Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL

 

It’s time to say “Je ne sais QAL” because Sandra, mmmquilts announced her 2023 QAL, Rainbow Neighborhood and, once again, as I have for the past six years, will be participating which is now a rite of Spring and to celebrate her late father, the Famous Canadian, birthday. I had purchased her pattern last December and mentioned to her then that I thought this should be a QAL. As soon as I downloaded the pattern, I printed it which I hardly ever do and it’s been sitting on the studio desk since and knew I could start it once I decided on the fabrics. Imagine my surprise and happiness when Sandra first mentioned the QAL back on March 25th that the Rainbow Neighborhood was the pattern. I was at the GP House which meant the pattern and my stash was at home so I could only think or “mmmull” over my usual reasons for participating. Do I like the pattern, Big Yes, especially since I had the pattern and realized the blocks are 16” and the quilt blocks are 8” and not 4” as I thought they were; can I use fabric from my stash, I’m pretty sure I do but have to wait until I’m at home which won’t be for several days; and since I’m doing the throw size, the schedule for completion is doable since a block a week is sewn until the end of May and then have the month of June to assemble the top for the parade on June 30th. We have two vacations planned during the QAL so the chances of having a finished quilt may be slim but at least you only need a top in order to be eligible to win one of the many great prizes Sandra has lined up. But the main reason for making Rainbow Neighborhood will be explained later at the end of the post.

On the drive home, I decided the fabric I was going to use was my stash of Alison Glass which was the perfect choice since I’ve accumulated stash especially from buying a nice selection of yardage and scraps online from a blogger who was having a destash sale. Once I was finally in my studio I was able to choose the nine colors for my Rainbow Neighborhood along with the background, sashing, border and cornerstones.

I am so happy that I can use my Alison Glass fabrics for Rainbow Neighborhood and I’m having a little tongue in cheek moment by naming my quilt Glass Houses. I have some charm squares for most of the colors and will be using them for the 8” quilt blocks along with the black and white print. The multi-color light print will be used for the sky for each house. I should mention that the yellow green solid is not an Alison Glass print and will be used for the cornerstones. If I do any deviation from the pattern, it will be the sashing and border due to only having one yard of the multi-color black print which I want to use as the border but I don’t like pieced borders which I would have to do since I need at least 60”.

The official start of the Rainbow Neighborhood QAL is April 3rd and I’ve already started after checking with Sandra to see if there was a sequence as to which house to make and there’s not, really. My first block is already done and the cutting and sewing was easy but I need to be better with the quilt blocks measuring 8.5”. I do love that the house blocks are 16” finished, my sewing is much more accurate with large patches. I did press all of the seams open, except for the rows but in the future, will only do it for the 8” quilt blocks. My chimneys did not line up with the roof lines as well as I would have liked so pressing these two rows so the seams will nest might be better. My plan is to make three more blocks before we leave on vacation on the 12th so I will be on schedule once we return.

We did spend half of March at the GP House which the darling Granddaughter did a wonderful job babysitting us and we also celebrated her sixth birthday. Once we were home from our last visit and before I started working on the Rainbow Neighborhood QAL, I did finish my March top for the CountryThreads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. My plan is to make this a Patchwork Blankie by backing it with a pink plush which has been hanging around the studio. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use Jinny Janome since I haven’t sewn plush with her yet and Juki Junebug is stored away in the dining room or the formal sewing room now. BTW, the problems which I had with Juki Junebug could not be fixed by the last shop and they wanted to ship it to shop in Alabama who said they could fix the thread cutter plus the foot pedal problem. I decided I could live with these problems rather than spend any more money. There would be certain quilts, such as this patchwork blankie, that Juki Junebug could still do. It’s just a matter of setting her up on the dining room table which I may be now in a mood to do.

As mentioned earlier in this Post that I had a really good reason for wanting to make Glass Houses, aka, Rainbow Neighborhood is because I thought it would be the perfect wall hanging to go with my Petal Pop quilt which was finished last year. The plan then was that this quilt would be for the darling Granddaughter and now with the perfect wall hanging to go with it, this will be her new bedroom ensemble. After all, she’s now the big “6” and it’s time for a change. 

