Trick or Treat - October's Kitchen Table Quilt

Trick or Treat will be on our kitchen table this month.

It measures 63" x 63"

(in case you missed v1 of this quilt's top,

click HERE and read how it failed yet became v2)

This is the scrappy back anchored by this seasonal panel.

Quilted with liberated all-over fans

using Glide thread in Burnt Orange.

Back flipped to front.

Front flipped to back.

I am SO glad I bought this deep-toned Jason Yenter print 

even though I had no particular purpose in mind because

it turned out to be perfect as T or T's sashing and border.

* * *

You can see photos of all our kitchen table quilts

including links to their reveal posts HERE.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Orange is the happiest color.”

Frank Sinatra

Trick or Treat V2

Inspiration struck yesterday

and I decided to act on it

instead of makings notes for later.

This is the flimsy for Trick or Treat as I shared it in October.

The top was "finished" but I wasn't happy with it.

I cut the borders away from the center panel

a few weeks ago, knowing that I would "remake" the top.

Since then my brain has been working in the background

considering ways to redesign October's kitchen table quilt.

* * *

I had pulled out Gwen Marston's classic

Liberated String Quilts because I remembered

that she had a string tulip block and quilt in it.

(those came up because of Ann's upcoming QAL for AHIQ)

One of the other quilts in Gwen's book caught my eye and . . . 

EUREKA!

I knew exactly how to solve my Trick or Treat conundrum.

When I checked the stash, I found the last of the purple Marbles fabric

I had used in the original top.

(whew)

I also found the dark floral yardage from Jason Yenter's Floragraphix V line.

(our LQS is closing because the landlord won't renew her lease

since he has a new tenant who wants the entire building -

that floral yardage was one of my 1/2 off closing sale finds)

I cut as many 12.5" squares as I could from the flimsy's center

and the strata leftover from its making.

Then I used the cut offs and leftover strips to piece together

four more blocks for the layout shown below.

V2 measures 63" x 63" and I like it a LOT more than V1.

A whole lot more.

The new top plays beautifully with the original back

AND the striped binding.

So now this can go into the rotation for quilting

come August or September

and my brain can move on to other projects.

(p.s.  more about my plan for those string tulips soon)

Quiltdivajulie

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“I’ve always been multi-cultural myself.  I’m not black and I’m not white.  I’m not pink and I’m not green.  Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken.”

Eartha Kitt

Trick or Treat - the Flimsy

Clearly I wasn't quite finished with orange . . . 

Introducing Trick or Treat, the flimsy.

This will become one side of a two-sided

kitchen table quilt for use each October.

After countless design changes over the past year,

this design was inspired by the Jelly Roll Drag Race

shared by Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics.

(after all the cutting and trimming involved with Resplendent,

I needed something simple and quick for this table quilt)

T or T was made with strips cut long ago from the stash,

meaning they were all different lengths 

rather than the standard length of a coordinated jelly roll,

so my purple slashes did not line up like hers -

and that is just fine with me.

The center section was squared at 50" x 50"

Each of the four different inner border strips

finished at 2" enlarging  the top to 54" x 54".

Four different outer borders were cut at 6.5" . . .

. . . for a quilt top that measures 66" x 66".

And then it was on to making a scrappy backing.

I used a fabulous crow and pumpkin print remnant 

with more already-cut 6" strips to increase the width.

The upper and lower widths were pieced

from well-aged yardage from the stash

to make a back that measures 78" x 78".

(any excess backing will be die cut into 1.5" strips

for one of my planned Dumpster Diving quilts)

And I finally found the perfect quilt

for this well-aged Patrick Lose for RJR striped binding.

Trick or Treat will not be quilted right away -

I won't need the finished quilt until October 1, 2021.

NOW I'm ready to shift to a different color palette.

Stay tuned to see which of the many gestating projects

inserts itself at the front of the line to be worked on next.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.”     

Robert Greenleaf

About Those Kitchen Table Quilts

These are the squares for my February kitchen table quilt.

And these are the blocks made from those squares.

(Amy Ellis's Day Hike pattern 

was used for block construction -

but this layout is my own)

The 49 blocks are now clipped 

to be webbed together into a 63" x 63" top.

(hopefully this weekend)

And happily, I found some fairly outrageous 

Tula Pink yardage in the stash for the back.

I've named February's table quilt AWAKEN.

Squares cut from yardage for the top of Farmland - September's table quilt

So WHY am I making a series of twelve

64" x 64" (ish) quilts to be used on our kitchen table?

There are several reasons . . . 

USING the stash ranks very, very high on the list.

That means working with only the fabrics in the stash

and not running out or going online to buy more.

That limitation encourages me to work more creatively

and generates quilts that are much more interesting.

Final fabric selections for the top of Trick or Treat - October's table quilt

Our current table quilt has been in near-continuous use 

for the past two years and it is past time 

for it to be retired from daily use.

(it will become the quilt in our grand-dog's kennel)

I enjoy making utility quilts (see definition in sidebar)

and I can't think of a more utilitarian function

than a quilt serving as a table cover.

(the top of our table is dark slate - 

cold, hard, and noisy under the dishes)

A different quilt for each month will 

definitely make the table more inviting.

Final fabric selection for the top (center section) of Sweater Weather - November's table quilt

When I started thinking about this project late last summer,

I realized it was the perfect way to reinvigorate several

 projects/fabric pulls in my design studio closet.

Some of them retained their original design plan

but their layout has been adjusted 

to fit the 64-ish" square plan.

Others were fabric pulls waiting for their purpose to be defined -

and after culling through my books and other resources,

I've chosen low-stress multi-directional designs that allow 

the colors and the fabrics to be the focus.

Still other months were an excuse to pull semi-seasonal colors

from the stash and decide how best to showcase them.

(Farmland, Trick or Treat, and Sweater Weather 

shown here fit this approach)

Stop border, outer border, and binding for Sweater Weather

Making utility quilts like these 

creates a variety of surfaces on which to grow

my liberated free motion quilting skill set.

(much better than boring practice sandwiches)

Short lengths of yardage to make a scrappy back for Sweater Weather

I make these quilts just like I make my lap quilts --

with a properly pieced top, Hobbs 80/20 batting, 

backing, free motion quilting, and binding.

At this point, they are all cut out

and ready to be sewn . . . 

one month at a time.

* * *

For those who are concerned about stains,

we have used a quilt on our kitchen table 

for nearly 10 years now and even with occasional spills, 

none of those quilts have been permanently damaged.

(a quick spray of spot treating spray and

a trip through the washer/dryer has worked every time)

* * *

I've created a tabbed page here on the blog

for this series of quilts -

click here if you'd like to check it out.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the thing you can't hear, and not bothering.”

A. A. Milne