Scraps Pillow Form

Forgot to show you the picture of the pillow form.   Easy and affordable!

Once the form is inside your pillow, no one can see or tell it is scraps!  YEA!
 

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Wonky Pinwheel Pillow

A few months ago I saw on a blog (click here ) how to do a wonky pinwheel block by taking a 4" square of fabric and drawing lines from one corner to each side and sewing another color fabric onto those lines, like you do with paper piecing.   I grabbed 4 beige squares and some purple scraps and made a block with them.   I was impressed how cool it looked so I tried 4 more squares, this time using some orange scraps and put both blocks together.   Then realized I needed two more of each color to form a very large block, about 14x14.   Today, I made this little cutie into a pillow.  Whatcha think?

Another hint - I save all my scraps of fabric and batting, cut them into small pieces and keep them in a bag.  When the bag is full, I cut two squares (for this project 15"), sewed together three sides and stuffed it with 3 bags of my scraps.  Viola! - a pillow form.   Saw this HERE  
I hope this inspires someone else to save and recycle!
Have a wonderful weekend and be creative!


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Working on the chevron

 My youngest daughter, Lily, is pregnant and expecting a boy at the end of April.   Lily has fallen in love with the chevron patterns so popular right now.  A month ago, I found a quilt pattern on Lecien called Super Zig.   It is a chevron pattern formed by using strips.   Here is my sample

 Its really pretty and was really easy to do using strips 2 1/2" x 4 1/2".   Doing only one row made me use ALOT of setting triangles, which would not be necessary when you do more than one row.   I think this one shall become a table runner!


Then I saw a tip on an easy method of making HST.  (half square triangles).   You take two 5" charms squares and sew them together like this - 

 



 After sewing them together all the way around the square, you must press to set the seams - then take them to your cutting table.




They will be cut twice like this:

You will then get this:

Now, take them to your ironing station and press them open - viola! you have 4 HST's completed.  Do remember to carefully press as the outside edges are on the bias.

While pressing them, press half of the squares towards the light and half toward the dark.   This will help immensely when you begin to put them together.

Now you can begin to sew the squares together to form the chevron pattern and it is very easy.

When you make more than one row, you would need to sew another 2 1/2" strip of white between the two rows to create the chevrons or you could offset them for a different look.  I will have to let Lily decide which look she prefers.   Since she is going with a navy and white theme, I will keep this sample in case she likes it and incorporate it into the quilt.  When she decides, I will get busy and then share the finished quilt with you all. 
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A few things.....

International competition is over and what a competition it was.  We have new "queens of harmony" Touche quartet and North Metro Chorus from Canada are the chorus champions!  I am telling you, the precision with which they performed their package was awesome!  No pictures from there, sorry, its against the rules but you can go to the website and take a peak   www.sweetadelineintl.org  

I have been busy catching up on some swap blocks

This is the stash block pattern that is a year long swap with different partners each month.  A great, easy block to make and wonderful scrappyness (is that a word?).

I've also made a few towels to swap in red and black (did you notice the cute scissor and tweezer?)

and this one with a Christmas flavor (forgot to press before taking the picture)

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 I've also been doing a Studio redo.   Those pictures will be posted later. 
Hugs


 

A long time

Yes, it has been way too long and I have tons of things to upload. Today I am traveling to Denver to attend the Sweet Adeline's International Convention. I am so excited because my sister, Rene, and good friends, Melissa and Susan, will be competing. They are in different chorus but I can cheer for both! That is the plus side of not competing myself. I will post pics as I get them

 

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Such a Beauty

Look what my neighbor brought me.

She has the cutest chickens (they have to be cute to raise eggs for fun!) and besides brown eggs, she has green, blue and a lovely lavendar. I cannot bring myself to eat this one. I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

So where does the time go?

Time is just flying by. I did get the machine up and running and I have quilted about 10 lap quilts on it. See one of them below.

I have started a new missions group at my church and we are supplying lap quilts and lapghans to a nursing home near us. We hope to wrap them in love and spend some time getting to know them and their needs. It makes getting this lovely machine a true gift from God. I hope you are having a wonderful week. If you are looking for some really good reading material, please read the book "Same Kind of Different as Me". It will inspire you too!