More Bits and Pieces {Scrappy Sewing}

To follow up from my scrappy table runners from last week, here are the scrappy placemats that I made!

My first set of placemats is also Christmas-y, with various greens and the large scale box print in Christmas colors that I used on the back of my Fire Pit Christmas quilt.

For the backing, I had a red tonal print in my stash that I had originally planned to use but I had to stop at my LQS on Saturday anyways, so I picked up a yard of this fun holiday animal print on clearance to use for the backing of these placemats. I did a loop-and-stars filler for the quilting in red Aurifil thread. I also used the same box print to make bias binding for each mat.

The second set of placemats is made from the remainder of the layer cake that I had originally used to make a Valentine's Day themed table runner. I used my Bunny Patch placemats tutorial to cut the layer cake squares into pieces for the pieced "backing" and the 6-patch "front". I did the quilting in red Aurifil thread and did a swirl-and-hearts motif. The binding is a dark red tonal print with gold metallic accents from my stash.

I ultimately decided to skip the applique addition on these since the prints speak for themselves!

My church ladies were SO excited to get some additional items donated for the craft table. Quite a few of them are also quilters and sewists, but they were rather impressed with my FMQ skills!

I'm hoping that I can continue to make a few more items between now and mid-December to add to the table, provided these ones sell! And of course, I hope that the place mats and table runners find good homes!

Happy Monday! Voting closes tomorrow in the Tips and Tutorials festival, so vote for your favorites to win one of the sponsored prizes!

Sharing at Oh Scrap, Linky Tuesday and Brag About Your Beauties!

Bits and Pieces {Scrappy Sewing}

Today I had been planning to share a bigger finish however a deluge of snow and ice interfered with my picture taking intentions! Hopefully next week I will have *multiple* finishes to show off. Instead, I have two small project finishes!

My church's ladies group is doing a craft table to raise money for service projects and I decided that I could easily make some table runners and place mats using scraps and some long-languishing yardage in my stash. This was a quick and easy way to whittle down some scrap piles of fabric and batting before we start planning our January move in earnest.

The first table runner I made is red, white, and green fabric and I used my rail fence table runner tutorial, but I used fewer blocks for a shorter runner. The backing is a gold and white snowflake print and I quilted swirls in white thread. I had enough of the red paisley print for the binding too.

For the second table runner, I used the scraps left over from my Summer Solstice quilt and added in the mauve zig zag fabric that I also used for the backing and the binding. I quilted this one with a leafy meander. This top is just 4" squares.

I also started two sets of placemats which aren't quite finished yet -- more finishes for next week, I hope! These sorts of small projects are perfect for the novelty fabrics that have been hanging around in my stash for a while.

Have a happy Friday! Sharing at Brag about your Beauties!

Drift Away {Bordered}

At the same time that I worked on my Breezy Blooms quilt, I added the black sashing strips to the top of my Drift Away quilt. The suggestion to add a skinny black sashing before adding a print border was given by quite a few of you and you were definitely right!

And then it sat, because I just wasn't sure what to use for the final border. I finally got the border fabric at the beginning of October. (Only, like, two months later. You can tell it's been a long time since I worked on this project because I was watching baseball in the photo above!)

The blue fabric on the right is what I picked up for the border, the other fabric is for my Double Delight quilt. When I did the math originally, I thought that I could squeak by with just a yard, but when it came time to make the decision at the cutting counter, I ended up getting a yard and a quarter.

And a good thing I did! Instead of cutting width of fabric strips, I decided that it would be better to cut length of fabric strips. With 45" long strips, I only needed two strips per side -- had I cut width of fabric strips, my two final sides would have been *just* too long and would have needed an additional seam and chunk of fabric. I am ALL about eliminating unnecessary seams, ladies and gents -- this is one of those occasions where it pays to take the extra time to do the math and plan ahead of time!

Here's the finished quilt top! My schedule and the weather has been uncooperative for outdoor pictures.

I am very happy I went with a more blue fabric to highlight the darker blues mixed into the quilt, which is mainly aquas.

