What I’m Working On…

I’ve had a pretty busy week in the sewing room.  It wasn’t as busy as I had hoped but still busy nonetheless.

It started with some dreaded work…Patching jeans.  I’ve learned over the years not to complain about patching them and to just do it.  These were Karl’s.  They didn’t get a fancy patch…just the best I could for everyday use.

You might remember that I made a napping quilt for Georgia, my granddaughter, for preschool.  You can read about it HERE.

After I learned that my son Buck and Lora were splitting up, I realized that I wanted to make quilts for his two girls, Lilly and Lucy.  These would be for their beds at Buck’s house.

I decided to make something similar for them only the quilts wouldn’t have their names on them.  That has been what I’m really pushed to do this week.

I’ve been making LOTS and LOTS of nine patches.

I’ve been trying to use up all of the odds and ends that I have.  Here I was using charm squares to make some of the blocks.  To do that I put two charm squares right sides together and sewed them on opposite sides.

Then at the cutting table make two cuts.  Both should be lined up at the 2 1/2″ line.  Make one vertical cut and one horizontal.

It will look like this…

Open them up and you have pieces ready to have a third square sewn to them.

The other method I used was stripe piecing.  I sewed three 2 1/2″ strips together and then ironed them.

I stack them like this and cut.

I have a video where I share a little more information on how I cut and piece so many squares so quickly.  You can watch it by clicking the play button below.

I am terrible at counting so I just make some, sew some into the quilt, and make some more.

I did need to cut some more panels.  You can find the unicorn fabric HERE.

This is how far I got…

I decided to add another row on the top and bottom.  I want these to be twin sized.

I got the idea for the layout from one of my afterschool childcare kiddos.  She was “bored” so I gave her the two piles of blocks and told her to lay out a quilt.  This is what she did.  I decided to try something similar.

I have the center of the other quilt done too.   I do have quite a few more blocks made.  Now I just need time to sew them all together.

I dug through my 2 1/2″ bucket and pulled more strips.

While I was there I organized the scraps.  Colors on one side, neutrals on the other.

Fingers crossed there will be two tops to show you next week.

I REALLY HAVE to get working on my deadline project.  It’s not one that is going to sew itself or be easy to make.  So…I need to get working on it…

I am working on having forward motion on several projects so I even made a tiny bit of progress on my True Blue quilt.  Remember there were two blocks that were not colored quite right?  I removed those last week.  This week I got four blocks made.  The picture below only shows two of them because…

The other two got sewn into the top.  I am putting one more row around the entire top before I’m calling it finished.  It’s getting close.  YAHOO!!

Blog reader Debbie sent me four quilt tops.  These are all going to my sewing room and I’ll be machine quilting them as time and necessity allow.  They are all great tops.  I’ll finish them up and donate them to worthy causes in my area.  You might remember that I said my stash of charity quilts has kind of withered away.  This will go great towards replenishing it.

I just has someone contact me this week.  The local community college has a benefit every year to help students in crisis so they can continue to attend college through a difficulty that might come their way.  I’ve always donated something in the past and hope to again this year.

Thanks Debbie.

One more thing to share…a blog reader sent this idea to me.  I don’t have much wall space but thought one of you might!!

That’s what is new in the sewing room this week…  What’s new in yours??