Jingle Bell Square {Blocks Are Done!}

I have finished up all of my Jingle Bell Square blocks! I needed to make 6 additional green blocks and 4 additional red blocks to bring me to the 49 total blocks that I needed for the quilt.

My next task is getting fabric to sash the blocks. I had bought some fabric on clearance online when I was ordering other fabric and unfortunately it is NOT going to work -- it is too large scale of a print and takes away from the blocks. I will definitely need something smaller in scale and with less color contrast.

So for now, this project is back on the shelf, but ready to go whenever I get sashing fabric. I have all or nearly all of the QSTs for the pieced borders made (they are the same as the QSTs in the center of each block!) so that won't be a delay in finishing the quilt top. 

I'm also thinking about replacing one of the skinny scrappy borders with a single fabric border since I have some larger pieces of Christmas fabrics left over from some quilt backs that might be big enough to use for some of the borders and binding on this quilt. 

Have you started on any holiday sewing? Or are you like me and have random Christmas projects going all the time?

Scrapping Around {Jingle Bell Square}

In the month of December, I was using my Jingle Bell Square blocks and block parts as leaders-and-enders for my Frolic unit sewing and my "I only have 15 minutes to sew" project. Now that it is the new year, I decided to pack up this project temporarily to clean up my sewing space slightly.

Since I last posted about this project in mid-November, I picked up a few Christmas-y fat quarters and fat eights at the quilt shop and made seven blocks between then and January 1st.

I made four green and three red blocks this round -- which means I have only six green and four red blocks left to go for this project. I didn't run out of background fabrics -- I have about a fat quarter and a fat eighth left currently -- but I was just ready for a break from this project. 

The goal originally was to get this entire quilt top done in time for the Christmas that just passed -- so maybe I will have a Christmas quilt for my bed next year. 

Happy Friday! 

Christmas is Coming {Jingle Blocks}

Since I have my Island Batik Ambassador project done for the month (but make sure to enter the giveaway!) I decided that I should try to make a push on some of my WIPs before the end of the year.

I also need to work on my scrap and stash organization, so I pulled out the bag of leftover fabrics from my April Showers quilt, and pulled out all of the green and red fabrics to use in some Jingle Bell Square blocks. 

This project has kind of been a boom and bust project -- I work on it until I run out of background fabric scraps and then put it away until I find or buy something else to add into the quilt for background. This time around, I was able to easily make six blocks from my April Showers scraps.

I was able to make four red blocks and two green blocks; these blocks are mostly the April Showers fabrics with a few others mixed in.

I even mixed in a few of my long-horded Amanda Murphy Christmas fabrics! I am working on a secret sewing project with these fabrics (coming soon!) so I have set aside the scraps to add into my Jingle Bell Square blocks. 

But again, I have reached the end of the line with my background scraps! I did, however, manage to sew together quite a few sets of side strip pieced units and corner QSTs for the next batch of blocks.

I now have 17 more blocks to go -- I'll need to make seven more red blocks and ten more green blocks.

Happy Wednesday -- what are you sewing this week?

Make sure to enter to win some beautiful fabrics from Island Batik in my giveaway!

Too Hot To Trot {Literally}

Depending on where in the world you live, you might have spent your weekend similar to me: being outside as little as possible and avoiding the awful, oppressive heat and counting down the hours until the cool front moved in.

Saturday I had to make a quick trip down to the quilt shop to drop off quilts for their gallery! We are just so excited that Capital Quilts is carrying some of our favorite HBD patterns and that I am teaching a class there in just two weeks! If you are semi-local, consider coming out for a class on our Ready, Set, Soar Pattern!

While I was there, I picked up a couple cuts of fabric. The top fabric, from Vintage Picnic, will be the binding for my April Showers bee quilt. The other two fabrics were picked from clearance for general stash additions.

I spent the rest of the day working on the bindings of the three quilts that my mom brought back to me from the quilter -- two went to the long armer and one quilt she quilted. One by one, I trimmed each quilt and added the bindings to my Double Delight. Good Fortune, and April Showers quilts.

This was the pile of aftermath on my kitchen table from trimming three quilts. While I bought the navy pear fabric for the April Showers quilts, I used the backing for the binding for both Double Delight (the navy fabric peaking out) and Good Fortune (the red fabric). I hand bound Good Fortune, but the other two quilts were bound completely by machine.

(A quick aside: would you find it helpful for me to write a tutorial about using the backing for binding? Talking about trimming your quilt after quilting to maximize usable fabric? Tell me in the comments!)

