunice to the time-out corner.

I thought I would share some details behind the Three Bear Trip Patchwork Throws/Baby Boomer Blankies. The Bear Trip fabric was purchased in January, 2020 during a Texas vacation at Sew Crazy in Cedar Park. I fell in love with the prints which came in two color ways, one with a pink background and the other with a gray/white and the prints are slightly different with the motifs. I did purchase some other prints but for the most part used what I already had in my Cotton+Steel, Art Gallery, etc. stash. The Bear Trip prints are so interesting and there are so many international landmarks and features like Big Ben, Roman Coliseum, Tower of Pisa, the Golden Gate Bridge, Taj Mahal, temples, yachts, water fountains, etc. Sadly, a few months later, travel became restricted due to COVID-19 and there was a travel lockdown in our state. The Three Trip flimsies were made in May, 2020, right after the first visit with the darling granddaughter after two-months of not being able to see her. Each flimsy was made with a combination of  4.5 5” and 2.5” cuts to make either 4”x8”, 8” or 8”x16” blocks. Since finishing the Three Bear Trip, I have named them according to the Three Bears story. Another note is that after deciding on backing all three flimsies with Minky/plush, I used the same brown and white polka dots fabrics used as an accent in all three flimsies for the binding. It’s a good thing I found enough of this print in my stash to make fifteen yards because I must have forgotten to set aside any fabric in the binding drawer.

Baby Bear (40” x 48”)

This was the first flimsy made but the last one to be finished. I machine quilted it the same way as Sherbet Pips, straight and wavy lines. Baby Bear will be saved for the Baby Boomer Blankie vault as I think it would be perfect to give to someone who will be retiring and have travel plans.

Mama Bear (40”x48”)

When I made this flimsy with the focus print which had the pink background and dominant reds, I had planned on giving this to the baby daughter of our new neighbors whom I thought were of East Asian descent with their dark hair and skin tone so I made sure to include the Taj Mahal and other Asian landmarks. Later, Hubby learned that they were Venezuelans so another quilt was given. I backed Mama Bear with a brown dot Minky which I found to be stiff like vinyl/pleather and not as snuggly as other plush/Minky. Maybe after washing it will become softer and this is my reason for wanting to keep this one for myself.

Papa Bear (48”x64”)

Papa Bear was the last flimsy made because the 8” blocks were sewn from leftover blocks and patches from Baby Bear and Mama Bear. The fluffy pink plush used was a piece that has been sitting in my stash for maybe five years and I have been trying to use it for several other flimsies but was not the right shade nor the right size. Luckily or do I say serendipitously, it was the right shade of pink and the right or exact size needed with nary a 1/4” to spare. One of the nice things about using plush is you don’t need the extra 4” width or lengthwise as you would for fabric backing. Papa Bear is so soft and cuddly and when it’s folded or rolled up, it feels like a giant stuff animal. I quilted with straight grid lines around each 8” block and then a diagonal wavy crosshatch across each block. I should mention that I used the same gray polyester thread for all three Bear Trip. Papa Bear has been given to the darling Granddaughter and has been enjoyed these past few nights on her bed; but not enough for her to surrender the Carrie Bloomston throw back to me.

I am so happy to have these four once upon a time flimsies now made into patchwork throws. I cannot say enough about using Minky/plush for backings. I am now on a hunt for purchasing more fleece dot Minky since it’s a nice alternative to the plush chenille and comes in wonderful colors (some I already have) especially when it goes on sale for 40% off. And I also need a new supply of Jersey Knit Sewing Machine needles which I have ordered.

Adding to the January Joy is that all of my Baby Bullseye Blocks are sewn and ready to be laid out. There are 140 blocks finishing at 5-1/2” and I need to hustle. My Quilt Peeps already have their tops sewn which is due to them not following the instructions/pattern exactly to which I confess I did not also but mine is more truer. I can’t wait until mine is finished so I can do some narcing.

I am hoping for another productive month in February but with warmer weather please. Not that I need any more new projects I do have a few must-sew lined up. With Eunice in the time-out corner, the Studio Squirrels have been let out.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation

Happy Bubbles

I had planned on my Happy Bubbles quilt to be the first one finished for the New Year since I always like to begin with a colorful quilt, but Love 2024 took precedent. After Love 2024 was first finished, Happy Bubbles was ready for machine quilting since I had pin basted it before we left for the GP House. I know it’s way too early to say this, but Happy Bubbles is my favorite finish so far.

