Give a Little, Part Two

You saw some of my charity projects on Tuesday in Give a Little, Part One.  Today I'll show the rest of them.  But first - remember how I said you always learn things when quilting with a group?  My three favorite learning moments:

NUMBER ONE
Slotted rulers!!  Boy, does this make cutting strips easy.  No more moving the long ruler over after each slice.  No more squaring up the edge after several "moving over" episodes.  I confess you need to be careful when folding your fabric.  Because the rule has a 12-inch slot, you need to fold 44-inch fabric twice (first fold = 22 inches, second fold = 11 inches).  If you don't smooth it out good, you can wind up with a V-shape after you cut. 

NUMBER TWO
Use your ironing board backwards!!  First of all, pretend you're right handed.  Maybe you don't have to pretend.  Anyway, you probably iron with the wide end of the board on your right and the pointy end on your left.  Your iron sits on the wide end.  No problem when you're ironing fat quarters that are only 22 inches wide.  But if you're ironing anything much wider, it's not really efficient because there is more room for fabric on the wide end than the skinny end.  So as you move the fabric up, you can't move it the full width of the wide part of the ironing board.  I hope you're with me.

Last Saturday at our Sew Day, a right-handed quilter had the iron sitting on the skinny end, and then the fabric had a nice, big, even, wide area to lay on.  When I first saw that, it made my brain itch.  But I tried it and I love the logic of it.  Of course if one wanted to be really efficient, they would have one of those custom totally rectangular ironing surfaces.  But then you need more room.

NUMBER THREE
Thread!!  Thread is expensive!  Cheap thread is bad!  What to do???  Several of the people buy Essential Cotton Thread from Connecting Threads.  Huge spools, gorgeous colors, excellent quality, great price.  As soon as my October allowance comes in (I spent September's allowance at Quilt Expo), I'm buying some. 

OK, on to some photographs.... 
 

I didn't make these blocks, but I pulled them out of the donated block stash along with some uncut fabric and put it together.  The starting point were those four fabulous center blocks.  I made a four-patch, then bordered it with that perfectly-coordinated stripe.  There were some grey and black "Kleenex box" blocks laying around, so I grabbed them and cut squares out of the blue/white stars to make it symmetrical.  The car fabric was the cutest thing in the world, so I cut that up for the border and you see I used that stripe again for the border.

This is why the Community Sew Days are so much fun.  You go diving into the suitcases for blocks and/or fabric and put something together.  It's like shopping for free!!
 

 Just a simple pieced top in nice Spring colors.

 

 

This looks like a table runner, but it's not.  It's a shawl for residents of a memory care unit.  The fabric is from my own stash, and I did this project at home.  The center pinwheel is a four-patch.  When those four pieces are rearranged, you get the big grey/orange star of Kaffe Fassett fabric.  When you use just two of them, you get the sliced-in-half look on the ends.  I only had enough of the Kaffe for three big blocks so I had to add other fabric to get the length I needed.

This is the flip side.  Nice toasty flannel (as is the purple border on the front).  Two pockets for hands and assorted mysteries. I left this back border 1/2 inch longer than the front on all sides, then folded the edge over twice and top-stitched it to the front.

 

  

This is another shawl - similar colors to the other shawl.  I guess I like those colors!!!  The insde is mostly flannel; the outside is fleece that I bought at Joann, with no plans at the time.  The inside fabric was donated by other guild members.  I sewed the front and back together with right sides facing each other, left a slit, and turned it inside out. 

I made two other shawls and for some reason never took pictures of them.  That was dumb.