So spoiler alert: I have three (t-h-r-e-e!) finished quilts that I will be showing off over the next two weeks! But none today, because the heat was just too much to try to take pictures of them outside.

I had also not yet put away my Jingle Bell Square fabrics, so I decided that I would make whatever units I could make -- not necessarily worrying about making full blocks -- and set them aside for the next time I pull out this project. In sorting my scraps, I found some larger pieces that allowed me to squeeze out *five* more blocks for this project!

Now I have 14 red blocks and 12 green blocks -- a total of 26 out of the 49 that I need to make -- now I have officially crossed the 50% mark!

I have also been keeping up with making my border QSTs and did end up with a few extra block parts:

But, ideally, the rest of this week's blog posts will be dedicated to finishes! It will be so nice to have fewer WIPs on my list -- and we'll see how long I can resist starting a new project!

Sharing at What I Made Monday and Wednesday Wait Loss!

A Little Jingle-Jangling {Scrappy Sewing}

Back in April, I had gotten to a stopping point with my scrappy Jingle Bell Square blocks since I had exhausted my stash of neutral fabrics. Since then, I made and completed my Christmas Churns quilt for Moda Bake Shop using the Little Tree line -- now I have new piles of scraps to work with for this project.

I made a batch of five blocks that used the Little Tree fabrics exclusively, with the exception of the black and cream dot fabric in the bottom row of blocks.

Before I started working on these blocks again this week, I took some time to sort out some of the parts I had already prepared -- some squares and strips cut in the correct sizes as well as some sets of corner QSTs. I also pulled out some of the fabric scraps that are just too small for this project; despite my efforts, the Christmas scraps continue to languish!

The next set of blocks I worked on have a mixture of the newer Little Tree fabrics and my older Christmas scraps.

That brings me to a total of 21 blocks, and now I have just over 40% of my blocks done.

Sharing at Oh Scrap!

QST Factory {Scrappy Sewing}

Being sort-of caught up with my sewing commitments (but alas, way behind on my WIP/UFO progress), I had a little time to work on my Jingle Bell Square units and blocks. I shared about the start of this quilt a few weeks ago.

With each block requiring five QST units, I seem to have become a QST factory. I find that it's easiest to make a small batch of red blocks and then make a small batch of green blocks. One thing that I think I neglected to mention (but is easily seen in the finished quilt) is that when I am making the large QSTs, I'm saving half of them for the border.

I've been using my Accuquilt cutter to cut the parts for the center QST units, but I've been rotary cutting the rest of the block parts. It does take a while to trim down the small QSTs but I haven't had too many turn out wonky just yet.

For some reason, it makes the most sense in my mind to make sets of three blocks at a time. Three red finished blocks, three green finished blocks.

Now I have a total of 12 blocks (6 from previous, and 6 from this last week) -- this means I'm a hair under a quarter of the way done with my blocks!

In an effort to cull my thread collection slightly, I've been trying to use colored thread when I can in a lot of my projects. I have my spool of red and spool of dark green Aurifil at the ready for working on these blocks. I have been using a neutral color like cream, grey, or white in the bobbin so that I don't have to change the top thread AND the bobbin.

I'm temporarily at a stopping point with this quilt. I need to dig through some scrap piles and find a few additional "light" fabrics to mix in for my large QST units. I may have exhausted my supply of neutral Christmas and holiday fabrics already, but that's totally okay.

Sharing at Wait Loss Wednesday Let's Bee Social, and Needle and Thread Thursday! Also Oh Scrap!

Scrappy Christmas {New Project}

I resisted as long as I was able! My husband bought me Bonnie Hunter's Addicted to Scraps book for my birthday last June, had I had yet to start a project from it. In cleaning and sorting my scraps following our move, I decided that I wanted to make my own version of the Jingle Bell Square quilt from that book.

As the name suggests, the quilt is a scrappy Christmas quilt. I have a number of different Christmas quilts but I don't have one big enough for my bed.

Without going into block construction too much, the quilt requires red blocks and green blocks. I cut some of the parts using my Accuquilt Go! cutter and dies. I decided that I would make small batches of blocks.

In my first batch of blocks, I ended up with five full blocks -- three red and two green -- and some block parts sewn and set aside for future blocks.

Making these blocks is NOT fast. I am a person that prefers to make HSTs and QSTs that I can trim to the correct size so making the smaller size of QSTs for these blocks take a while to make and trim. However, unlike my Double Delight quilt that was last spring's scrap project, it makes more sense to make each block one at a time rather than to make all of the units step by step. Well, I guess it makes sense in my head, since it makes it easier to start and stop on this project.

Sharing at Oh Scrap!