Mission Accomplished!

It's Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend 2014. Where has this year gone already?!? Can it truly be nearly June? It will be a fun and fairly quiet holiday weekend for me with just one outing tonight. The rest will be spent quilting.

My bookcase has a permanent display in memory of my father, and in honor of brother and great-nephew who were/are all Navy. Dad served in WWII and I received the flag at his and Mom's burial in May 2012. Wayne served in Viet Nam and my great-nephew Christopher is currently in and stationed in Japan. I'll also have my flag out on Monday remembering all who served.

This evening will be a fun time calling a contra dance for friends in Manhattan, Kansas. Although I haven't gone regularly for a number of years, I still call on occasion when asked. It's great fun, easy steps that anyone can learn, and everyone gets to experience the joy of moving to live music! I took the above picture of my friends Enid and Lou at the Manhattan dance several years ago. I love the way I managed (accidentally) to capture the movement as they were swinging. Plus, it's a nice break from the quilting projects to do something entirely different. I'll still get a quilting fix as I plan to stop at a couple of shops along the way that I typically don't get to. On the way home tomorrow, I have a date with one of my best friends to meet for banana splits! I'm definitely looking forward to that, too!

Now for the quilting news! Mission accomplished!!! Way back in 2010 I flew from California back to Kansas to visit my daughters. Being a new quilter who had recently experienced my first shop hop, I decided to create my own shop-hop across Kansas between my girls' homes in Emporia and Leavenworth. It turns out there are a LOT of shops between them! In fact, so many that I ended up shipping an extra box of goodies home that I couldn't get into the already over-packed suitcase. LOL! One of the shops I visited was Quilters' Paradise in Baldwin City, KS. Little did I know, it would become my favorite and "home" shop years later when I moved back to Kansas. Anyway, Sharon, the shop owner, was in the process of designing a block of the month pattern out of the Wizard of Oz fabrics that were becoming popular. I fell in love instantly and bought the block kits she had on hand and ordered the rest. Several months later, back in California where I was caring for my folks, my box arrived with the rest of the blocks and a finishing kit, including Oz character picture blocks to be included in the backing. Life had gotten busy by then with work, full time classes for my BA, and Dad who was becoming increasingly frail, so I put the box on the shelf, thought about it now and again, and went on with my daily routine. That box would travel back across the country to my home in Kansas before moving to the top of my "to do" quilting list!

Jump forward to 2014 and I'm back in Kansas two years, living in my second home already (having followed my kids so I could continue babysitting my little grandson), and in January I decided it was time to start on the Oz quilt. I managed to make a block a day for several weeks, but it turned into a block a week sometimes. But I stuck with it and by early March the main part of the top was complete! I just love the way Sharon designed this pattern with the yellow brick road sashing marching from corner to corner! Then there was the matter of the pieced borders. Sharon had designed pieced film strips using lots of fussy cut pictures to go all the way around the top! It took me a few weeks to get those put together. The inner film strip went together great and fit the way it was supposed to. The pictures were another story--I had to fussy cut each to the correct width for side pix and height for top/bottom pix, put a strip of black between, and have them come out the right size to fit the film strip. It took some doing, but I got the top and bottom done and loved how it was looking. The sides were a bit more work, making sure the corner blocks fit and the rest of the pieces matched up. The outer film strip turned out to be a bit more of a challenge. The border had gained just enough that the 1" blocks didn't fit quite right. I took it with me to a quilting retreat and spent the entire weekend just finishing the borders! But by Sunday afternoon it was done, complete, finished!!! I literally did a happy dance when the last stitch was done! I'm so happy with it and can't wait to get the backing made so I can quilt it and put it on my bed! Here is the completed Dorothy's Adventures in Oz quilt top.

I have several other projects underway and plan to take the time to write about them too. In the meantime, have a safe and fun Memorial Day. While enjoying your time, be sure to remember why we celebrate.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

WIP Wednesday--Coffee Quilt #2

It's Wednesday already and time to post something for WIP Wednesday hosted by Freshly Pieced. Last week I worked on a Marti Michel pattern with a cute selection of half-yard cuts of coffee themed fabrics to make "Coffee Anyone?" Well, that quilt is pinned and ready to be quilted and I still had a box full of coffee fabrics. Yesterday my new pattern arrived in the mail from Eleanor Burns' 2013 Signature Pattern Party and it looked like a great way to get rid of use more of the those coffee fabrics. It's not quite a quilt in a day, but it's close!

This morning I went to the weekly gathering of the Stitching Grannies at Quilter's Paradise in Baldwin City and took the box of coffee fabrics, my rotary cutter, and the new pattern with me. I got all of the strips and units cut out before lunch! Yay me! After a yummy lunch from the Mexican place next door, I went home and jumped in at the machine to get this thing put together.

By late afternoon I had all of the 4-patch units together and started assembling the 70 double-four patch units for the throw size. String piecing them was quicker than I expected and I spent more time pressing them open than sewing. It's sweaty work being that close to the steam iron for what seemed like hours!

 

I had purchased several mixers to use with the coffee fabrics, but didn't use the browns or blue stripe prints shown here and only a little of pink fabric. This quilt is using lots more of those extra mixers with some fun effects.