Last year, when I participated in Kelly Young, My Quilt Infatuation’s book launch of her Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs, I have been wanting to make her Bubble Bath quilt which was one of the 18 bonus quilt patterns. Besides being a fun pattern, I had purchased in. November, 2022, Carrie Bloomston Happy fabric collection of 24 pieces which was perfect to use for Happy Bubbles. I bet you can guess how I came up with the quilt name which I, of course, hummed “Tiny Bubbles” during the merry making. BTW, I’ve made several quilts with my stash of Carrie Bloomston fabrics but this is the first time I’ve made a quilt exclusively with just one collection.

I didn’t have enough of one light print to use for the background/sashing so I used the two above on the right. The grid print was used for the connecting corners and the scribble print was used for the sashing. The focus print on the left was used for all of the large bubbles.

There are three bubble sizes and I separated the fabrics i.e., prints were for the medium bubbles and the grid and colorwash colors were for the small bubbles.

Once the bubbles and sashings were laid out and segments sewn, assembling the quilt top was easy as the diagrams and instructions to do this was clear and understandable. What I like about Kelly’s patterns is that her patterns look complicated but really are simple. I will confess, that after all the bubble blocks were made, I did not want to sew another connecting square for awhile.

Once the top was sewn, I thought using two different backgrounds didn’t seem to blend as well I would have liked, so I added a 2.5” border of the grid print, which I think ties the backgrounds together better.

Of course, I had to make a pieced backing since I had leftover blocks. Luckily, the bottom half of the backing was already sewn for another project but ended up not being used and has been sitting in the backing vault.

I machine quilted with soft, meandering horizontal lines spaced 1” apart with silver Aurifil thread. Although I really didn’t want to use the main focus print for the binding, it was the right choice. Happy Bubbles measures 52” x 72”. The rainbow-loving, darling Granddaughter will be receiving this quilt as well as another one to be made with the leftovers. I have to confess that although I did say in a previous post that I didn’t want any fabric for Christmas, guess what, I did purchase, through the generosity of a gift card from Demando, Carrie Bloomston latest collection “Found” which is her first batik collection and would also look great with this pattern.

Kelly’s first book Stash Statement was released in 2018 and the quilt I wanted to make back then from this book was the Murrina quilt which reminds me of the Bubble Bath pattern. Kelly has announced that this book (originally published by Martingale and no longer in business, the rights have now been purchased by Fox Chapel/Landauer who published Kelly’s last two books Scrappy Improv Quilting and Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs) will be re-released in April with a new cover and in addition to the twelve patterns, there will be three new ones. Not an affiliate link, but I’ve already preordered a copy.

We’ve had real, real cold and snowy Winter weather, typical of January this week and there was no way I could ask the Master Quilt Holder if we could take a glamour photo outside. Also, I really didn’t want to go outside either. I think this inside pic looks nice. There’s going to be a warm up in a few days which will be much appreciated although I will admit cold weather always makes great sewing conditions. I do have a few more finishes before January ends.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

 

Goodbye 2023 and Hello 2024

It’s almost the middle of January and I am finally ready to say goodbye 2023 and ushering 2024 with my first Finally Finish of my LOVE 2024 wall quilt. Since we were at the GP House since Christmas Eve and not returning until January 4th, I wasn’t ready to post my 2023 tally which I will share later in this Post.

When I was preparing for our extended stay at the GP House, I decided to take an unexpected UFO which I found while working on another project for Country Threads 2023/24 Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I’m not sure if this was really an UFO since all I did was tie the pattern to some hand-dye fabrics with a backing fabric together and it laid underneath my big basting table which has eight shelves underneath full of fabrics, scraps, UFOs and fabric pulls. It’s been sitting on the shelf for almost ten years when I first intended to make this when my youngest son and his then wife purchased their first home. They painted each room of their house in different, bright colors so I thought this would be a perfect wall hanging. I never got around to making this and may have been a good thing since a divorce happened almost two years ago. After coming across this bundle, I thought it would be a good project to work on and made quite a few changes which I may not have not done if I made this earlier. First, instead of piecing the blocks using freezer paper templates for the letter blocks, I decided that my piecing would be more accurate if I made FPP for each letter even though it meant tracing the letters backward on a light box using newsprint plus doing this twenty-four times, six for each letter. Another change made was to use Shot and Pepper Cotton instead of the hand-dye fabrics since the colors were more vibrant.

