Charity Quilting: Dancing Nine-Patch

Sometimes I need a project that doesn't require too much thinking.  This one required a good amount of prep work but after that it was pretty smooth sailing.

I've been trimming some of the leftovers from other Quilts for Kids quilts into 2.5" squares.  I spent four days one week sewing them into blocks.  These are my Monday blocks, 6.5" by 6.5".  I only pieced for about an hour each day and would have a few pieces ready for the next day.

Tuesday blocks.

Wednesday blocks.

Thursday blocks.  I love having things like this sitting to the side of my sewing machine.  I can work in a nine-patch here and there as a leader-ender project.  I pieced over 60 blocks in one week.

About a week later I pulled out my stacks of finished 9-patch blocks, some yardage and my quick and dirty layout (layout done with EQ7 so I could make sure I had the right number of blocks and didn't have to calculate quilt size myself).  This pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's blog Quiltville but I've changed the size of the blocks.  I highly recommend you check out the Dancing Nine-Patch and her other free patterns.  Her tutorials are great and even if you are not new to quilting you may learn something.

I picked out the 30 blocks I wanted for this quilt, cut my block borders and got sewing.  The strips were cut at 1.5" wide.  The blocks will measure 7.5" by 7.5" and finish at 7" by 7".

Adding the strips to these is quick if you assembly line through the machine.  I had them ready for layout rather quickly.  I had a friendship star that sneaked in.  This top is made up of 30 blocks.

I added a 2.5" border to give the blocks a bit of room to float and to bring the size up to about 37" by 46".  A great size for Quilts for Kids.

I didn't do any fancy quilting on this one since the scrappy blocks give it such wonderful movement.  The backing is a fun toon print that I've had hanging around here for a while.

Do you have a fun way of working with scraps?  Do you sneak a project in on the side when chain piecing?