In Honor of National Sewing Machine Day

 As always a lot going on in the studio this week.  I was pleased to find out that today is National Sewing Machine Day.  

We quilters all appreciate how much the sewing machine contributes to our quilty crafting.  In my last post I had talked about wanting to switch over to my Juki machine but as of right now my Singer 401 is still in my sewing cabinet and the project it had been hard at work on was this one:

I had hoped to have finished these but I hit a snag.  I've put the project in time out for a while and then will try to take another stab at it.

In the meantime, a new project has been started:  

These are blocks for "Apple Crisp", a design that originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and is now available free on their website.  

When I started quilting, "background fabrics" for me were almost always light to dark tans because I worked with a lot of shaded fabrics and Civil War reproductions.  However in recent years as I've embraced more fabrics in the brighter modern palette, I have expanded my use of backgrounds to include more whites and white-based "low volume" prints.  

In the process, the darker tans had been languishing but when I saw this lovely project on the APQ website a few years back, I loved its Fall vibe and thought it a perfect way to cull some of the darker tans from my background stash.  Although I had pulled together the group of tans for it a good while ago, the big push to start it now has to do with an upcoming event. 

 Angela Walters is getting ready to do another of her "Free Motion Quilting Challenge Alongs " this time with the theme of "How Do I Quilt It?".  She will be covering stitching designs on Chevron, Log Cabin, Curved and Snowball blocks.  I have a top ready for the Log Cabin session and realized that this was the perfect time to get "Crisp" started since half of the blocks for it are Snowball blocks.

According to the Challenge schedule, Angela will start showing designs for stitching Snowball blocks on July 16th.  If I can stick to a schedule of stitching "Daily Blocks",  I could have the top ready for quilting by then.  I really look forward to seeing what ideas she has that I might be able to use to quilt this one up quick!

However, having made a schedule for daily stitching I did have one issue:  we are going on vacation next week.  In order to stick to the schedule, that means I'll need to take my stitching with me.  Fortunately that's not a problem as I've already put my trusty Featherweight with the travel stuff:

When I took my Juki on my last two travel trips,  I realized something:  the "Catch-All Cutie" I had made a few years ago and love to bring as part of my "sewing machine travel kit" was colored perfectly to go with the Tutto bag I had purchased for toting my Juki machine.  

Rather than having to move that tote between the two travel bags, I thought about making another one that I can leave in my Featherweight tote bag.  I saw some cute "old-timey" fabric on Etsy and knew I still had a little of the "Singer" fabric leftover from making the Featherweight tote bag:

All of this would be perfect for a new "Cutie"!  Recently I also saw that Gaye at Sentimental Stiches had a pair of scissors that I thought went perfectly with my Featherweight so purchased those too (in the lower left) to go in the new "Cutie" bag.  When we get back, I plan to order one of the Lori Holt Red Olfa Splash rotary cutters to add to it as well.  

So as of right now I've cut all the parts out (although still debating between the handle choices on the lower left) and hope I  can get it made up before we leave on Sunday.      

Because it's that time of the year, the Red, White and Blue quilts have gone up for the "Patriotic Season" (May to September) so I also hope to get back to work on these in the coming weeks:

Two years ago, I got as far as quilting the front and back panels for a cover for a pillow for my living room chair so hopefully this year I can assemble and finally finish it.  I also pieced a Lone Star wall hanging that year but could not decide how to quilt it.  

Looking at a picture of it recently,  I suddenly realized exactly how I want to do that.  When we get back, I'm going to try layering it using a glue basting method from You Tube that my MIL has tried and says works great.  If it works for me too, I can get that quilted and hung up --- hopefully by month's end! 

One of the things that had attracted me to quilting was finding out that all of the construction of a quilt  can be done completely by machine.  Having grown up in the days of Home Ec training in school, I was excited to find a new use for a sewing machine.  Over twenty years on, it is still a thrill to put the "pedal to the metal" and get a quilt out of it, LOL!!  I hope you are having an enjoyable time working with your machine today and if not, pull it out and take it for a celebratory spin!   

