Orphan Blocks and Quilters' Generosity

Some of my readers may know that one of my goals this year is to use up orphan blocks that have been sitting around for way too long. Some orphan blocks have already made it into quilts, and alas, a few (only a few) had to go in the trash.

A fellow quilting blogger, Nancy of Quilting Potpourri, belongs to a guild that has a great idea for orphan blocks. Check out Nancy's blog post about it here.

I also have to mention some of Nancy's community work -- she volunteers helping with a woman's prison crafting program. Here's one of her blog posts about one of the projects that the women worked on.

Quilters are a very giving bunch, aren't they?

Sometimes It's Just Not Worth It

I bought these birdhouse blocks at my guild's last yard sale, about six months ago...

Since my new year's resolution is to use what I have, I got these out a couple of weeks ago and started to play around with what to do with them. I didn't really care for how they looked in a traditional straight setting, so I decided to change them up a bit...

...so I got out my ruler and rotary cutter...

...and arranged them like this...

...but I didn't really like that either. It bothered me that the black circles were all placed a little bit differently on each birdhouse, so when they were cut in half and rearranged, the black half-circles ended up looking funny. I wish that they all had more of an "S" shape to them, but that wasn't going to happen.

So this is where they ended up....

Trash day was yesterday...

Another Finish for January

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about these ten-year-old double-pinwheel orphan blocks (read the story here). The quilt is now finished and ready for a new home, probably a charity.

The scrappy back...

...and a closeup shot of the free-motion quilting...

With the completion of this quilt, I have now used up at least 15 (!) yards-worth of fabric out of my stash/scraps/orphans in the month of January. And a bunch of leftover batting, too. And I have so much thread that I won't be needing to buy any of that for years. Not a penny spent on anything except for the electricity for the iron and sewing/quilting machines.

It feels very freeing to use this stuff up, but I shake my head at how much fabric I still have.

Orphans Find A Home

As I mentioned earlier this month, I plan to make quilts this year using orphan blocks and fabric from my stash/scraps. I made the double pinwheel blocks that you see in the above photo about ten (!) years ago, shortly after I bought the fabrics for a couple of dollars at one of my guild's yard sales. I found the blocks recently and decided to finally make them into a quilt, so I added the black solid from my stash and I have to say that I like the way it looks (and it looks much better in person).

I used three leftover blocks for the back, along with other fabric pieces from my stash....

Then I pieced some leftover batting scraps...with black thread because that's what I had in my machine and I was too lazy to change it....(eight pieces of batting scraps)...

Now it goes in the queue for quilting and binding...

OK, Here Goes

My first project for the new year involves both orphan blocks and the use of my 4S (see the last two blog posts)...

I made the blocks from Tuesday's post into a small quilt top adding fabric from my stash and then found some pieces that could be sewn together for a backing. The only pieces that I did not use for the backing are those two small scraps on the left side of the photo...they'll go back into my scrap collection for future use.

In the photo below, you can see that I had just enough fabric for the backing...

Then I went into my supply of batting scraps and found these....

...which I sewed together (using the flat joining seam on my Bernina) to make this....again, just enough to fit...

...and last, but not least, I found four strips that will be sewn into a scrappy binding...

(sorry for the awful photos taken in my basement)

The seventh block of this orphan bunch will be used for something else someday...