Making progress

About a year ago, I started cutting my small leftover pieces of fabric into 2 1/2 inch squares in anticipation of making a granny square quilt.  Every time I cut a few, I throw them into a jar on my cutting table, and it has been filling up!  Although I've used some of them for small projects, multiple granny squares have not been made!  So, this week I decided to try making my granny squares as a leaders and enders project.  And it worked out really well!

In between adding borders to my braided herringbone quilt, and working on my "String of Pearls" table runner, I stitched rows of 2 1/2 inch squares together and ended up with a couple of blocks. What a fun and easy way to get started on a quilt completely out of my scraps!  I figure I will need 20 of these to make a quilt, so I'll just keep laying out the little squares and stitching them together as I work on other projects.

I found the perfect background fabric for my String of Pearls tablerunner - Kona Tarragon.  It was even on sale at my local Hobby Lobby.   I haven't ever worked with a Kona cotton before, and it is lovely!  It has a beautiful texture and weight to it.  I am really happy I went with this color and fabric.

 

 

 



 

The only problem I ran into this week was when I was cutting the green and black pieces for the sashing on my pearl blocks - evidently I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was actually cutting into.

Oops!  Oh well, luckily I have plenty of fabric!  I'll just keep going!  Happy sewing, everyone!

More Ideas than Time!

Something I love about the new year is the feeling of starting new with projects, even if some of them have been leftover from last year!  Right now I have more ideas than time, so I keep starting new projects, as well as going back to WIPs from a few months ago.  Maybe the best things about that is being able to choose what to work on at various times, rather feeling stuck on one thing.

I have been wanting to make something about out of my stash of Kate Spain Honey Honey, and when I went back and looked at Christa's String of Pearls quilt-along, that was something that looked like it would work with what I had in my stash.  I've decided to make only a big enough quilt to be a table runner, which equals about two rows of Christa's pattern, or eight pearl blocks.  So far, I've made the eight basic blocks, with Honey Honey as the center and some black and white polka dots from Timeless treasures as the outside border.

Although I was trying to make this table runner entirely from my stash, it looks like I will have to go find some background fabric for it, because I'm not finding anything that will work that I already have.  My local Hobby Lobby has a great selection of Kona cottons, and I'm hoping to find something to match that pretty green that is in some of my Honey Honey fabric.  Can't wait to get going on this again this weekend!

Back in November I put together this Braided Herringbone quilt top from Kelly's tutorial.

Then life got busy with holiday projects, so I put it away, and now I'm ready to decide what to do with this quilt.  I'm thinking about adding a few borders to it, to make it more of a lap size quilt.  One thought is to add a border of randomish 3 inch squares around it, before continuing on with something bigger.  So, this week I've been cutting lots of squares!

 

 

Time to start sewing these up! 

 

I am also following along with the Scrap-a-Palooza at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Who knows what I will decide to work on next! 

 

 

Happy Sewing to all of you!

Diann

Sew Cute Tuesday Christmas gifts post

I enjoyed making some fast and easy Christmas gifts this year.  For my co-workers, I made simple pocket tissue holders from this tutorial by Buttons and Paint.  Who knew you could have so much fun making something so simple?  And I think they were very appreciated too!

I also made a tote bag for a friend, my first tote, from this video tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt Company.  It's called "Make Three Totes/Purses with One Charm Pack."  It was also fun and easy, and I made it in an afternoon.  I definitely plan to make another one for myself.  Now that I've made one, I know some things I'll do differently next time to make it even better.

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday today and Needle and Thread Thursday later in the week!