Finished Or Not Friday: Two Fall Finishes

 This week I have a pair of finishes to add to the viewing queue at Quilty Girl Alycia's for: 

First up is a wall hanging that was supposed to have been a "quick make" for decorating last year.  As always, better late than never!  

This is my interpretation of Pat Sloan's "Thankful" quilt (scroll down to #85 on her 2022 gallery section) that you can find in her book "Holiday Hoopla" which was published by the dearly departed and missed Martingale and Company.   

When Pat showed her quilt last year when her book quilts were returned to her by the publisher,  my Fall Fabrics stash had been on my mind.  I had recently gone through it looking for things for two other projects that I wanted to do at the time.  When I saw her quilt, I knew I had enough in house to make it and still not deplete that stash of fabrics so I could also do the other projects as well.  

As I said, I figured it would be quick to make so got right to it.  I did finish the center of the top in a short time but debated about adding additional borders to make it larger.  

Then I moved on to working on holiday quilts and figured with the top mostly done, this would be a quick finish this year.  After I settled the border debate (adding one inch finished borders), then I couldn't decide how to quilt it.  

Pat (or Pat's long-armer) had done straight horizontal and vertical cross hatching on hers but I had initially envisioned Feather Wreaths in the setting triangles.  I tried sketching those out but it wasn't clicking and I wasn't sure what to do for the trees along with that.  Cross hatching kept popping up as the best option and then I got a brainstorm:  I've always wanted to try free-motion curved cross hatching with a ruler.  I sketched that out and decided it was the way to go!  

I combined that with diagonal cross hatching on the trees and now this one is finally up for display! 

The second one is another top from last year that is just now getting the finishing treatment.  This was a Fall-themed "3 Yard Quilt" kit that I picked up during the "All Carolinas Shop Hop" last year.  

3 Yard Quilt kit, backing and thread.

My MIL lives in North Carolina and I learned about the Hop that premiered in 2021 while visiting her.  We usually plan at least one of my husband's vacations each year to coincide with the Hop since my MIL is also a quilter so it adds to the "mini quilt retreat" I have with her when we visit.  

This is the second of the three kits I have purchased (one each year) from the Quilt Lizzy shop in Wake Forest, NC.  They always have a great selection of beautifully coordinated kits and just like when you purchase them from Fabric Cafe, you can pick up a free pattern to go with it.  I had seen a pretty Fall-themed kit in one of the Fabric Cafe videos shortly before the Hop and was thrilled when Quilt Lizzy had just what I was looking for!  Even better, I got the backing as a freebie from my MIL who had picked the fabric up from her guild's "fabric exchange" table.  I made up the top around this same time last year.

When I returned to it this year and even though this is one of the simpler Fabric Cafe designs,  once again I was not sure how to quilt it.  Again, cross hatching was the first idea and seemed fine for the Checkerboard rows but I wondered if I should do something "a little more" for the Pumpkin fabric rows.  When deciding on the quilting, it's always a matter of trying to balance the desired design with your skills and the time you have to work on it.  I really wanted to do something that would be relatively quick.  

Eventually I realized that maybe along the lines of cross hatching, I could use the Checkerboard piecing as the "dot to dot" starting point for a very simple "Zig Zag" motif!  I loved the idea since I could just do that right across the width of the top so wouldn't have to quilt the borders separately.  

I stitched the lines on my DSM with a walking foot and did have to do some marking of the "pivot points" in the Pumpkin sections in order to keep the pattern spacing even.  All in all, it only took about four hours to stitch up the whole thing.  Perfect and now also finished!

Front

Back

With these two done, now I can start putting out the rest of the Fall quilts!  Additionally, I am also still working on a Thanksgiving-themed cross stitch piece that I want to hang on the wall next to the "Thankful" quilt.

