Quilt Piecing

Another striped quilt to use up those 2.5" strips. 

My favorite tools and supplies (affiliate links):

Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle Fiskars Rotary Cutter

Creative Grids 4.5" x 12.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler

Fiskars Rotary Cutter replacement blades
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Fiskars 8-inch scissors

Juki TL-2010Q

Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion

Dritz Craft Pins, 1-3/4-Inch (250-Count)

Electric Quilt

Project box: IRIS 12" x 12" Portable Plastic Storage Cases with Built-in Handle, Clear (storage)

Letter Openers

Fiskars Rotating Cutting Mat 14 inch x 14 inch

Creative Grids Stripology XL Ruler

Creative Grids Triangle ruler

Quilt Piecing

I created this block similar to a log cabin that fits into the basic layout for charity quilts and cut the units from that big stack of blue strips I shared. The blocks finish at 12" by 6" so they fit into the 30" by 36" center of a simple lap/crip quilt. Perfect for charity quilts. I added the regular 1" and 3" borders.

I cut the main blocks and outer border from the same fabric and pulled some coordinating squares from my big stack of 6" squares. Easy! 

My favorite tools and supplies (affiliate links):

Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle Fiskars Rotary Cutter

Creative Grids 4.5" x 12.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler

Fiskars Rotary Cutter replacement blades
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Fiskars 8-inch scissors

Juki TL-2010Q

Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion

Dritz Craft Pins, 1-3/4-Inch (250-Count)

Electric Quilt

Project box: IRIS 12" x 12" Portable Plastic Storage Cases with Built-in Handle, Clear (storage)

Letter Openers

Fiskars Rotating Cutting Mat 14 inch x 14 inch

Creative Grids Stripology XL Ruler

Creative Grids Triangle ruler

Sometimes I Rip

I pieced this itty-bitty quilt and found this little tear in one of the blocks after the piecing was done. When I saw the rip I marked the square so I could rip it out and replace it with another piece. 

Since this was pieced using strip sets I ripped two sides first to release the strip. Then it was a simple matter of ripping the sides of the square. (Bonnie Hunter has a great tutorial that shows how to piece strips and sew them up like this. Check out her free pattern Scrappy Trips. It is a great time savings over cutting individual squares and sewing them together.)

Once I had the offending square out I just needed to sew that replacement square back in. 

Pressed and ready for quilting. I often tell my friends I don't rip. That isn't entirely true. I'm not the kind of quilter that will sew, rip, press, sew, rip, and press again. I would rather make another block and try to get it closer than spend time ripping. That doesn't mean I don't rip. I means I am very choosy about when I rip. I will rip for a couple minutes to save hours of work. I will not spend hours ripping to get one seam correct. I want to be better at piecing, not ripping. 

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):

Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle Fiskars Rotary Cutter

Creative Grids 4.5" x 12.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler

Fiskars Rotary Cutter replacement blades
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Fiskars 8-inch scissors

Juki TL-2010Q

Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion

Dritz Craft Pins, 1-3/4-Inch (250-Count)

Dritz Deluxe Seam Ripper (2 PACK)

Scrappy Piecing

Yesterday I turned this stack of  2.5" strips into a quilt. 

It might not be fancy but it is bright and cheery. I have more strips so there are likely more of these in my future. 

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):

Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle 
Creative Grids 4.5" x 12.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler

Fiskars Rotary Cutter

Fiskars Rotary Cutter replacement blades
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors

Juki TL-2010Q

Dritz Craft Pins, 1-3/4-Inch (250-Count)

Green Hour

This quilt is on my list for the Get It Done UFO Challenge 2018. It is number 1 on my list. I'm sure I failed to finish some other project when I pulled it out to work on it, but at least it is done. 

As I've said before, I don't usually have backing fabric on-hand. I picked up the two green prints from Spring Water Designs. They were on the discount shelf and I thought they would be the perfect backing for this quilt. The cream print in the middle was a leftover from a wide backing that worked to make the two cuts of green long enough to be backing for this quilt. Making a backing like this costs more than just buying the wide backing, but the leftovers are more interesting.

I even remembered to embroider the label onto the backing before I loaded it onto the frame (this happens more than I care to admit).

Loaded and ready for quilting. I loaded it so one long edge is along the top of the frame so I could do the wood-grain quilting the length of the quilt. For more about the construction of the blocks for this quilt, check out this post.

Here is back of the quilt after quilting. I always end up with way more knots in my wood grain than others, but I really like the texture. Check out Angela's quick video on quilting the wood-grain texture.

I used scrappy binding on this one, too. Because scrappy binding makes everything better.

Green Hour

This was my mashup of Bonnie Hunter's 2017 Leaders and Enders project. I wanted to use up a bunch of my 2.5" strips but I didn't want to make a bunch of tiny hourglass blocks. I decided to use the same fabric for the center strip of my strip unit and made hourglass blocks that way.

The result is an interesting effect. I pieced until I had used up most of my green 2.5" strips (almost all of those width of fabric) and had enough for a top.

The layout is 6 blocks by 7 blocks, each block finishes at 12" by 12".

I added a 3.5" wide border. The border was cut from leftover backing fabric. I used two different fabrics. I really like how it frames the blocks. The finished size will be around 78" by 90". That isn't bad from a bunch of leftover fabrics. This one is number 1 on my Get It Done UFO Challenge 2018 list.

Cutting tools:
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler
EZ Quilting Easy Angle 6.5-inch
The Strip Tube Ruler
Tucker Trimmer III