Olympic Sewing -- World's Fastest Rail Fence Tutorial

(6-16-2015 Update: Wow! This post is popular! Please let me know if  you have any questions! Don't forget to follow Little Bunny Quilts -- lots of options over on the sidebar! -- Alison)

World's Fastest Rail Fence:

What you need:
5 - 2.5" x WOF strips of green print (center strips)
10 - 2.5" x WOF strips of white and tan print (inner strips)
10 - 2.5" x WOF strips of brown print (outer strips)

What you do:

Sew one tan strip to each of your green strips. Press.

Sew the other tan strip to the other side of the green strip. Make sure to sew it the same way that you sewed the first one on (ie. green on top vs. tan on top -- this will help prevent you from ending up with a wonky strip set). Press.

Sew brown strips to the outside of your strip sets as above. Press.

Your strip set should end up 10.5" wide. You should make 5 strip sets.
Cross cut each of the 5 strip sets into 4 blocks each at 10.5" wide.

NOTE: cutting 4 squares out of your strip set WILL BE TIGHT -- your fabric will need to be at least 42" wide. If you can only get three 10.5" blocks per strip set, you will need seven strip sets instead of 5.

If necessary, make sure that your cuts are perpendicular to the seams of the strips by squaring up the end before you cut.

You should end up with 20 blocks that are 10.5" square. Sew together in an array of 4 blocks by 5 blocks. Layer with backing and batting and quilt as desired.

Recieved July Bee Blocks

These are the three Nubees swap blocks that I have recieved so far, as well as the one that I made.

The tutorial for the Broken Herringbone block is here (upper right hand corner). Happy Friday!

Scrap Management

I've been working on trying to reorganize some of my fabric and scraps and use them productively.

I've been cutting my small pieces into 2.5" strips and squares, 2" squares for mom's scrap quilts, 1.5" strips for mom, and 1.25" strips and squares for me.

I've been using some of my 2.5" strips and squares to make these scrappy baskets from the Scrap Basket Sensations book.

How do you organize your scraps?

Tackling paper piecing

This weekend, I started and completed a paper pieced block!

Of course, I had to pick the flying geese in a circle that everyone has been doing lately! And I did it in a rainbow as well. 

Ta da!

Although, silly me didn't think to double check the scale marker on the paper after it was printed and it ended up 11.75 (approximately) instead of 12.5 inches. Oops. I'll have to remember that next time. I think it might get made into a pillow. Or a gigantic hot pad.

I also made a block for myself in the same pattern that I used for my hive mates over at the NuBees swap. 

What are you working on today?

Have you seen this?

Paper piecing has long been on my list of things to learn. My mother is a paper piecing queen (so much that the ladies in her quilting group tease her about it all the time) and it makes such beautiful blocks!

So I googled "paper piecing tutorials" and this is what I found.

I think I finally am ready to start paper piecing. Thank you Crafty Gemini!

July Bee Blocks

Last night I was able to get two more of my NuBees blocks done.

And I finished this one up tonight, after having taken it entirely apart yesterday and having a heck of a time getting the corners on some of the seams to match up:

What kind of bees and swaps are you guys involved in? This is my first one and I definitely like it so far!

Introducing...

Introducing my newly updated blog!

I won Jennie's blog make over and we've been working to make it absolutely adorable! And of course it has a bunny.

I feel like a real blogger now.

In other news, I got back from vacation on Sunday and am still catching up from being gone. I did deliver a set of almost finished placemats (they just need the binding hand stitched to the back) to my sister before she moved to St. Louis on Sunday.

They're made from a fat quarter bundle plus some other batik scraps that I had hiding in my closet.

I started working on my NuBees blocks for this month too. I decided to do the Bachelors Puzzle block and this is the first one of the four I'll be doing:

Three more to go!

Beach Bums

There has been zero sewing done here at the beach house. But we are happy little beach bums on the lake.

We went wine tasting on Wednesday:

and went to the quilt shop on Thursday and raided the 50% off cuts section:

I tried to get some things that will be able to mix in to my NuBees blocks. I am so excited to get my blocks sew and sent out to my hivemates! That's number one on the list when I am back to PA.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Admiring the Jelly Roll

I'm not one to buy a lot of pre-cuts (or really any, for that matter), just because I'm the cheapest cheapo on the block. 

But I have been anticipating unwrapping my Blizten jelly roll.

But unrolling a jelly roll is an irreversible thing so I've kind of been putting it off. If you know how to reroll them, let me know. I am planning to use it for my Basket Case pattern and yesterday I finally opened it all up.

Such a fun array of prints. So I spent a good half hour pairing everything up into sets that will work well in the blocks. I'm going to have to buy a couple yards of one of the snowman prints for the borders because it is so cute.

Do you get a lot of pre-cuts? What is your favorite kind of pre-cut? 

Finish-A-Long Quarter Wrap Up

In case you missed it, Rhonda over at Quilter in the Gap is hosting a quarter-by-quarter Finish-Along and the second quarter just ended. This was my list for this quarter, and I updated it to show what I actually got finished.

1. X-quilt FINISHED
This one just needed binding, and I got that done lickety split once I picked it up from Michigan.

2. Mystery Quilt FINISHED
Same as above, just had to finish the binding!

3. Snowflake quilt Almost finished.
Top was done at the beginning of the quarter, it is now quilted, the binding is sewn on, and I just need to do the hand stitching.

4. Seville Quilt Nearly finished.
The top was finished at the beginning of the quarter, it is now quilted, but it needs all of its binding done.

5. Shoes Sorta Finished
I did find the border for this one and I did end up finishing the top. This one needs quilting, finishing, binding.

6. Civil war quilt
I finally found and bought the fabric that I wanted to use for borders and sashings, but nothing is sewn together yet.

7. Railroad Quilt FAILURE
I made zero progress on this one. It bums me out.

Stop by tomorrow for my third quarter Finish-A-Long goals!