 This has been a daily stitch for the last week.  I am not sure I'll get it finished before Thanksgiving but my goal is to continue working on it and "fully finish" it this year so it is ready to be promptly hung up next year.  So I am thankful for my fabric stash and thankful for my crafts!

Edited 11/20/23 To Add:

And thankful to now have a cozy Fall stitching spot!

Let's also be thankful for Alycia continuing to host these "Finished Or Not Fridays" so we get to see what bountiful creative pieces crafters from all over the world enjoy making!  

Summer Recap: June

 June started off well enough!  On the first day of the month, I got to see the International Quilt Study Center Textile Talk on the 25th Anniversary of its founding.  The museum was started with quilts from the Robert & Ardis James Collection.

Once the month got underway, I set out the Red, White and Blue quilts for the Summer season.  I soon realized that two spots needed some additional pieces to fill some decorating holes.  The first of those was at the top of my entry staircase

When I had some of my Civil War reproduction quilts hanging in this spot, I used to have a piece on the wall next where I now have hung my "Hometown USA "quilt.  

When the "Pioneer Sampler" and "Honoring the Journeys" hung in the same spot.

I thought it would be a simple matter to make a small RWB wall hanging to add to that open spot.  

Americana Lone Star

It can be fun to look around for inspiration for a new quilt project.  However, sometimes you find out you already have what you need!  I started my search on the All People Quilt website (for the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine) since they often post compilations of "theme quilts" that showcase designs (or color options of designs) that have appeared in their past issues.  Almost immediately in a slideshow of "Patriotic Quilt Patterns", I saw a design that I knew I had already downloaded a few years ago.

The "Americana Lone Sar" is a one block color option quilt made by Laura Boehnke.  It was inspired by Laurie Simpson's "Reach for the Stars" quilt design that appeared in the APQ October 2008 issue.  

Laura's color option is of one of the corner setting square blocks from this quilt.

The possibility of making this one excited me for two big reasons:

#1:  Making a Lone Star project is one of the last six things on my original quilting "Bucket List".  I do have two Lone Star projects already "fabric funded" that have long been waiting to be started.  However, both of those are bed-sized quilts so would take a lot more time and focus to get underway.  I figured that this project -- essentially one big block -- would be easy to make and get done quickly.  

#2:  I liked the color scheme of this one "as is" and knew I had fabrics in stash that I could use to make it up.  Needless to say that is always a "start your engines" sign if there ever was one!

When I sat down and reviewed the pattern though, I realized it made a quilt too big for the space where I wanted to hang it.  I figured out that if I made it using smaller blocks (6” corner blocks rather than 10”), it should fit my space.  However, then I wasn't sure what size strips to use to piece the center Lone Star.  I assumed that 1-1/2” finished (2" cut) strips would do it since the strip sets use four strips but I needed to run a test to be sure.  

I had a limited amount of the fabrics I wanted to use for the project so didn't want to dip into them for the test.   Fortunately, at the time I had also embarked on yet another project that I was hoping to make up to use for Angela Walters' (then) recently announced free-motion quilting challenge.  I planned to make that one up in shot cottons (more on that later).  I had a healthy enough stash of those fabrics to do both the FMQ project and the LS test.  I picked some colors of the "shots" from what I was already previewing for the other project and cut enough strips to sew up two star points to test the size.  (Darn it!  I didn't take a picture of those but you will see the finished block I made with them in the recap post for July).  

Ultimately, my assumption on the strip size proved right although I also tried a slightly smaller width strip set as well.  I pieced the corner Lemoyne Star blocks using my favorite Deb Tucker "Rapid Fire" ruler and instructions.  

I also wound up cutting a new set of the diamonds for the outer star points of the center Lone Star.  I had used a striped fabric in that position and wanted the stripe to be centered and run out out to the tip.  I thought I could do it with strip cuts but when  I pieced together the strip set that included those points, it didn't work.  I had to go back and fussy cut the points individually to make them go the way I wanted.  

