Weekend Update

This weekend went by way to fast! So instead of making three post to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'm just going to put everything in one post. 

Friday I didn't get much time to work on my quilting, I mainly looked up potential patterns to try to decide what I would want to do with the items that came in my Craftsy grab bag box that I purchased. 

Items In my Craftsy Grab Bag (Fabric Covered Journal, 4 2 inch by 2 inch Moda Mini Charm Packs, a May Fair charm pack, a Roll of 20 coordinating fabrics that are 6 inches wide and 44 inches long, and a Robert Kauffman Fat Quarter Bundle of 10 coordinating fabrics. 

On Friday I didn't decide on what to start next, but I did update my Craftsy account to add my latest projects, including my completed candle mats. When I did that I also pinned the info to my Pinterest. And to my surprise before bed while I was surfing pinterest I saw that Craftsy had repinned my own pin--- and from that 25 people had also pinned it! 

Of Course, I took a Photo of it to share!

As of tonight (Sunday) 42 people have repinned and 8 have liked it! Made me very proud! 

Saturday was spent mainly at work, I worked in the morning and then had my office holiday party in the evening. To ensure I got my next project going I picked a pattern to work of with my Craftsy grab box materials. I decided to use inspiration from Melissa at the Polka Dot Chair blog. She had made quick and easy quilts for her kids using blocks of 6.5 inch by 9.5 inch fabrics. I decided to use my 6 inch cuts to build this quilt so I wouldn't have to do a bunch of cutting. My blocks would be 6 inches by 8.5 I decided because this would allow me to get five blocks from each fabric and have very little waste. So between work and the holiday party I got started on ironing and cutting out my blocks, but didn't get much further than that. 

Sunday, I spent the morning baking cookies for our HOA's annual Ladies Luncheon and Cookie Exchange, but when I returned from the luncheon I set forth working off the calories by cutting fabric. I got all my blocks cut out (with only one small miss cut-- where I cut 2 blocks an inch shorter than they needed to be) and then took them to the living room to space plan. 

I liked how in Melissa's quilt she had a row that was offset, and you cut the first block in that row in half and then moved the second part of it to the end of that row. So I did my planning and decided instead of doing 7 blocks across, and 12 blocks down as I planned I would do 6 blocks by 12 and it'd be a good size for use in our living room. 

I went forth with sewing each row together, first the ones with all standard blocks, then the ones with the 1/2 block, I chain pieced each row, and ironed them all at once instead of between stitchings, this saved me a ton of time. I should have done that when I was working on the Christmas Tree Skirt (Live and Learn I guess!). 

Once I started linking the rows I realized that the rows with the 1/2 blocks were a 1/4 inch shorter than the whole block rows due to seam allowance. I also had found the blocks weren't all a perfect 6 inches tall. So when I got everything sewed together I laid it out on my living room floor and took my long ruler to one side and started trimming. I ended up getting it cut straight 66.5 Inches Long by 46.5 Inches Wide, can't say I had a good method for doing this but I got the job done and was happy with the result. 

I have to say I would have never chose the fabrics on my own, but I love them. I'm a huge fan of purple and the husbands a big fan of green so this will look really nice in our house. 

To finish the quilt I'll need to go get backing fabric, batting, and a binding fabric (which I'm thinking solid purple for both of those). I can't wait to get going on finishing the quilt so we can use it. I will probably choose to stitch in the ditch which is what Melissa of Polka Dot Chair did.