The blue stripe with stars is going different directions in each connecting section of setting triangles. In the morning I'll stop by the quilt shop to pick up another bit of that in order to complete the horizontal stripe row. Oh joy, I'm sure there will be yet more scraps to use another time! Now to decide what to frame it with for the border. Maybe another brown that doesn't blend too close with the pink & blue side setting triangles. It's interesting that the actual coffee fabric isn't nearly as obvious in this one since it's only in the 2" chain blocks. Every quilt turns out different and sometimes the subtleties make for a whole different look than expected. 

It's been a busy day with fun time visiting with the Grannies this morning, a couple of phone calls while stitching (thank goodness for bluetooth hands-free talking!) and lots of Beatles, George Harrison, and Traveling Wilbury's on the iTunes to keep me company. Looking at the box of coffee fabrics, I see there's still plenty left over for yet another scrappy coffee quilt!

I wonder what pattern will inspire me for the next round of coffee? Or have I had enough? Maybe I'll  throw them all a string piecing project that's on the list of things to do. For now, I think two coffee quilts is enough, thank you very much!

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Coffee anyone?

It amuses me that I fell in love with a line of coffee related fabrics since I don't drink coffee myself. I grew up in a family that loves coffee, but it just never took with me. My dad made what my brother Wayne refers to as mud. And he'd reheat it until it really was mud and still drank it! Dad lived to be nearly 96, so I guess it didn't hurt him. Wayne drinks his coffee much weaker--it looks more like tea coming out of his thermos. On one visit home Dad offered to make him some coffee to refill his thermos for the 3-hour drive home. Wayne accepted and off he and his family went with full mugs of coffee to keep them awake on their trek home. The next visit when Dad offered again to fill Wayne's thermos, he declined telling Dad, "The last time you made me coffee, I was awake for three days!" My oldest brother Ken drinks his almost as strong as Dad, but he buys nice custom grinds instead of Dad's Folgers. To each their own... I'll take instead those lovely little coffettes, little foil & cellophane wrapped sweet coffee-flavored hard candies. That's as close as you'll get me to a cup of coffee!

Back to my project... To get to know the local quilters where I'm now living, having recently moved closer to my kids in northeast Kansas, I joined a Marti & Me Club at Quilter's Paradise in Baldwin City, which features patterns by Marti Michell that use her Perfect Patchwork Template sets. Joining in month 2, the first pattern I received was Lazy Afternoon with template Set B. Knowing my sewing room is FULL of fabrics that I could use, I listened to the teachers, watched the video, and studied the pattern. Then I went home and started hunting and pulled out a half-yard cut collection of coffee themed fabrics.
 

Several years ago while still living in California, I saw the "Let's Do Coffee" line of fabrics by E.E. Schenck Company on sale online. I loved the colors and thought it would make a great quilt for someone. So, I purchased half-yard cuts of each which arrived and got put on a shelf for at least two years, moved from CA to KS in early 2012, and sat for another year. The original line had two background shades of the coffee label fabric, the mugs & cups on cream fabric, four solids to mix, and two border prints--one with a cream background and one with a black background (you'll see them in the quilt pix below). Once I started picking fabrics for this project, I realized I needed a small print or two to use as mixers and a little more color to brighten it up. So, I went hunting at area quilt shops and found the two coffee bean fabrics, and then matched the pink and blue from the prints to throw in some pizazz.

I couldn't decide on what layout to use since, true to my nature, I almost never do exactly as a pattern says. I like to make patterns mine! Don't you? I not only messed with what fabrics went in which blocks, mixing & matching them to my taste, but I also experimented with layouts, turning the corner blocks to different angles, and even switching them to the center outside position to see what I liked.

Original Lazy Afternoon layout with corners blocks across the corners

My alternate 1 with corner blocks rotated and pointing out

My alternate 2 with outside blocks in switched positions--more of a pinwheel

I decided on my alternate 1 with the corner blocks pointing out as my favorite layout. As I was cutting out the fabrics, I decided to fussy cut different cups from the black background border print to use in the center of each of the five star blocks.  It seemed like the right thing to do and I like the results!

And so the layout progressed and I started assembling blocks, playing with the new mixers I'd selected. Another thing I know about myself is that I really don't like making square quilts. So, that meant I either had to add more rows, not my first inclination, or add some borders to help stretch its length. That's when I started cutting up the border prints to add rows of the cups and the border stripes to the top and bottom. And this is what I got. A fun quilt with coffee beans adding some character, a splash of pink in the center block, and the blue as the background for the pieced blocks to float over.

For the back I decided to use as much of the fabric up as I could in this project, so I took the larger chunks and a few remaining strips of the border fabrics, added blue to each end to get the width I wanted, sashed them with a 1" strip of pink, and bordered the whole thing with the coffee label fabric. I think it turned out fun!  All I have to do now is sandwich & pin and then decide how I want to quilt it.

I have no idea who this little quilt will go to, but it was fun to make the top with Marti Michell's templates! The blocks went together so easily and there was very little trimming or squaring up to do as I paid close attention to matching the corners and keeping accurate 1/4" seams.


I'm looking forward to this month's Marti & Me class when we will get a new set of templates to make her Seven Sisters quilt which I have long admired. Just think! Beautiful stars with no set-in seams! That's my kind of quilt!


More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz