Sew Saturday ~ Practice Quilts.

This week I took a little break from my Star Shadow quilt to make some practice quilts.  My SS quilt needs at least a couple hundred new pieces cut, and it takes a lot of time and space.  I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time this week and it was likely that the cat or the fan would blow my pieces off the table if I just left them sitting out.

I decided to make a couple of quilts from some old fabric and blocks that were lying around.  It's really shown me the difference between high quality fabric and the bargain been at Wal-Mart.

When I took my Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) class in May the instructor advised us to make some practice quilts that we could later throw away or donate to a local animal shelter or homeless shelter, or other charity in need of quilts that do not need to be "perfect".   This takes a big load of pressure off for the beginner.

I haven't done any Free Motion Quilting since before my vertigo got really bad, so I decided to work on these practice quilts before I am ready to start quilting my star shadow quilt.  The quilt top you see above was made from some crookidy squares.  I was going to toss them, but I figure they will be good for practice, and the animals don't care if my blocks are straight, nor do they care where the fabric came from.

My next quilt top used some pre-cut squares I had cut out using my Big Shot and the scallop square die from Stampin' UP!  (now retired)  I didn't have very many squares left, so to make the quilt bigger I added in some borders.

Another thing I did with this quilts was to use the last of this spool of thread.  Somehow I managed to buy polyester thread instead of 100% cotton.  I've been told I should only use 100% cotton when quilting, but again I figure the animals won't know the difference.   :)

It's been kind-of fun playing with my scraps and coming up with some different designs.  It's been frustrating using cheap fabric with nice fabric and the stretch of some verses the stiffness of others, but I figure any time spent creating is not wasted.


Hopefully next week I can get these puppies (no pun intended) quilted and the pieces cut for my star shadow quilt.  What are your creative goals for next week?  In the meantime I am off to spend some time soaking in the sun at the beach.

Creative Blessings,
Heather North