Something new...to me at least.

I belong to the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild and we have been doing a block lotto for the last few meetings. It has been so fun to try out new things that I wouldn't ordinarily have tried. This month we are each contributing a string block. I had to do a little googling to get a handle on exactly what that was. I found this great tutorial to get me started.

I dug out a bag of OLD scraps and got after it. I have never paper-pieced before, so that was an interesting process in itself.

One suggestion from the tutorial was to shorten the stitch length to make the paper more perforated in order to remove it more easily. Removing the paper was not necessarily difficult, just fussy. I tend to like my gratification to be more immediate, but the added time to remove the paper was balanced out by the preciseness and stability of my block.

The finished block...may not be perfect, but it sure was fun. Not too sure that I will be making 20 of these for a whole quilt, but I see a string block pillow or two in my future.

It's a Wonder...

Just after Quilt Market, someone mentioned this "great new product" to me. I don't go in much for the gadgets usually. I am really a fan of keeping things simple. I also LOVE hand tacking my quilt bindings. Over the years I have developed a system of hand stictching that has served me quite well. So...when I heard about Wonder Clips, it was barely a blip on my radar. When I won a pack of them in a raffle later that morning, my radar went off! I never win stuff. I really wanted to win a book, but I got Wonder Clips.

In an effort to keep an open mind and listen to what the universe is telling me, I decided to give them a try. What a surprise when I actually liked using them. They worked perfectly for holding my binding while I hand stitched. I just slid them along the binding and they kept everything tucked in nicely. The best part...No pins! I didn't get pricked once. I am excited to try them on other projects as well, but this old dog has a new trick for her bindings! Who knew?

And yes... that is a now-finished quilt from the depths of the "Basket of Doom". Yeah! It will get it's own post very soon.

Fabric Score...

I grabbed my coupon and headed to Joann's after all the Thanksgiving hub-bub was over to get myself some DS Quilts fabrics before they are all gone. I was quite smitten with the whole collection and had to limit myself. When the DS Quilts lines were first introduced, I was torn, like many others, about buying premium fabric at a discount store... Well, the prints were just too good to pass up. End of controversy for me. Not sure what the plan is for these beauties, but they will be perfect for something sometime. For now, they will live happily in my stash.

Wonky Maverick

Thanks again to my quilt guild for pushing me out of my box again. I gave the wonky star a try for our November Drawing. This was my first attempt and it was pretty easy. I didn't end up making it to the meeting for the drawing, but it was so fun to try something new. I used this easy to follow tutorial...

I'm looking forward to seeing what will come of the block drawing idea at our monthly meetings...