Happy Labor (of Love) Day!

Labor Day weekend has always been my favorite time to WORK!  I guess it's the mindset left over from school days, coupled with (sometimes) cooler weather and the 3-day weekend.

Yesterday I started cutting the fabric for my niece Molly's wedding quilt.  Cutting is not my favorite part of making a quilt.  Something always goes wrong.  Yesterday I was having trouble with my 6" x 24" ruler, just couldn't get it lined up right.  Then I realized that Stella was lying on the other end!  Wish I had a photo of that!  Then when I shooed her away, she started gnawing on the cut patches!  Argh!

Stella the Chipmunk Hunter

Still, I got a lot done -- more than planned, in fact!

Two, Two, Two Quilts in One!

Remember the Doublemint gum twins?  No?  Well, it was a long time ago.  Anyway, "Double your pleasure" works for quilts, too!

First I cut 200 dark blue 2-3/4" squares.  Some were scraps from other projects, some came from fat quarters that I bought.  I love dark blue, and I had lots of blue batiks, so this will be fun to sew!

Next up was the greens.  I remembered that I had never cut any of the green fabrics for the Easy Street Mystery Quilt, and the fabric colors were in the same family, kind of apple-y and lime-y. 

I challenged myself to minimize waste by combining the fabrics and figuring out the best way to get the most 5-1/2" squares and 3-1/2" squares out of each piece of fabric.  Usually this meant cutting the large squares first, then cutting the smaller ones from the remaining strips.

 

Bonus! 

I mentioned the Scrap Savers System in my past post.  After each scrap or fat quarter had been cut so that there wasn't anything at least 3-1/2" wide, I trimmed the remains into strips and squares.  Now they'll be ready to use in another scrappy quilt!

Even 1" pieces got saved -- I can feel a postage-stamp quilt coming on!