A Bluestocking Knits

(This Wednesday, anyway!)

I sewed up the second of the six miniature-quilt kits this morning, and being the top-only, of course, it went together so quickly that I thought, "Well, goodness, I might as well do another!"  Above is the "Sweetheart" one.

This one doesn't have a name, so it's just "February 2017" — I sewed it up yesterday afternoon.  I need to work on keeping seams parallel — I guess I have a beginner's tendency to look at the edge of the fabrics while I'm sewing quilt pieces, when I should be looking at the previous seam in relation to the new one!

I decided to place the four-patch blocks randomly instead of following the picture — the down-side of randomness is that you can end up with two matching blocks directly opposite each other.  I couldn't face picking it out, by the time I noticed — oh, well.

This one I suspected the moment I saw it that while I like the pattern itself I wasn't wild about all of that orange — my least-favorite color, I think — and so since I had a bit of a coordinating Kona blue on hand, I decided to switch out the long "cheddar" strips.  Because of that, I rather slavishly followed the placement of the 1-inch blocks according to the photo!  This one is called "Autumn 1863."

The kits, by the way — from Temecula Quilt Co. — are excellent, with brief-but-clear instructions and more than enough fabric, even if I had cut the bindings.  There will be a decent amount of scraps for a border to go around all six, I think.

I also finished up an electric-heating-pad cover for Laura, who is about to dip her toes into the world of living on her own, heading off to university next month and a student apartment to be shared with a friend she knew in high school.  The cover is to a tutorial by Julie Stocker of Pink Doxies, and went together quite easily, although because I decided to make French seams on the inside (not having a serger or an effective serger-like stitch on my machine), it is certainly snug.  I'm very pleased with the fabrics, though — I was looking for something "Japanese" but decided on this instead, a bundle of fat quarters from the "Elements" collection by Dashwood Studio.  I didn't use any batting in this, by the way, rationalizing that that is only for looks, really.

(It was good to be pleased with this, as I've just spent the last few weeks sewing up hourglass blocks and ended up deeply ambivalent about the results, which I have rolled up and shoved under the piano while I go through a sort of stages-of-grief period.  This is also quite possibly why I am now binging on the mini quilt kits!)

It was almost a shame to cut this one into pieces — it reminds me of starlings —

Now I am going to sit for a while and work on this! —