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.

All is Swell

The one project I needed for Christmas is finally finished and just in the St. Nick of time--a Christmas Patchwork Blankie for my sweet Granddaughter, Micah Rose, to celebrate her very first Christmas. As mentioned in a previous post, a patchwork blankie is just a simple quilt top with a backing of Minky or any other plush fabric with no batting in between.

The top was made with mostly a mix of David Walker and Anne Kelle Christmas fabrics and I just love the bright, happy prints and wanted to keep the patches big.  The blocks measure 8" (finished)  and are just two 4"x8" finished rectangles sewn together and are laid out in an offset pattern so there were not too many seams to match.

The bright red Minky is embossed with stars and I lightly quilted with meandering lines.  The Christmas Patchwork Blankie measures 48" x 64" which is way larger than my other blankies and I made it bigger so either Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and maybe Grandpa can cuddle with Micah.  I'll be spending Christmas with Micah and family and I am going to make sure this blankie is going to be put to good use.

The blankie took a little longer than expected only because I somehow got distracted with a DREAMi project which probably was due to my experiencing withdrawal symptoms from having finished my Smitten quilt which involved a lot of handwork and time.  I decide to spend some time sorting some of the scrap strips accumulated from die-cutting which involves deciding which strips should be used for weaving, twining, bead making, etc. I love being able to use these scrap strips because I can't bear discarding them and was really happy to find a use for the thin strips that are 1/4" to just under 1/2" wide which is the perfect size for making fabric twine.  I've been making fabric twine for several years now after finding a tutorial on Pinterest, (you can read about it here) and have made several balls of fabric twine which has been sitting around in my studio.  I keep my twining strips in an upcycled bag which was made from a goat feed bag by Mary Etherington and given to me several years ago.

I suppose I could have used my fabric twine balls for decoration by arranging them in a basket or jar but got an idea thanks to my hubby's gentle prodding to finally do something with the empty Oatmeal containers which I asked him to save and they've been accumulating in the garage. Hubby started putting the empty containers in my studio right next to the bag of twine which inspired me to finally make what I think is a pretty nice upcycle project.

Aren't these fun?  They just make me smile.  And they make my heart feel good to turn scraps and waste into something useful.  All I did was lightly coated the containers with fabric glue maybe, an inch at a time, and wrapped the fabric twine around the glued area.  I've only made two from the Quaker Oak containers and the other oatmeal container will be different since the lid closes on the outside and not the inside like the Quaker Oats containers which I also covered the lid with fabric twine to hide the label.  I'm not sure how the other containers are going to look since I can't add twine all the way up to the top since I have to leave room for the lid.   I'm calling these my Fabri-Can Cans and I definitely have the twine and the containers to make more.  I think these would look cute with  a chalkboard tag hanging on the outside.  It's a project I can do upstairs while watching TV since I still have some series I have to finish watching.   I have made fabric twine while traveling in the car but it is messy so it's best to have a plastic bag on your lap or on the table while you're twining.   It's too bad I didn't think of this sooner for the holiday seasons but there's always next year to give them to those who may appreciate a quirky gift.  As you can see, my Fabri-Can Can is holding my Christmas chocolates and would be perfect to hold treats for the pets.  I'm thinking I should send one to Mary Etherington since she wasn't too excited about making fabric twine.  I'm planning to give the other can to Micah which I think she might like to play with it; the texture of the twine feels really nice.  I think I can make another one in time for a White Elephant gift for the annual New Years Eve Bingo games with the Peeps.

Otherwise, before I call it a year, I have to quilt my Splash of Color Quilt (I think this mural which was outside of the restaurant I was having lunch at in downtown Chicago today was a nice reminder of the QAL) and make some blocks for the Covered in Love's December Block Drive.

I hope you have a wonderful and blessed holiday season and enjoy your time with family and friends.  And hopefully there will be some gifts for you which will bring you some quilt joy.  I know I have some wonderful fabrics waiting for me underneath the tree.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, Thursday Needle and Thread, Crazy Mom's Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop Friday, and Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday