Pastime Quilter -- From the Sewing Room: Over the Rainbow

When I was growing up, the Wizard of Oz was my very favorite movie. I can remember gluing myself to the TV for the annual showing of the classic. It seemed no matter how old I was or how many times I saw that movie, that witch scared the crap out of me. I can probably recite all of Dorothy's lines. "I'm Dorothy Gale, from Kansas."

So, when a local quilt shop went out of business about four years ago, I bought up all of the Quilting Treasures line of Wizard of Oz fabric they had. They didn't have everything in the entire line, but it was quite a bit. Approximately 2 or 3 different panels and about 12 yards of other coordinating fabrics. I had hit the mother lode!!

I brought home my treasure of childhood memories and put it all together in my big bin marked "kits" to make later. Okay, it was much later. I pulled out the fabric, looked it over and decided now was the time to do something with my stash. I looked online for patterns as most collections come with patterns and found that I either didn't have one fabric or not another. I could have hit myself with a broom. So, the only thing to do was just wing it.

I gathered the panels and cut the panel into the pictures that I definitely wanted in my quilt. Then, I added some basic blocks that fit my theme, such as snails trail, nine patch walk, and Kansas trouble. The quilt grew, and grew, and grew. If I only had a brain, I would have thought it through more carefully. Suddenly I had a queen-sized quilt.

I put the large panel blocks that I had together in story order. Added some sashing strips and borders and suddenly there was my movie. I loved it. The problem was I had fabric left over that I also loved and didn't know what to do with it. It seemed silly to make a bag and not have it with the quilt. I couldn't carry that huge quilt around with the bag. Then, after that enormous project, I summoned my courage to make . . .

Pillow shams!! The shams do not match, but I felt this was part of my "wing it" theory. I love how it turned out. I so wanted to use the rest of the fabric because I didn't have the heart to part with it.

It now lays in Annie's room (homage to AnnMarie) where I am quite sure that Copper will probably lay amongst its poppies and sleep.

Now that I have quilted across her face, that witch doesn't seem quite so scary. (Actually, she stopped be scary when I found out she was Cora in the Maxwell House commercials that were on TV in the 70's.)