One hour of Quilting Time

Yesterday afternoon everything came together for me to get one hour of quilting time. The baby napped and Joseph took the other two kids to the library for a craft. I was left home alone. At first I panicked trying to decide what I should work on. I eventually decided to do some quilting.

Wednesday night I had done myself a favour by staying up late to clean off my desk. And yes, that is clean. I even set out a project with the mini-charm pack I bought at the quilt show a couple weeks ago so I had something to start with.

I started my hour with sewing the mini-charm pack together. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it. I bought it to make a gift but I don't know whether I should give it borders and make it a table runner/placemat or use insul-bright so it can be used as a hot pad.

Another evening last week, I took these 4 border strips and started taking them apart into half-square triangle blocks. The quilt they were supposed to go on didn't end up very square since I had made the blocks over several years but kept them knowing I would use them eventually. 

I decided over a year ago to use the blocks as part of a Rebel Flock quilt. I've wanted to make this quilt for several years now. I picked the green and purple to be used in the middle but that might change.

4 rows done. I have enough of the blue/yellow blocks made up from the border to finish the quilt. Just need to finalize the fabric for the middle blocks.

The rest of the hour was spent sewing squares together for a charity quilt. I started this quilt as part of the Graph Paper QAL but the host decided to stop the QAL so she could spend more time with her kids this summer since she didn't have a lot of people participating. I am continuing on as the QAL was the motivation I needed to start making some charity quilts from all my scraps.

Close up of the bin of pairs. If I was a good quilter I'd iron all of these before sewing the pairs together into 4 patches but I don't think I will. Deciding whether I want to make 8 x8 or 16 x 16 blocks. 

The family and I went to the Botanical Gardens yesterday evening and I thought other quilters might enjoy the name of this cactus as much as I did. I don't think I'd want it on my desk though.

Graph Paper QAL Update

Here's my progress report for the Graph Paper QAL hosted by Fabric Mutt.

I haven't made a lot of progress but I've done more with my scraps the past two weeks then I have in years so that's good. Above is the first of two overflowing bins of scraps I want to iron and cut into squares for some charity quilts. I took this picture at the end of last week and only have a small stack left to iron.

My growing pile of ironed scraps.

I did get some squares cut. On the left are 2 inch squares and on the right are 3 inch squares. My crazy brain is also thinking of cutting some 1.5 inch squares and 4 or 5 inch squares as well for future charity quilts. I'd hate to waste any fabric and I'm not cutting any bigger squares (such as leftover charm squares) down to size since I'd throw out what I trim off, which seems silly to me. 

Some 2 inch squares sewn together. Hope to get a lot more sewn together this week. 

Go here to see the progress of others.

Graph Paper Quilt Along

I know I haven't done much quilting lately but when I stumbled upon this QAL I knew it was just what I needed. I have a lot of scraps and I have organized them several ways over the years - by colour, by size, just thrown in a bin. Over a year ago I decided what I want to do with most of them is  to cut the scraps into squares and randomly piece them and make quilts for charity. I am hoping for two twin size quilts. I think the QAL is a great way for me to finally start these quilts as I want them completed before we move next summer.

Here are my scraps organized by size going for 1.5 inch to 3 inch strips. 

Some squares. Most are 5 inch but there are smaller ones, too.

Big bunch of scraps that haven't been organized yet.

Here they are all together. I'd love to get the scraps down to a bin or two by this time next year. It would be great to complete one quilt top during the QAL. Two would be amazing. This is the last week of school for the kids so having 3 home all day everyday might affect things. I'm hoping the older kids will play with the baby during the day so I can work on it a bit.

Go to Fabric Mutt for more information about the Quilt Along.