Please Won’t you Be Our Neighbor?

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Welcome to our neighborhood in the making!

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine? Could you be mine?

As some of you may remember, last May marked my very first trip to International Quilt Market.

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Sophie had a little trouble controlling her giggles as we prepared for Day 1 of Market – which is actually the day before Market, for something called Schoolhouse.

It’s a neighborly day in this beauty Wood, a neighborly day for a beauty. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I loved Schoolhouse because especially for people that are new to the game, it’s a great place to learn a whole bunch, all in one shebang (check it out – my spell check didn’t even touch that word!). Schoolhouse starts early the day before Market with a catalog of classes we choose to plug into each 30 minute slot throughout the day. There’s 5 minutes for passing time and a couple of choices for a lunch break to slip into as well.  For those of you great gals that are participating in our Serendipity Woods Modern Heritage BOM,

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Yep. I learned about it at Market. Even met Amy Ellis who’s, YEAH, pretty darn fabulous.

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you. I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood – with you, so…

Want to know what my favorite thing about Schoolhouse was? The very last class. The Moda class.  Want to know why?  Well – have you wondered why I’ve been singing in blue throughout this post? Oh, you thought I just copied and pasted that, did you?

Let’s make the most of this beautiful day. Since we’re together, we might as well say – would you be mine, could you be mine, won’t you be, my neighbor? Won’t you please? Won’t you please? Please won’t you be – my neighbor?

Nope, I sure didn’t copy/paste it. I sang every word as I typed it, I promise.  You see, the Moda class surrounded a little something called the Be My Neighbor quilt – a sew along which kicked off this last Monday on the Moda Cutting Table blog.

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In a nutshell, several Moda designers were asked to come up with a house block to be assembled into a larger Neighborhood-Style quilt.  I fell in love with this version, made by Alison Dale using Basic Grey grunges.

The thing is, I dug up my paper from the class, which I dutifully kept so I’d have every drop of info about what I had planned as a BOM. I’ve photographed the pertinent information for your viewing pleasure…

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Guess what the new girl learned? Just because the paper says the kick off for something in the fabric world is expected to be such-and-such date, that doesn’t mean it can’t be bumped up two whole months! It’s all gooood – she learns…every day, she learns!

So, without further adieu, let me introduce the details of our Serendipity Woods version of what’s now our Be My Neighbor Sew Along (rather than BOM).  Like Alison Dale, I’ll be using basic Grey’s Grunges – the newly released ones here:

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I’m using the New Grunges and also…

 

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…adding a few other grunges which I think are necessary shades I’ll need in my neighborhood; that mustard one up there on the right especially. I’ll pop up a shop listing for a fat quarter bundle for the 8 here that are stacked above the Vanilla 30150 91 I’m using for background.  If you’re not seeing a shop link above for the 8 just yet – give me a sec or two or three (remember, the new girl is scrambling to assemble this suuuuper-important-to-her sew along project that her soul simply MUST not miss out on).
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Though I love Alison’s grunge version of this quilt, I’m challenging myself to look at the grey scale pattern as I  choose whatever colors speak to me that day. Sometimes I may just wind up with a block looking a whole lot like Alison’s. Sometimes not. I just think our Neighborhoods should resemble what we ourselves dream up, you know?

If you absolutely love my little blue house and tree just as it is, these are the Grunges I used to make it:

• 30150 97 Kelp
• 30150 343 Saxony
• 30150 340 Amazon
• 30150 339 Fern
• 30150 345 Olive Branch
• 30150 274 Vert
• 30150 350 Delft
• 30150 277 Gris Fonce
• 30150 346 Wren

Here are  the Block 1 instructions:

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Now – to wrap back around to why a) the Moda presentation at Schoolhouse was my most favorite one of the day (did I mention it gave me chills?), b) why I NEED the mustard grunge especially for MY quilt, and c) the singing of every word as I typed lyrics instead of just copy/pasting them:

Did you see the first pic at the top of this post?

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Along with my Block 1, You may have noticed some treasures that mean quite a little bit around this family of now big kids and grown ups. Not only was I a PBS kid who loved the ability to find Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood whenever we moved to a new town (which happened a lot), my kids grew up with the Neighborhood too. We know every single Neighborhood song around here and still – each is relevant, no matter how old any of us grows.
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In fact, I sometimes wonder if my own animal creations didn’t begin somewhere deep within the child in me who’s always sought out little bits of magic for the sake of a happy thought or feeling of ‘it could happen – why doubt it?’ sort of wonderment.

The mustard yellow grunge I can’t live without for this project?

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Of course my Neighborhood will have to have a golden house that looks a little like this!

Won’t you join us for our Be My Neighbor Sew Along? We’ll release a block every Monday from now through December 19th (yes, I know today is Wednesday…did we talk about the fact that the new girl is playing catch up?).  DO find us at our Instagram page and watch for the #ModaBeMyNeighbor hashtag everywhere you look.  Please share yours too and if you’re following my progress here, I hope you’ll tag me @serendipitywoods so I know who you are and that you’re singing along in our neighborhood (oh c’mon – sing too!).  Remember, there’s only one person in this whole wide world exactly like you – and people can like you exactly as you are. See you next time 🙂

(and happy sewing 🙂 )

Pam

 

 

 

 

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