The most difficult thing in sewing this up was to get the seam allowance intersections in each star point to line up!  Even after re-sewing them a few times, I still wasn't quite happy with the results.  Fortunately, I found a tutorial on making Lone Star blocks that provided the key to a better pieced block:  pressing  the seams on the strip sets open to make it easier to line up the intersections using pins.  In addition, it's better to mark the top seam allowance from the wrong side (I had been marking both on the right side).  

When I tried it that way (after going back and pressing open my “pressed to one side” seam allowances), the result was so much better!  The downside was that it made it much slower going to get the star points done. 

In the end that worked out well enough for this "quick" project.    My Lone Star is like so many I've seen described:  it's not exactly “flat” and bubbles a bit in spots.  The condition was helped a bit by a good press but I expect that I will also have to try to “quilt it out” later!  I added borders in the same way that the pattern did although I wound up having to adjust the width of the borders I originally cut when they visually seemed to overwhelm the center.  

I had decided that another way to help "quilt out" any puffiness would be to use a high loft batting.  I didn't have any on hand the size I needed and didn't want to cut into a larger batt.  However, I did have leftovers of two battings that together would give me the loft I wanted. 

 For the backing, I decided to just use a leftover piece of the background fabric used in the setting star blocks.  With everything now ready for quilting, I set it aside to work on some other things and then I would come back to quilt it.  Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet!  So despite embarking on making this to display this year, I hope I can finish it up in time to display next Summer!  

I didn't get to work on the project for the second spot to be filled until July so will talk about that in the next "Summer Recap" post. 

Inside the Box

In addition to trying to get quilting practice using the "Realigned" project, in May Angela Walters announced that another of her Free-motion quilt challenges was to begin late in June.  The theme of this challenge is "Fillers" - repeating stitch patterns that can be used to fill a background or around applique.  Multiple patterns can also be stitched together across an area creating the look of "graffiti quilting".  I loved the idea of this since her Fall challenge had been such a boon in getting two quilts done earlier this year.  I still need to get more comfortable quilting my projects on the mechanical machines I use now so I really need to do the quilting on my projects more frequently.  

At the time, I had planned to use my Gee's Bend quilt top to do the challenge because I again wanted to use a top that was divided into large open sections of various sizes.  However, that plan (like so many of mine) wound up changing completely!   I already had a plan for stitching the Gee's Bend top as well as what color threads I wanted to use on it.  I just didn't see any of that working with the "Filler" practice.  Then I remembered a pattern I had found many years ago:

This is "Inside the Box" designed by Jenny Rekeweg which appeared in the Quilters World issue from August 2013.  The patterned quilt was made up in shot cottons and at the time I originally saw this I wanted to stash those.  So I watched for sales and specials and over time built up a good stash.  Ironically, the way the finished quilt was quilted in the magazine corresponds to exactly the types of motifs Angela would be covering in her challenge.  

Quilted by Krista Withers

Additionally I love that I would now finally get to use that stash (well, I did use a bit of it to make a mug rug gift many years ago which can be seen at the bottom of this post).  Even better, this would further my efforts to improve my quilt stitching comfort.  I pulled fabric I had in that stash that corresponded to the color blocks in the pattern:

I decided I needed a few more colors to make this work so ordered them.  As a result this project then moved forward into July to be continued.  More on that in the next post!

April Recap and As Usual A Lot of Changes In Plans.....

Can you believe that April is now over?!?  This year is going by just too fast.  For a month in which I thought I had clear plans, things just tumbled and jumbled until where I came out in the end was not where I planned to be in the beginning!  

