"Morning, Joe, Sam, Bill, and Ed"

Hi Everyone,

I finally finished this month's Schnibble and I'm really excited to share it.  If you follow me on Instagram (patrioticquilter) you have seen the sneak peek!  The pattern for this month is Morning Joe. 

As you probably know by now, the wonderful Sherri and Sinta host the monthly Schnibbles parades on the first of every month, and the new pattern is announced.  It is seriously my favorite day of the month. 

This version of Morning Joe is named for the line of Pam Kitty Morning Fabric it is made from.  I always enjoy reading how Carrie names these quilts!  When I first saw it, I liked it, but I didn't have an "immediate" vision for this quilt.  Goodness knows, I love star quilts, though.  Later, on the first of November, when it was chosen as our next quilt, I looked at it again.  Earlier that day, I had been rearranging some of the piles in my sewing room and I came across this pattern which I love and keep meaning to make.

 (Whoops!  It came out sideways, sorry about that!)

 

I also had 2 charm packs of Primitive Gatherings' Snowmen Gatherings for which I've been trying to find a good pattern.

 

As I looked at the Morning Joe pattern, a light bulb went off in my brain and I realized that I could make it with the Snowman Gatherings and in the areas where the corner squares of the star blocks come together, I could put a snowman head!

 

I was on a roll.  The fabric line is in cream, lt. tan, dark tan, medium blue and navy blue.  What should I use for background?  I wanted to use some solid creamy white for the snowmen, so having a light background wouldn't work.  I went to my stash and pulled a few possibilities.

 

 

I loved this!  You may not be able to tell, but the little "trails" on the fabric are blue!  And the tan stars are exactly the same tan as in the fabric line.  The only problem?  When making HSTs with this and the tan fabrics, the tan stars of the brown fabric might "bleed" into the tan of the points.

 

 

Can you see the effect in the lower right corner?  That star point on the brown fabric looks like an odd growth off the tan triangle. 

Here, the whole edge looks funny. 

Next I found this fabric.

I loved it, too, but it had the same problem with those tan circles possibly causing the "bleeding" issue.

So I was stumped.  I didn't want to buy anything and I really didn't know what I wanted to use anyway.  I finally pulled out a dark red solid and decided that it would work. 

Disclaimer:  The above process actually happened.  I did not just go for the patriotic color scheme and jump right into red! 

I would be interested in hearing anyone else's suggestions for a background for these fabrics!

The next dilemma I had was in dealing with the choices in the charm pack.  The creamy whites were going to be a problem for me.  If I scattered them in randomly, I thought they would jump right out at you.  Also with the snowmen being the same color, I didn't want it all to look scattered.  I studied the pattern picture again and decided that I could use the creamy white charms in the center of the stars instead of background fabric, as Carrie did.

  I really liked that idea, however, it would mean that I wouldn't have enough charm squares to complete the border.  I contemplated just using a border cut from fabric (not the pieced, saw-tooth border)  as I had a few half -yard blue pieces, but I realized that this Schnibble is BIG and a half yard wouldn't be enough, so I finally ordered a third charm pack.

The third consideration I had was on construction.  If I was making the cover quilt "as is" I would make nine star blocks and then sew them together with the narrow sashing.  But since I wanted a large snowball block for the snowman head, I couldn't do that.  Instead, I constructed it in rows.

Once I had the rows, I could just sew them together.  Once the quilt top was finished, I went on to layering it and quilting.  I'm going to do another post about the quilting, as I "custom-quilted it" instead of my usual all-over meander.  Once quilted, I added the facial features, including the wool nose and the buttons and embroidery.

Here is the finished quilt!

I decided to keep part of the original name.  Instead of Morning Joe (as in coffee, etc.) my version is called, "Morning, Joe, Sam, Bill, and Ed," as if you are greeting the snowmen.

This is Joe:

 

 

This is Sam:

 

 

This is Bill:

And this is Ed:

I love how different they look!  I was so motivated to finish this because I wouldn't get the full effect until the faces were completed.

I'm really pleased with it.  Come back tomorrow for the details about the quilting.

Have a great day,
JoAnne