Project Quilting 11.6 - Vibrant and Vivacious

I'm really not sure how to write a blog post today.  I’ve been mulling it over all ever since the topic was announced. It has just been such an unsettling couple of weeks.  Should I just ignore the whole pandemic thing and talk about my project? Or focus on the pandemic and just glancingly touch on quilting? Ignoring either doesn’t feel right, so I think that I need to try to strike a balance between the two. 

A pandemic? Wow, just wow.  I know there was the H1N1 'swine' flu going around about 10 years ago, and the SARS epidemic a few years before that.  But neither of those had the impact that this new COVID-19 is having. This one has everyone panicking. I’m truly not sure how much of the hype is real and how much is just that – hype.  I was an EMT for a while, so I certainly understand the necessity of preventing the spread of disease.  There are just so many unknowns for this virus.  Some of the official advice is normal for any flu season - wash your hands, don't touch your face, disinfect commonly touched surfaces. But this one adds the unprecedented advice to stay inside, and, if you have to go out, maintain the recommended ‘social distance’.  It is causing a real disruption in our society, justifiably or not.  They have closed all non-essential stores in our area, and cancelled any meetings of groups of more than about 10 people. The Concert Chorale that I sing with can’t practice, I can’t go to the boathouse to work out, my quilt guild can’t meet and they cancelled the quilt retreat for this week. And I think worst of all, they have cancelled all church services so we can’t get to Mass. 

I’m sure everyone else has a similar story to tell.  I could very easily get panicked or depressed, but I am choosing to count my blessings instead.  For every negative, I am going to look for a positive. We have heat, water and electricity.  There is food in the fridge and in the pantry. I have been able to buy what I need at the local grocery store. The lines are a little longer and I may have to buy a brand that I am not used to using, but it is perfectly fine. I can’t practice with the chorale, but I have my sheet music and there are lots of You Tube videos of the music being performed and I can sing along.  I can’t work out with my rowing team, but I can get a workout by taking a long walk or jog outside in the fresh air.  I can’t physically go to Sunday Mass, but our church is live-streaming the Mass every day at 9 a.m.  I can’t meet with my quilt guild or go to the retreat, but there are lots of online quilt alongs and challenges that I can participate in. 

For instance, tomorrow, I plan to participate in Gudrun Erla’s Quarantine Quilt Along.

 https://gequiltdesigns.com/blogs/ge-happenings/elvira-quarantine-quilt-along

I wasn’t sure that I was going to do it until I listened to one of Pat Sloan’s You Tube videos today.  In it, she mentioned that she didn’t make a ‘Millennial” quilt when a lot of people were making them to commemorate the year 2000, and she regretted it.  She pointed out that this is an historic occasion, and quilters are famous for commemorating historic occasions with quilts.  I realized that this is not only an historic occasion, but it will be a way for quilters to connect with each other during this time of social distancing.  So I will be digging into the retirement stash and finding some fat quarters that are begging to be used!

I also used some of that retirement stash to make this week’s Project Quilting challenge - Vibrant and Vivacious.  I’m not sure that I would call my project ‘vivacious’, but I think that it is vibrant!  I have always liked the fabrics by Me and My Sisters Designs because they are bright and cheerful, and that certainly fits the bill for this challenge.  I knew that I had a Layer Cake from one of their lines stashed away, so I dug it out and started planning.  I had recently seen a tutorial by Amy Smart on her ‘Diary of a Quilter’ blog for a baby quilt made by using one large Lemoyne Star block.

https://www.diaryofaquilter.com/2015/07/easy-diy-star-baby-quilt-tutorials.html

 I knew that it was the perfect project for that layer cake and this week’s PQ.  Each star point uses one 10-inch square from the layer cake and one 10-inch background square.  Instead of the scrappy border, I used a border made from the background fabric and made a scrappy binding from some of the other layer cake squares.  It finished at just over 40 inches square.

I used straight line stitching, 1 ½ inches apart to quilt it.  Please don’t look at the ‘whiskers’ in my quilting!  I used a walking foot, and a thin batting, but I still got them.  I am hoping that when it is washed, they disappear or become less obvious.  Speaking of things that disappear – I used a purple air and water erasable marking pen to mark the quilting lines.  The lines disappeared, all right, but when I tried steaming the quilt to get rid of the whiskers, the lines came back!  That gave me quite a scare because I thought at first that I had made them permanent.  Fortunately, they disappeared again.  But that is another good reason to wash the quilt before I give it away. Now I know that whatever is used to make the lines is still there, just invisible.  And we all know that invisible doesn’t mean harmless, especially after this corona virus scare!  Viruses are invisible (at least to the naked eye),  but look what damage they can cause!

  

Project Quilting 11.5 – Give It Away

I like projects where I can get started right away and don’t have to make a trip to the fabric store. I also like projects that can be finished quickly, so they keep my attention and don’t end up in the UFO pile. This week’s Project Quilting challenge is right up my alley!

I’ve been planning to make a larger project for one of the challenges because so far this year, all my projects have been small due to time constraints.  Because the challenge is to make something and give it away, I thought that this would be the perfect week to make a baby or kid’s size quilt. 

I have supported a couple of the organizations listed in Trish’s blog post in the past, including Quilts for Kids and Project Linus. I looked them both up online, and Project Linus won, only because they have a local drop off location.  If I am going to get something finished quickly, I also want it to be given away quickly so that it doesn’t get buried in the general chaos that is my sewing room!

The project had to be something simple enough that I could get it done between reloading sessions.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we are having our kitchen remodeled, and I had to unload all the drawers and cupboards.  Now that the majority of the work is done, it is time to put everything back in the kitchen.  I’m trying to organize everything by use instead of by where it used to be.  I’ve been filling a cupboard and then taking a break to ponder which cupboard to reload next, and with what.  It’s been during these breaks that I’ve been sewing. 

I decided that I wanted to use some of the fat quarters that have been proliferating in the set of plastic storage drawers that are beside my sewing machine.  I really can’t figure out how the drawers got so full.  The only explanation that I have is that there has been some hanky-panky going on in there.  ^.^

Deciding what pattern to use was relatively easy.  Karen Montgomery’s Three-Six-Nine pattern uses fat quarters and is a quick and easy way to make a baby quilt.  Basically, you stack up the fat quarters, cut them into squares and rectangles, then shuffle the stacks.  When you sew them together into uneven four patches, you get four different fabrics in each four patch.  But when you rotate the blocks and sew them together, sometimes identical fabrics touch each other, which gives a unique look. When I am making a scrap quilt, I usually don't want identical fabrics to touch, but with this quilt, I like the shapes that form when identical fabrics are next to each other.

Navy/Green colorway

Red/Aqua colorway

A few years ago, I found some yardage that was printed into fat quarters. I think that it was called a Fat Quarter Panel.  Never one to pass up something unique, I bought one in the navy/green colorway and one in the red/aqua colorway.  I tried to find the fabric online, but all I found was an historic listing from the Fat Quarter Shop.  The fabric isn't available from them any longer, but I wanted to show what it looked like before I cut it into fat quarters, and ultimately, into the squares and rectangles required for the pattern. 

That gave me eight coordinating fat quarters, and the pattern only called for seven.  After some angst design decisions, I tossed out the aqua/white print because I wanted the darker prints to dominate, not the light.  And besides, I like it better, and will keep it for another project. :>

Three Six Nine
36" x 45" 

Here is my final project, to be delivered to Project Linus.  It was machine quilted using an all-over meander. The binding was also sewn on entirely by machine, not because it is faster that way, but because it gives a more sturdy finish.  It is most likely going to be washed numerous times, and I want it to hold up well!