The Raffle Quilts Were A Bust

So I knew it was a long shot when the month started but I had hoped that it might still be possible to get the raffle quilts for my community garden's opening day made up.  Nope!  I continued to have an issue with the basket blocks coming up a wee bit short of the patterned size.  And of course since I was now rushing to try to get this done, I also did things like this:

So before too long, an Executive Decision was made to "Abort Mission!"  Since I had not promised the quilts, there was no loss in not having them ready.  Additionally, there is a whole garden season ahead of us and we hold at least one other big event each year.  If I can eventually get them made up, I could still offer them for raffle at a later date.  At the very least, I am now well ahead of the game for next year, Lol!

Added to that, the wide-back fabric I had pre-ordered to fill out around the panel I had purchased for the back of the light version of the quilt still has not come in!  Had I gotten to that point, that would have been yet another complication to my plans anyway.  

On a plus note, while shopping for border fabric for the leader/ender project I worked on while trying to make up the basket blocks (more on that later), I found a lovely panel depicting realistic images of butterflies to add into the back of the black version of the quilt:

The original plan was to make the black butterfly version with just a solid black backing and the light version was to have the "Be Kind" panel and the "still missing in action" wide-back print.  Now that both quilts will have pretty panels in their backs, I think I will buy more of the Kona white to complete the light backing so they are truly "fraternal twin quilts".  

Additionally, I decided to purchase two of the butterfly panels so I can use the second one to make a quilt for myself with the leftover pieces that Jenny Doan has us put aside when cutting the fabrics for the basket blocks.  Score!      

So despite the disappointment in not getting that project done, I did still get to do something special for the Opening Day ceremony.  Back in March our Garden's President had asked if I could make a sash for the Grand Marshal for this year's event.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea since I had by that time already come up with the raffle quilt plan and had never made a sash before.  However, she sent me a link to a site that sold sashes and it didn't look like all that hard a task.  I rolled around ideas in my mind for a good while and what eventually resulted was this:

Finally a chance to use some of the "food fabrics" I have been collecting for years and the little Bernina Deco embroidery machine I purchased a while back!  I used fabrics from my stash that each represented things we grow in our garden.  The letters were die cut using black Kona from my solids stash (separate from what I purchased for the raffle quilts) and the Accuquilt "Classic Alphabet" die.  

I decided to use some burlap that I had on hand as the sash base and chose a tan print from my "backgrounds" stash to use as the lining fabric.  I used pieces of the lining print "wrong side up" under the burlap and positioned where the embroidery was to be placed in order to minimize the additional stabilizer I would add showing through the burlap.  I then applied iron-on tear-away stabilizer to the back (right side) of the lining pieces to further stabilize the embroidery as it was stitched.  After the embroidery was done, I used more of the tan print (right side up this time!) to line the whole sash, attaching it using the "pillow turn" method and edge stitching around it to finish it off.  

The two ends of the sash were secured together with a safety pin to make it easy to adjust the fit.  I decorated the pin with a fabric covered button with a shank placed on it.  We don't grow blueberries but that was the only print in my stash where the images centered perfectly on the button!   Our local councilman was the Grand Marshal and the sash was gifted to him at the end of the event.  And yes, I did put a label on it too!

Details about our Opening Day event can be seen on page 3 of our community paper which can be viewed on the issuu.com website.

Leader/Ender Work

While trying to sew up the basket blocks, I decided to also begin sewing together the layout for the "String Bean" blocks I had finished up at the end of March.  So those went from this:

....to this.

The top still wasn't quite wide enough for my taste so as noted earlier, I went looking around for something to add on as borders.  I was pretty sure that with the red sashing squares I also needed something red for the borders and found it.

The center is longer than it is wide so visually I found that it worked better to do the side borders wider than the top and bottom borders.  That complicated things slightly as I had already pieced together the scrappy corner squares as a nine patch with a red center.  I had to re-do them into a 4x3 patch rectangle so moved the red squares to the outer corners so it all remained balanced.  

