Sweet September SewJo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Pair and a Spare of UFO Finishes for May

I surprised myself by finally finishing three UFO flimsies in the course of one week which included a three-day visit to the Grandparent House. I only planned on finishing just the one I committed for Country Threads’ Dirty Dozen UFO QAL which in turn prompted me to finally finishing the other two.

The first flimsie finally finished was my May Quilt which was my #8 for the Country Threads’ Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. The flimsy was finished in 2013 and was made from fat quarters and yardage of Lori Holt’s Gracie Girl collection. Aren’t these prints fun?

This quilt measures 39” square.  I’ve become fond of quadrant quilting ever since I did this on my Frosty Flakes Quilt and glad I thought of this when I was ready to quilt Gracie Girl. The only marking I had to do was drawing a “X” with a Hera marker across the top and then quilting it. From there, I quilted 3/4” apart on each quadrant with a Silver Aurifil thread. The backing was a gray polka dot from the backing vault and thankfully the binding, a grey and white mini check used in the top was found in the binding drawer. 

The machine quilting made my Gracie Girl quilt somewhat stiff and would be perfect for a play mat or a wall hanging. A funny thought came across my mind as I was finishing this quilt which was several years ago when I finished a baby quilt for a QAL, I found out my niece was expecting a baby as well as her oldest daughter was graduating high school. I brought the QAL baby quilt to the daughter’s graduation party. Now her son is graduating from high school and the party is next week so I’ll be checking with her to see if I need to bring Gracie Girl to the party. I’m pretty sure I won’t have to, but it’s going to be fun just to ask her.

After the Gracie Quilt was finished before we left for the Grandparent House and upon my return I thought it would be nice to finally finish the Glamping Flimsie which was made the same time.  I thought the fabric was another Lori Holt collection but actually was designed by Mary Jane Butters for Moda and came  out the same time. I only had a charm pack of this collection and yardage of the teal and white check.  I added some white with teal/green pin dots to make this simple baby quilt of squares and rectangles or modified coin quilt which measures 39” x 42”.

The quilting was a combination of straight lines 3/4” apart on the sashing and wavey lines on the squares and rectangles and Essential white thread was used.  The pink patchwork print was found in the backing vault and really fits the “girliness” of this quilt. I almost couldn’t find the binding which I swore I put it in the binding drawer over seven years ago. After clearing out the drawer I found it stuck in the corner; proof that Hubby is right that it’s always going to be in the last place you look and I say I really need to reorganize the binding drawer. My plan for this quilt when the top was made to gift it to good Quilt Peep Mary who goes camping and was also celebrating the birth of her first grandchild/granddaughter. Now Mary has four granddaughters and I’m having second thoughts of keeping this for myself since I’ve been dreaming lately of Class B Campers. Do I need another quilt- No, but I always want another quilt. The Glamping Quilt is definitely one for traveling and I’m looking forward to taking it on vacation when we travel to Colorado in August. I’m pretty sure we won’t be traveling in a Class B camper.

When I was pulling out the Gracie Girl and Glamping flimsies, I came across the Fireburst Mystery Flimsie which was finished in 2018.  This was a mystery quilt hosted by Tish’s Adventures in Wonderland and I know that it remained a flimsie because I did not know how I wanted to quilt it. After Gracie Girl was quilted, I knew I could do quadrant quilting for the Fireburst quilt. I used the Silver Aurifil which blended really nice with all of the colors. This quilt measures 32” square and the plan is to either to give it to my son who lives next door to the Grandparent House and has purple living room walls or my new neighbor on the other side of the Grandparent House who loves purple. For now, I think I’m going to keep it awhile since I love how it turned out. Also, I have to make sure I link up to Tish’s UFO Busting post.

Here’s a photo of the pair and spare hanging on the garage door which is a nice substitute for a clothesline as long as you have strong magnets.

I should mention that before I started on the final two flimsies, I had to get caught up with the Follow Your Own Path QAL hosted by Sandra, mmmquilts by sewing the blocks together. It’s ready for quilting and I’m pretty sure it going to be straight horizontal line quilting but do I dare do quadrant quilting? Either way, this quilt will be done in time to celebrate a famous Canadian’s birthday on June 15th. I know it’s going to be a wall hanging either in Demando’s bedroom, although he doesn’t know it or in the soon-to-be basement studio at the Grandparents House which is another post for another day. I’m not entirely sold on the idea, something to do with the long meat hooks found hanging in the basement. Good Quilt Peep Mary thinks since the  house is almost a hundred years old that meat, etc. was hung there because it was cold down there. Confession: it’s been two years and I have not yet set foot in the basement, Hubby shows me photos.

Finally, I am enjoying sewing my Glitter blocks and sew far have ten blocks done. It’s a nice project to do when traveling to and from the Grandparent House but as I tell Hubby, it would be easier if I was sewing in a Class B Camper.

As I tell Hubby, I saved 100K with the purchase of this Everything Mary Large Lap Desk for $6 which makes sewing the EPPs much easier but not as nice as it would be in a Class B Camper. BTW, Demando the Paramedic/Firefighter saids that I should not be using this tray in the front seat in case of an accident so there will be no sewing when road conditions are iffy.

Thanks for reading this rather long post and we’ll be leaving the Grandparent House before the Memorial Day Weekend. I’m hoping to have one more Finally Finished before the rather lovely month of May is over.

Sew Safe!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation and Tish’s Adventure in Wonderland