30 Minutes at a Time

I did get DD#2's quilt done before her birthday! OK, so it was the day before her birthday, but I made the deadline! This is finish #22 for the year!

She's been wanting a quilt with a minky backing. and she loved the color of the evergreen I backed a baby quilt with a while back. Minky's not my favorite to quilt, so it's a good thing I like my kid! 

I've got my version of this quilt ready for borders, but I haven't touched it in a couple weeks. Mine will be backed with flannel which is still cozy but easier on my arm.

Since I had grandkids for 10 days and little sewing time, I just wanted something easy and quick to work on while the grands were having quiet time. I started looking through my already started or cut projects to see if something fit the bill. 

I've had the small blocks for this done for quite a while. I decided to sew the small blocks into four patches, so I'd have bigger blocks and the quilt would be easier to assemble. Anytime I'm making a quilt without sashing that has even numbered rows and columns, I find this makes the final assembly quicker. Now I've got a pile of these bigger blocks ready to have their turn on the design wall.

These blocks I cut out last year. It's Bonnie Hunter's Triple Treat leader/ender challenge. I didn't end up making them as leaders/enders, but they were a good easy project to sew during quiet time when I could be interrupted at any moment. Now I've got all these big blocks ready for the design wall as well. 

I decided I could get a little bit of cutting done while the kids were awake, so I processed some scraps that had been languishing, and I decided to cut up the leftover pieces of wideback fabric I had from the latest quilts I basted. 

Wideback scraps I treat differently than other scraps. Even if it's just 6" wide, if it's 108" long, that's quite a bit of fabric. If I have a 6" strip left on all four sides after basting, it really starts adding up. When I have those big long scraps, I look through my UFO's and scrap projects to see if there is a way I can use the leftover wideback to finish up a UFO. For example, my projects often stall when I get the blocks done if I want to sash them and I didn't cut the sashing. So, for me, a good question is would this match a quilt that needs sashing. 

I also make a lot of four patches with 2" cut squares. If I want to use a solid alternating block with those, I can get 30 3.5" squares from just a 3.5" strip of 108" fabric. If I have more than one strip that length, I can get a kids quilt out of that pretty quickly when alternating with scrappy four patches. 

I had been using 16 patches as my leader/enders for about 6 months, and I had yet to do anything with them. I don't think I found them all, but I did find 240 of them. I didn't want to make huge quilts, so I decided to break those 240 into 3 groups of 80. One set is very girly, one set is boyish, and the last set is a mixture. I looked at my wideback scraps, and decided I had enough to make three quilts in an offset layout. 

I only had to cut the widebacks into two sizes so I could sash two sides of each 16 patch. This turquoise will be the sashing for one quilt. I've got all the turquoise blocks to this point. I'll be sewing them into four patches before final assembly.

The light teal wideback scraps I had became the sashing for another quilt. I've got all the bigger blocks of these done, so it's ready for the design wall as well.

I'm just starting on the last quilt, and it will have gray sashing, again from leftover wideback. Since the 16 patches are scrappy, and I'm planning to donate the final quilts anyway, it's not an issue that I'm making them them same way. 

I'm really in the mood to tackle some UFO's, but I still have deadline projects to get done as well. I knew I'd need a couple days to decompress after so long with young ones in the house, and I thought we'd be child free between now and the scooter rally. Turns out I was wrong, and we'll actually have two other grandkids for a couple nights next week. These are some of the older ones and they are much less work! Family always comes first, but I'll likely be able to do a bit while we have them anyway. 

Next deadlines are table runners for the rally and a quilt due in November. DH decided to go with fewer tables so now I only need to make 7 table runners, and the blocks are done. I need to cut the setting triangles, assemble and quilt them. The quilt I haven't started, nor even designed yet! It's starting with a panel though, and I've got novelty fabrics for it, so likely I'll opt for large pieces and not a bunch of little bits. 

I think I'll start working on assembling the table runners this weekend. I'll move the other projects along as I can. I also would like to get the borders on my Christmas quilt. Once the top is done I can baste it when either I have another deadline quilt to baste or if I finish quilting the ones I basted a couple weeks ago. It's not a big deal if my quilt gets finished soon or not, but if I can fit it in, I'd like to. 

It's nice to know that even small chunks of time add up, and even though I haven't finished a quilt top. I've moved several UFO's along a step.