While debating about the borders and still in "pieced back" mode from March, I wondered if I might do something along those lines again for this project.  Then I remembered this easy quilt design by Mary Johnson (who blogs at Making Scrap Quilts From Stash) which I had picked up from her free pattern site Mary Quilts years ago:  

So I made it a point to purchase extra of the border fabric to use as the "focus" print (the wider strips) and more of the solid black from my solids stash for the accents.  Still needing something else for the "tone on tone" strips in the design, some of the prints I had purchased for my "Scrappy Figs" project came to mind.  When the border fabric came I realized that I really liked one of the "Figs & Shirting" prints in that position.  I found a shop that still had some so now that everything is in house, first thing for May is to get this backing made up!

More Harry Potter Work

The other project plan for April was to finally get to the "Realigned" quilt stitching practice.  However once I did not start on it in the first few days of April, I lost the momentum to do it and so it too now moves on to May.  I decided that what I could steal some moments to work on were the other two paper-pieced blocks needed for my son's Harry Potter quilt.

I made the dragon in March while we visited my MIL.

These three were the only blocks I had originally planned to piece into the center using blocks from Maaike Bakker's book.  Of course now, I'm thinking that maybe a few more might make it all a little more balanced (there's that word again!).  This time though, I wanted blocks a little more specific to the HP lore.  Well, where do you go when you want to find PP patterns that are story specific?  None other than Fandom In Stitches of course! 

After going through all the offers for HP lore blocks I settled on blocks for the "Sorting Hat" and "Hogwarts  Castle".  There is a castle block in the Bakker book but it is pieced in kind of a fan shape and I wanted one that was smaller and squared.  So I guess this project will also continue on into May.  

Now that the garden is open for the season, DH and I have already volunteered for shifts (we did our first on the day after the Opening Day).  Our anniversary was also in April and he was on vacation this past week so more diversions from quilting happened.  We have been doing a little "in person" RV and tow vehicle research.  I don't think it will happen this year but with any luck, I may be an "On the Road Quilter" by next year, finger crossed!  

I hope your April stayed more on track than mine did and we both have a very productive May!

FONF and the First Two Finishes for 2022!

Once again, I am joining in with everyone visiting Alycia Quilts today for Finished Or Not Friday!

Today I bring my first two finishes of the year!  The first one is now called "Serendipity Feather Sampler"........

I tried to get a picture this morning that would show the stitch patterns.

...and it was the quilting practice for the second one, "Hometown USA", a Country Threads design.

I had embarked on "Serendipity"  to help use up some of the leftover stash I had collected to make my "Modern Bohemia" project.   This very simple pattern is in Fons and Porter's Easy Quilts magazine, Fall 2009 issue and is a great showcase if you have some "I can't cut them up" fabrics.   I made the top back in December 2020 during a visit to see my MIL in North Carolina.  

I started on "Hometown" back in the summer of 2021 (it already feels like so long ago!).  I love Red, White and Blue quilts, love Country Threads designs, really want to make more Log Cabin quilts because I have the Accuquilt die that makes the block parts easy to cut (particularly if you are working scrappy) and I want to do a series of quilts with the theme of "home or houses".  As such, this was one I couldn't resist doing!  

These finishes represent my completion of Angela Walter's latest free-motion quilting challenge called "Fabulous Feathers".  

Angela did a series of weekly videos demonstrating seven different feather motifs as well as how to place feathers in various places on your quilt (within a block, as an edge-to-edge filler stitch pattern, within irregular shaped areas, around borders and border corners).  

I had always envisioned quilting feathers in the diagonal dark and light sections in "Hometown USA" but when I tried it initially, I wasn't getting the look I wanted.  Early on, I did try Angela's "Paisley Feather" from her "Flora and Foliage" challenge but it was a little too stitch intensive to do for the whole quilt (and I didn't pick it out so you can still see it in two of the smaller blue areas).  Fortunately, all of the large open rectangles of the "Serendipity" top gave me places to try out each of the feather motifs Angela demoed.  