I like FPP and this is the third project in 2023 which I used this technique and you think this would come easy for me but it doesn’t because I always forget there is a sequence and how I start is to fold all of the seam and cutting lines and the first patch should always be cut to size with a 1/4” seam allowance. This makes sewing the patches so much easier. I thought by writing this I would remember this for the next time.

I started these blocks on New Year’s Eve and all twenty-four blocks were finished by the time we left which was somewhat of a surprise since the darling granddaughter was with us ten out of the eleven days and usually in the same room as I was in. The distractions were minimal as long as I took a break to color with her. I should mention that for each set of letters, I used cool fabrics for three and warm fabrics for the other three to make sure the colors were balanced as well as planning on using two cool and two warm color letters for each word.  I did not plan for LOVE 2024 to be my first finish for the year but thought since I always like to start the New Year with a bright and colorful project plus I didn’t want to leave these blocks laying around for too long and decided to continue working on this after we came home since I had the momentum.

I made a slight change with the sashing by using only cornerstones in the center sashing. I’m pretty sure the color used was Kona Yarrow which is fun to say if you’re a Pirate wannabe. Another small change was to put the four larger border blocks in the corner instead in the middle of the top and bottom border.

And the last change made was the original backing chosen almost ten years ago (left) was replaced because I thought the colors were not bold enough as the top so I found a Libby Lehman Threadplay print which I am pretty sure is over ten years old

One of the things I noticed about the LOVE pattern was that Mary Etherington made this in 2013 and machine quilted it with straight lines which may have been “new” at that time, especially continuing it through the borders. Mary is one of the reasons why I started to  quilt with straight lines and was able to see you can do this with both modern and traditional quilts.

I machine-quilted with a Coats & Clark golden tan thread, 3/4” apart which went well except for the right side which looks a little wonky. I was ready to finally do a scrappy binding like the pattern but then remembered that I had Kaffe Fassett stripes so I used a fat quarter which was just enough. Because this stripe had warm tones, I did not use any gold or yellow squares in the border. LOVE 2024 measures 31”x44”. Sadly, the LOVE pattern is no longer available from Mary Etherington/Country Threads.

I have to mention two funny stories relating to this quilt, Green Bay Packers and Kaffe Fassett fabrics. The first story is living near Chicago and rooting for the Bears, while I was finishing the LOVE 2024 flimsy, the Bears were playing their  arch rival, the Packers whose Quarterback’s last name is Love. The Packers did win and I want to say that my LOVE quilt played no part in this. I did send an email to Quilt Sista Roseanne, Home Sewn By Us who is a diehard Packers fan. The second story is that earlier this year, someone contacted me after reading my Blog to see if I would be willing to sell her some of my Kaffe stripe scraps as she was making a jacket. Before I communicate with anyone I don’t know, I do some background digging on FB and found that she lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I replied I would be happy to send her some at no charge but would she have a problem with them being from a die-hard Chicago Bear Fan. Not at all she said and mentioned that perhaps we could meet at a Bears/Packer game which I promptly confessed that I’m really not a die-hard fan and was only joking. Her reply  was that in all the many years she lived in Green Bay, she has never attended a game. I was busted but did feel I should have reported her to the Packers. It’s fun meeting Blog Buddies, isn’t it.

I do like making blocks with letters which had me thinking of the possibility of making another version of LOVE 2024 but using other four letter words. I have to confess that I thought of this when I was saying or thinking a bad four letter word (depending if the darling granddaughter was around) beginning with S whenever I made a mistake which was often at the start. This had me thinking there are a lot of other nice four letters important to me this year and I chose four, if and when, I make another wall quilt which are LOVE, HOME, HOPE and VOTE. It would be easy to design the letters based on LOVE and I only need to draft them on my trusty graph paper.

Now for my 2023 Tally:

31 Finally Finishes:    19 Lap Size or Larger

                                    12 Baby/Wall/Runners

Flimsies                        3

One of these Flimsies I was planning on this to be my first finish for 2024 but now I will be getting it ready for quilting later.

I did not include in the count several place mats and a small wall hanging. If you’re interested in seeing the quilts you can click on this Link.

I didn’t  compile a Best Five or Top Nine list because I really am pleased with all of my finishes this year and for me 2023 sure felt like a long creative year. 

We expecting a big snowstorm tomorrow which will delay our trip to the GP House but I am so looking forward to what I call great sewing conditions. Happy Belated New Years!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT