Due South - A Start, and A Re-Start

So I've started on Due South, by Carrie Nelson for Miss Rosie's Quilt Co, a pattern that's been on my to-do list for years, literally, years.

This is Carrie's Due South, mine will be very similar, except for that noticeably scrappy background, that's just not me.  My background will be scrappy but unnoticeable.

I think one of the things I've always liked about this pattern is the movement of the geese.  I also like  the name, Due South, like these geese have some place to go, sort of a traveling theme.

Rifle Paper Co has produced this canvas fabric that has a nice travel theme.  I'm sure it's supposed to be for bags and pillows, but I decided to chop it up for my Due South, to keep with that travel feel and theme.

I decided to start with the stars, I only needed 11.

So I fussy cut my center and points, made my inspiration/ test block, declared it a success and proceeded to piece the rest of the blocks.

TA DA!  What a glorious start.

Until it dawned on me that the star blocks were set on point, and I had just fussy cut all my centers wrong, making blocks that now looked like this. I knew I could not live with these sideways blocks so I took them all apart, cut new centers, and then,

TA DA!

Not such a glorious start, but I love them all the same.

 I like the heavy look and feel of the canvas and hope it makes the stars pop when set against the cotton geese, 212 geese.   Gee I hope I don't have to make them all twice.  

Don't forget, we're celebrating "The Year of Thelma" by everyone piecing a Miss Rosie's Quilt Co quilt pattern with me, ending with a parade in December to wrap up my year, I hope you join in.

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Throwing - A Finish

When I saw a picture of the quilt  Throwing by Zen Chic, I immediately bought the pattern and started searching online for some True Blue fabric.  

What makes this unusual is that I'm not really a huge fan of the color blue, I've probably pieced 5 or fewer predominately blue quilts out of the nearly 200 I've finished. Two of those were for my husband who's favorite sports teams wear blue.   The pattern is a look I've been wanting to try but understood myself well enough to know I couldn't just piece a stack of hsts and throw them on my design wall all willy nilly and like the result. This pattern gave me a blue print. (no pun intended, lol)

The pattern calls for 3 True Blue charm packs by Zen Chic for Moda,  but I bought a layer cake on Etsy for less than the cost of 3 charm packs, which gave me extra hsts to play with.

The designer added a red and orange Grunge print to the mix.   I used two different shades of orange and one yellow Grunge to my Throwing.  This was my first attempt.

The quilt on the pattern cover and the design sheet inside the pattern are different.  The cover quilt used more of the medium blues from the family of fabric,  my final version is somewhere in between the two.  

And while I did fuss a little with the placement of each block, not really that much more than I do on any of my projects,  I'm just a fussy quilter.  This is my final version.

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 199

The pattern is Throwing by Zen Chic 

The fabric is True Blue by Zen Chic for Moda

It finished at 61" x 61"

I has approximately 374 pieces.

Now that quilt 199 is done I can start on quilt number 200, Due South.

First Step, prepping the fabric.

I usually don't get to sew on the weekends, but am looking forward to getting started on this project the first of next week.   Are you ready to start on your Miss Rosie's Quilt Co project and sew along with me?  Kristen has finished all her Cracked Pots houses,  be sure to follow her progress on the blog Meadowbrook in my Blogs List.

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Dash - Number 198

Dash is done.  The hardest part of this project was selecting the fabric, but that's almost always true for me and my projects.  But in this case not only did I need to decide on my fabric, where the fabric was placed in the pattern was also important.  I found the the style of this pattern very appealing,  but how Heather used different volumes of fabric also added to its great look, so that was something else for me to consider when choosing my fabric.

I was rolling right along until I finished the outer three rows in the picture below, and noticed I had three green fabrics touching.

It was a pretty easy fix since I was using V and Co fabric, giving me plenty of choices that were not green.  But it's funny that I didn't even notice until I had the blocks up on my design wall.

The pattern has directions for two different size Dashes, the pattern is the same but the blocks are different sizes.  You can make a 78" x 78" or a 39"x 39".  I made my blocks in the middle.  I also made my large corner block larger and added two extra blocks to each row, for a quilt top that finished at 59" x 59".

This pattern is currently in the magazine Simply Moderne, Issue Number 8.  I just spied it at Barnes and Noble.

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 198

It finished at 59" x 59"

It has approximately 351 pieces

The fabric is by V and Co for Moda.  Not one family, just an assortment from all of Vanessa's lines.

The pattern is Dash by Heather Jones Studio and available here. 

One more finish then I'l be starting on Due South.  Kristen has already started the sew along, she's making Cracked Pots using Kimberbell basics.  I've linked to Kristen's blog Meadowbrook in my Favorites list so you can follow her progress, or click here.  I've not heard from anyone else, I think Kristen is the first to start the sew along and has such a great start may be the first entry in our parade.  Be sure to let me know when you start your Miss Rosie's Quilt Co project.

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Long Time Gone - Gone, for now

So my original goal was to work on my Long Time Gone project a little bit at a time.  Maybe a block a week, a section a month, something along those lines.  But once I got started I figured out that this wasn't really the type of project I could easily work on every now and then.  A lot of the blocks need strips and squares that are not efficient to just cut for one block at a time.  So once I got started and was on a roll I figured I would break this project down into 3 projects.  The projects  consist of two piecing projects and one assembly project.  The first piecing project is done.  Here are all  the blocks for Sections 1 - 4.

Section 1

 Sections 1 and 2

Sections 1, 2 and  3

and Sections 1, 2, 3 and 4

I enjoyed piecing every block, a couple of blocks were first timers for me, like the Trip Around the World block and the Crosses of UK blocks.  I changed up the Jacobs Ladder blocks but other than that it's pretty much just like the pattern.

I've now packed everything up into a couple of projects boxes and plan to finish piecing Sections 5 and 6 this summer.  Then I'll assemble it all this fall, easily making my Year of Thelma deadline.

And speaking of The Year of Thelma, are you still planning to join my Miss Rosie Quilt Co sew along?  I happened to notice that I am getting very close to Lifetime Quilt Number 200, and thought my Due South sew along quilt would be a perfect 200th quilt, so I'm going to finish a couple projects before I start my Due South, but don't let that stop you from starting, and be sure to send me your progress updates.

So next up is this project, which has been on my To Do List for over a year.  A perfect project for spring I think.

The pattern Dash is by Heather Jones and available here.

I'm thinking these nice prints by V and Co for Moda would look great in that pattern and fit my need to work with spring colors.  Since spring visited us shortly in February but has now disappeared I guess I need to get my spring fix inside instead of outside.

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Long Time Gone Start

I was initially suffering from a case of analysis paralysis on my Long Time Gone project.  Once I decided to go with my Cotton + Steel fabric I thought how best to proceed would get easier, it did not.

I just kept trying to figure out what was the best way to start.

So I finally jumped in and started with these 3 inch Churn Dash blocks from Section 2.

I enjoyed piecing them and all I needed to do was pick 9 different pieces of fabric from my Cotton and Steel stash. That I could manage.

Then I moved on to these Flying Gees blocks, which only required 3 different pieces of fabric.

This block is also for Section 2.

This is a very scrappy project, and initially I thought I could cut extra strips and squares from the fabric that I was using as I went along, but I've now figured out that I need a lot of strips and squares for the checkerboard blocks, the courthouse steps blocks, pineapple blocks, log cabin blocks and the over 150 required half square triangle units.

So I picked out my 60 favorite fat quarters and just started cutting strips and squares.  It's been slow going, but they're all cut up now, so hopefully things will start to move along at a quicker pace.

As I was picking out my favorite fat quarters I ran across this dot print, which was a panel with 6 different dot prints, and thought it would make a great Bow Tie Block, for Section 3, because I think bowties should be polkadot.  The dots matching up, just a happy coincidence.

So my plan is to piece all the blocks for Sections 1 and 2, then move on to a new project, but I've already jumped ahead to Setcion 3.  Maybe I'll just designate next week Long Time Gone week then put it up until April.  Stay tuned for updates.

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