Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Great Granny Along blocks


I ran across the Great Granny Along quilt along and decided I needed to take a break from working on our house and make a block even if my sewing room is still a mess.  I talked Linda of L&R Designs into sewing one with me.  Here's our untrimmed blocks-


my great granny block
Linda's great granny block


Funny how we ended up using very similar colors in the same arrangement!  It wasn't planned.  We weren't really paying much attention to what fabrics the other was using.

What I love about this block is that it fits perfectly with my nickel theme.  You need one 5" square of fabric for the first round, two 5" squares for the second round and three 5" squares for the third round!  But you can also use 2 1/2" strips or squares.  It just fits in perfectly with how I cut up my scraps already. Check out Linda's blog to read more about how we made them.  You can find the tutorial to make your own great granny blocks here (scroll down).  



Monday, July 16, 2012

Twister receiving blanket quilt

The only time I've had to sew since we moved has been at retreats.  I made this Twister quilt at a weekend quilting retreat at the end of June.  It's made from my granddaughter Lylie's receiving blankets.  I used the original Twister tool that's made for 10" squares.  Off to my long arm quilter it goes!


If you have never tried a Twister ruler, you should.  It's addicting and is a great way to use scraps. As part of our retreat activities, we all brought 5" squares to exchange and made Lil' Twister quilts.  We all used the same fabric squares but we each used a different fabric for our outer border.


my Twister quilt
retreat Twister quilts

You can see an even larger Twister quilt that I made using 12 1/2" squares here and a smaller one here using the Itty Bitty Twister tool and 2 1/2" squares.

Since starting this post, I actually made a block in my new sewing room!  The room is far from being done but it's good enough to sew in.  I'll show you what I started next time.