Ultimately it was her "Wonky Feather" that was just the thing I was looking for to finish "Hometown".  While doing the challenge, I also took the opportunity to review two books on Feathers that I had in my library and also try motifs from them.  Patsy Thompson's "Feather Adventures" and Sue Nickels "Fabulous Feathers and Fillers" provided additional motifs that I used and provided more inspiration for using Feathers in future quilt stitch schemes.

I wanted to bind these quilts quick and for me that is best done by machine with a zigzag and monofilament thread.  So Nova the straight stitch mid-arm came out of the sewing table in favor of my vintage Singer 401.  

The good news there is that I plan on continuing the FMQ practice and review by doing the "28 Days to Better FMQ" class on Craftsy.  It is also hosted by Angela and features demonstrations by eleven other instructors including Patsy as well as Leah Day, Lori Kennedy, Christina Cameli, Christa Watson and others.  Now that I've gained some confidence in stitching on the mid-arm, I'm hoping to do the same on the 401 and learn how it works when doing FMQ on it.  The Craftsy class starts off with basic stitch patterns like Scribbles, Loops and Pebbles and progresses all the way up to Feathers and realistic images (like quilting a Butterfly) so it will give me a good chance to once again, try it all.

Hoping these finishes are another good omen for the start of this year and I can keep this up!

Linking up with:

Alycia at Alycia Quilts for "Finished Or Not Friday"

A to Z Quilt Challenge: O = Orphan Blocks

 For the month of April, I have taken up Frédérique's Quilting Patchwork and Applique challenge to blog daily (except Sundays) on a quilt topic related to a letter of the alphabet.  

* * * * * * * * * *

Do you keep test blocks, extra project blocks and interesting pieced cut-offs from your projects?  

Quilters call these "Orphan Blocks".   If you shop for vintage quilts, sometimes there may also be sets of blocks that were never put into quilts.  Those spare bits and bobs are not useless!  They can be put together to make new quilts, project sections or added into pieced backings.

Back in 2005, my first journal cover was made up of orphan blocks.  Those Flying Geese were my first attempt at piecing that unit after seeing Billie Lauder demonstrate some shortcut techniques when she appeared on a "Simply Quilts" episode.  The heart block was a test of the "Invisible Machine Applique" technique I learned for the second quilt I made.   The Bow Tie block was to test a "3-D center" technique I wanted to try.  The HSTs were extras from a (since abandoned) mystery quilt project.  The rest were fashioned from the scraps of projects I had made or was working on at the time.  

My absolute favorite orphan block quilt was one I got to see in person back in 2011.  Victoria Findlay Wolfe made a quilt she called the "Kitchen Sink Quilt".  

Edited to add:

From her book:  "Playing With Purpose".  See the whole quilt at the "KSQ" link above.

OMG, it is gorgeous and not what you'd think of when talking about leftover blocks!  If you Google "Kitchen Sink Quilt" you will also find any number of links to other quilter's orphan block projects.

So how do you work with orphan blocks?  Well, You Tube has your answer to that!  Once again, do a search of that platform and you will find instruction on using your spare blocks from people like Pat Sloan, Becky Jorgensen and her Patchwork Posse group or this "Learn How To Quilt Encyclopedia" video.  

Kat who organizes the Covered In Love charity quilt drives, even had one of her "Orphan Block Wranglers" make up quilts of orphan blocks for use for her hospice quilt donation mission.  So consider putting your blocks together into a quilt that will serve a good cause.  Maybe you can use your blocks to go into a pieced back like Quilting Daily editor Lori Baker talked about in this reprint of an article from a 2016 issue of Quilters Newsletter magazine (which sadly was its last year of publication😓).  

So don't throw or give away those extra blocks and pieced cuts.  Find a way to incorporate them into a new project.  One day I plan to fill my design wall with my "box of blocks" and I look forward to seeing the project that will emerge from it! 

Do you have orphan blocks?  Have you ever put them together to create a new project?