(I'm also sort of happy that the leftover border fabric is the exact right shade for my planned color scheme for this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Good Fortune. That's a post for another day, though!)

My parents were in town visiting this weekend, so I decided to send this quilt, along with my now-completed Border Quilt top, back with them to be long arm quilted or quilted on my mom's mid-arm, if she feels so inclined. This quilt will end up with a teal dot extra wide backing and the Border quilt top will be backed with its tan-gold counterpart.

As a reminder, the pattern for Drift Away is by Melissa Corry of Happy Quilting. I followed her directions to make the 80" quilt and then added 1.5" black strips for the inner border and 4.5" blue strips for the outer border. My finished quilt will be 90" square which is a good queen sized bed quilt.

Happy Tuesday! Sharing at Linky Tuesday and Let's Bee Social!

Yesterday was also the first day of the semi-annual Tips and Tutorials Festival! Honey, Bunny, and Doll is one of the sponsors and I have also linked up three of my own tutorials:
Chit Chat Placemats
Easy Rail Fence Tablerunner
Fancy Flying Geese Units

Cozy Cabins {Quilt Top}

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics to use and share with you!

Log cabin month rolls on for the Ambassadors! Make sure to check out the Island Batik Facebook page to see what the other Ambassadors have been making!

My quick and easy blocks were so quick and easy that I forgot to take a picture of all of them before I put them into the quilt top!

These blocks...

...(and a few more just like them) became this quilt top!

My original plan was a 5 block by 5 block quilt that would be square set but that would have only been about 45" square. I decided that putting it on point and using the checkerboard batik in teal as the setting triangles would help the quilt "grow" slightly. This fabric looks great with the other geometric-inspired prints.

I did cut my setting triangles slightly larger than necessary to make it easier to square up the quilt and now the quilt is about 52" square. While my options might be slightly more limited, I am going to try to find some 60" wide fabric to use for backing.

This weekend will likely be a non-sewing weekend with family in town but it will be a nice break from how busy we've been in the last few weeks! Have a wonderful weekend!

Cozy Cabins {Log Cabin Quilts with Island Batik}

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics to use and share with you!

Our theme for November is log cabin blocks! Log cabin blocks are a ubiquitous quilt component from antique quilts to modern quilts! I created a new Log Cabin Pinterest board while I was thinking about what to make for this challenge.

I found that I was frequently drawn to what many people call "quarter log cabin" blocks and so I decided that I would use this as my design inspiration for this challenge.

When looking through my Island Batik fabric stash, I decided to pull out my 10" stacker of Spirit Rhythm fabric for this project. For my project, I wanted something simpler and also something that would efficiently use my layer cake squares.

I did quite a bit of math (which is the fun part for me!) and found that I could easily make 25 9.5" quarter log cabin blocks from this stacker (Island Batik stackers have 42 10" squares, FYI) with a little bit of wiggle room for miscuts, just in case. When I did the math, trying to cut for 30 blocks was *very* tight and had no room for mistakes, so I figured going with a 25 block quilt was the best route.

To do the cutting, I sorted my 10" squares into three piles -- one pile for the center squares, one pile for the first round of logs, and one pile for the outer round of logs for the blocks.

One block requires:
One (1) 4.5" square for the center of the block (color A)
One (1) 3" x 4.5" rectangle for the first round (color B)
One (1) 3" x 7" rectangle for the first round (color B)
One (1) 3" x 7" rectangle for the second round (color C)
One (1) 3" x 9.5" rectangle for the second round round (color C)

I put together a quick diagram on how I cut the parts from my 10" squares while wasting as little fabric as possible.

In the color B square and the first color C square, I had a little bit of extra fabric that wasn't quite 3" wide due to trimming. From those scraps, I cut all of that extra fabric into 2.5" squares for a future project.

Here's my fabrics all cut:

Here are my first few blocks:

Now I'll be working on getting the rest of the blocks done and then putting the top together. This will tentatively be a Christmas/"thank you for being an amazing friend for over 10 years" gift!

Sharing with Main Crush Monday!