I May Have A Scrap Problem... A New/Old Project, and Progress!

Hi, all!

I'm excited - something new is on the horizon - or actually, THREE somethings new!  The other day I was wandering around on Instagram and came across a lot of posts with the hashtag #mysmallworldsewcial.  A little checking, and I found that there is a quilt-along for Jen Kingwell's amazing pattern, My Small World, cohosted by @nicola_picola_ and @the_secret_sewer!  It just started on 9/15/19, so I looked at the schedule, and it is time-generous, with the quilt-along finally finishing nine months from now, in June 2020.  

You may remember that I started three of these quilts, one for each grandchild, on (oh the shame) January 29, 2016!  But since that time, they have been sitting in a box on the shelf, gathering dust.  Three and a half years is too long, so I decided to join in the quilt-along.  I don't know if I'll get all three quilts done, but it would be nice to finish at least one!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had already made almost all the blocks assigned for the first month (9/15-10/14/2019), so yesterday I made the last block for each one.  Here are my September blocks:

These are for Lilli's version.  I can see that I will need to add more blue and less purple in the future.

These are Nathanael's.  He will definitely need more green!!

But Emmy is my consistent grandchild - rainbow colors for her, and lots of brights!

I'm especially happy that I'm so far ahead of the game for this month - I may try to do a little sewing on this project each day so I can get ahead for next month too.  And there's one sure thing about Jen Kingwell's patterns - they are fabulous scrap-busters!!!

I also worked some more on this quilt - this is 1/3 of the pieces I will need for this king size quilt-to-be.  I've since seamed these pieces up, and started on the strip set for the next third...

These have all been sewn together into one long strip, and are ready to be pressed and then move on to the next step.  I'll save that for the next time I have an hour or so without any pressing project!

It's a busy time of year, with Christmas quilting commissions coming in right and left - but for some reason, it seems that I am able to find time for these other projects more easily when I am super-busy than when I'm not!  I think maybe I waste less time, so I can carve out a few minutes here and there, and with the projects on hand and ready to go, it's easy to make some progress.

Oh, and speaking of Christmas and projects, I have cut out two of the grandkids' annual quilts - Nathanael's penguins and Lilli's Moody Blues quilt - and I'm currently in the midst of cutting out Emmy's drama llamas.  Those llamas have 68 individual pieces in each one!  Takes forever to cut out, but at least the cutting instructions are excellent.  I have one whole llama to cut, and the body pieces for one more, and I'll be finished with the cutting.  Then I can start working on their quilts!

And here's a plug for a great product, if you (like me) have lots of projects going at once.  When I went to QuiltCon, I found these great zip project bags and bought several of them.

When I finally pulled them out to use them, I fell in love - and filled all six up in a big hurry!  Looking for more, I went to the Modern Quilt Guild website in hopes of finding a store and a way to get some more - but no luck.  My husband said, "I bet they have them on Amazon," and you know what?  He was right!

I found a bundle of ten for $13.99 - a much better deal than the ones I bought at QuiltCon, although they lack the cute sayings imprinted on those - and they come in many different sizes!  You can find these by clicking here (and no, that's not an affiliate link, just my little gift to you) and enjoy the grand feeling of being organized too!

Isn't that pretty?

Now go forth and be scrappy!!

Hugs!

Sarah