Magpie Quilts

The past couple days, I've been playing with some red and aqua fabrics to make a table runner for a customer. She really admired the red and white items in my Etsy shop and so the plan was to make a table runner similar. While picking out the red and white fabrics, I remembered that this customer mentioned that her kitchen also had aqua as an accent fabric, so I picked out a few fabrics that colour as well. This is what I came home with: I cut out a few squares of each of the fabrics and then began playing with the arrangement on my design wall. If you remember back to your Sunday School or Kindergarten days, it's just like playing with the flannel graph during story time - the fabrics stick easily to the flannel background and can be rearranged any number of ways. In the end, both my customer and I liked the version with the equal number of dark red and aqua squares and the table runner was stitched together, quilted and bound.  This colour combination is so retro an

One of the swaps I'm involved in is the Scrap-busters Bee on Flickr .  I was lucky to be the first one up to chose a block for everyone to make from their scraps to send to me. The block I chose was a scrappy string block that I saw on Sew Take A Hike's blog . Here's the link to her tutorial. ( Click here ) I have one block yet to come, but a couple of my fellow swappers sent 2 blocks each, so I have a nice collection already. Here's a picture of them all laid out on my dining room table: Don't they look great? I love the white strip that ties them all together. What do you make with your scraps?

Remember this quilt block? It's now a completely finished mini-quilt! I love to put on the final binding and declare a project finished! Dresden Star Quilt - $50 What's in your sewing basket that needs to be finished?? Do you love putting on binding or do you dread the last step in completing a quilt? --Ann

Our latest grandson was born in April and I've finally finished his baby quilt! Better late than never?? I've been seeing this Dr. Seuss fabric everywhere and wanted to use it for this baby. Dr. Seuss was one of my favourite authors to read to my kids and although I complained every time they asked for "Go Dog Go", they were fun and easy to read. Have you ever started a quilt and completed well after the event is was to be made for? Tell me about it! --Ann