Last Weighted Blanket is FINISHED!!!

Here is the last weighted blanket, completely finished! Now that all the weighted blankets are done, I've looked at how many pellets I have left, and I actually have just enough to sew a young child's weighted blanket. Honestly, I'm over making these. It's a lot of stress on my arm and shoulders, and I'm just over it. 

Instead of making another weighted blanket, I found this super cute tutorial for some animal bean bags, and I am going to make these until I'm out of pellets. I bet I'll run out of pellets before I run out of grandkids to give them to. 

It's been a pretty stressful week, we had a family crisis, and then I'm still dealing with the tail end of this cold. I haven't had a lot of time in the sewing room, but I did manage some mindless sewing.

I've been sewing up all the pieces I've sub-cut over the last few weeks. I still have lots more to do, but I've been thinking of different things to do with them. It's funny, I've been sub-cutting all my cut 2" strips (1.5" finished), into appropriate sized for log cabin blocks, but so far, I've yet to make a log cabin block. I keep coming up with other ideas on how to use them.  I decided to use all the darker green and blue 5" pieces with random tan/creams and I'm going to do a rail fence quilt. I just sewed until I ran out of a color, in this case blue, and counted up how many blocks I have. 280 blocks, which I can set 14x20 blocks and end up with a quilt 63"x90". A twin sized quilt, unplanned, from scraps. I plan on setting these rail fence blocks in a staircase setting.

I took out the light greens and blues, and added the pink 5" pieces I had when I realized how many 2" strips of a certain stripe I had. 

Instead of mixing the colors, I decided I'll be using the blocks in four patches to make windmill blocks. 

I ended up having enough scraps to make 42 windmill blocks (which I haven't sewn yet, I only have the block quarters done). I'll set it 6x7, since that's works with how many blocks I can make. These blocks will finish at 9", so it would be a 54"x63" quilt, but I might decide to add sashing or a border to this one. I think I have enough of the striped fabric left to make cornerstones. I haven't looked though my stash to see if I have anything the right colors for a border. If I do, I'll probably add sashing and borders. 

Three piece rail fence blocks sew up really fast, and I don't have to think much about them. It was a good project for a stressful week. I now have piles of blocks that need to take turns being laid out on the design wall, but I don't have enough brain power for that right now. I'll just keep making blocks for now. 

If I'm making a wedding quilt, I always have a plan, and I count my pieces and all that. Sometimes though, I find it freeing to just start sewing, and not count anything, and just see what something turns out to be. It will be whatever size it ends up, based on what I had to work with. I know that would drive some people nuts, and that's OK, we are all a little different, but I find it really fun. I wouldn't want to work this way all of the time, but for a break, I find it therapeutic, kind of like cleansing your palette so you can appreciate the next complicated thing.