Project Quilting 15.6 - Irish Chain

How fitting that a challenge issued on March 17 involves something attributed to the Irish!  Although, from a quick search on the web, it appears that the pattern may have originated in the US. Apparently, in Ireland, it is called the American Chain!!

Regardless of where it came from, it is a traditional quilt pattern.  It is listed as a block in many reference books, but you really need two blocks to make the single Irish Chain design - a nine-patch block and a plain background block.  Alternating them makes the typical diagonal chain.  It was historically made as a two color quilt, which really emphasizes the 'chain' pattern.  Given the name, green with a white background is a popular color combination. 

On a normal PQ challenge week, I try to make a baby size quilt.  But this week was shaping up to be a crazy busy week, and my PQ time would be limited.  So when I saw that the challenge was Irish Chain, I have to admit to being less than excited about it.  (Sorry, Trish!)  All I could envision was a scrappy nine patch with a white background.  

Quiltober 23

I have recently completed two  quilts that are scrappy with a white background.  

The first one is called Quiltober 23 from Karen Montgomery's Nine Patch A Day Facebook group. As you can see, it is very similar to an Irish Chain.  It's has the  '23' designation  because she published another Quiltober quilt pattern in 2022.  And probably will have another one this year, so that one will be Quiltober 24! If you are on Facebook, check out the Nine Patch a Day group. 

Karen owned a quilt store for over 20 years before she 'retired' to Florida.  Now, she designs fabric, rulers and patterns and teaches other quilt store owners how to run their business. She occasionally posts patterns that she designs, but more importantly, she posts a video every Sunday evening where she answers quilting questions from group members.  She is a veritable fountain of information!

Circling the Nines variation

Here is the other scrappy-nine-patch-with-white-background-quilt that I recently completed.  It was inspired by a free pattern that I saw on the Quilted Twins website called Circling the Nines.  That one was set on point; I chose a straight set, and made it somewhat smaller.

As you can see, both of these quilts use scraps, a white background and lots of nine-patch blocks.  So it's not that i don't like nine patch blocks with a white background. I'm just a little burnt out on the theme. The thought of working on even a baby size Irish Chain just left me apathetic.  And with all my other commitments this week, I knew that I wouldn't have the energy or time to put into something creative. 

So after a few semi-sleepless nights  of mulling it over, I decided to just do a small, traditional two color single Irish Chain project.  Since I had used up most of my stash of 2 1/2 inch squares and strips on the two previous projects, I dug into my bin of 1 1/2 inch strips.  There, I discovered two strips of a pretty coral with white flowers fabric.  I paired the coral with a scrap of a white-on-white fabric that was printed with small white flowers.

I quilted straight diagonal lines through the coral fabric, and used a decorative floral stitch through the white background squares.  My biggest challenge was the binding.  Because I started with a 1 1/2 inch wide strip, the binding is barely 1/4 inch wide. This was the narrowest binding that I have ever made!  But I like it on a small project like this. 

My Coral Irish Chain project is 9 1/2 inches square. I'm not sure my Irish ancestors would approve of coral instead of green. Coral might be a little too close to orange for their taste!  ^.^

Coral Irish Chain

It's not my most creative venture, but it was quick and easy. It didn't tax my brain on a busy week, it's pretty, and I like the way it turned out.

It has been a great Project Quilting season, and I'm already looking forward to next year!  

  

Project Quilting 15.5 - Wearable

Every once in awhile, I come across a project that really grabs my imagination. It's all I think about; I want to drop everything and make it.  That happened a couple weeks ago when I opened an email newsletter from Melissa Mortenson of Polka Dot Chair.  She showed a tote bag that she made for her latest family trip to Disney World.   She cut some fabric scraps into  Mickey Mouse silhouettes and appliqued them on a purchased tote bag. See the post here: https://www.polkadotchair.com/diy-applique-disney-tote-bag/

It was so stinkin' cute that I immediately started planning to make one (or two....). The problem is that I have way too many tote bags and I really can't justify making any more.  So I started thinking about other ways to use the Mickey silhouettes.  I decided that they would look really cute on a t-shirt.  And I could wear it on MY next trip to Disney!  

But even though I kept thinking about it, I didn't have time to actually start working on it.  I sing with a local concert chorale, and last week was concert week.  We had two dress rehearsals and two concerts in the span of 6 days.  I was so busy that I even forgot that Project Quilting 15.5 was starting on Sunday! 

On Sunday evening, after I got home from the Sunday afternoon concert, I did some unwinding by checking my email and Facebook.  That's when I saw the topic for this week's challenge. 

Wearable?  WOW!  Talk about a coincidence!  And I even had a plain white T shirt that I had purchased awhile ago that I could embellish!

So Monday morning, I went spelunking into my scrap bin to find some fabrics that would be suitable for the Mickey Mouse appliques.  I was originally looking for patriotic fabrics, but on my way there, I found several strips of Ombre Confetti Metallic by V and Co.  Where and when I got them, I have no idea, since I know that I never had that jelly roll.

Sometimes I think that there is a fabric fairly, similar to the Tooth Fairy. But instead of taking a tooth and leaving a coin, she takes some of your fabric and leaves someone else's in its place. That would explain why you just know that you have a certain piece of fabric, but you can't find it.  The Fabric Fairy 'rearranges' it for us!

Anyway, one of the strips was an indigo ombre that I decided was perfect for this project.  I printed out the shape, traced it onto some template plastic, then used that to draw Mickeys onto the paper side of some fusible web.  Since the Mickeys are symmetrical, I didn't have to worry about orientation, like I would for letters.  The only thing that I needed to remember is to iron the fusible shapes onto the WRONG side of the fabric!  Yes, I have absolutely fused to to the right side before!  Once they were cool, I cut them out with a pair of very sharp scissors.

I carefully arranged the Mickeys in a 9x9 grid and fused them down. I used the blanket stitch on my Bernina B590 to stitch around the edges, using a different coordinating thread for each progressively darker row.

The one thing that I learned is that you have to be very careful not to stretch the t shirt when you are stitching around the shapes.  The easiest way to do that is to only hold onto the woven fabric shapes when you are stitching, not the surrounding t shirt.  I am happy with the way that my new Disney T shirt turned out!