Squares and circles blocks

Here is a photo of the first 10 blocks on my year long journey of squares and circles blocks.  On December 19, 2015 I was reading Smazoochie's blog (Quilty Folk.blogspot.com I think).  She is venturing on a year long project of making these little 4.5 inch square blocks with an appliqued circle in the block.  I thought that was a great idea, so I decided to participate. 

Well, on January 12, 2016 I remembered this decision.  So I started finding fabrics to make some square/circle units.  I have finished 10 so far.  I have 7 more to go to catch up with today's date of the 17th.

Smazoochie said to grab whatever was on your sewing table and make a unit every day.  I happen to have a stack of 4.5 inch squares and a stack of 3.5 inch squares on my sewing table next to my sewing machine.  I have pulled 17 pairs of fabrics to make my squares/circles units.  I need to make a couple or more units each day for the next few days to catch up and be current. 

Lately I have been looking for a small hand sewing project that I can have at the ready when I am sitting and watching television with DH in the evenings.  I believe this project will do the trick.  My concern is that will I be motivated enough to stick with this project for the entire year?  I also have some embroidery projects in the works so I do have more than enough hand work to keep me busy all year, and that does not include the machine sewing projects, UFOs, that are nagging at me all the time.

This is a new year and I want to be more productive in my sewing/quilting endeavors.  Actually, I want to be more productive in all areas of my life. Yesterday I attended our January LAFS gathering.  I worked on binding a quilt and finished over half of the stitching yesterday, and I finished one more square/circle block, too. 

Happy Quilting

Baby quilt from squares

The other night I was going through a basket by my sewing machine and I found a baggie with squares and rectangles in it.  I decided to sew the squares together.  Most of these blocks are brights even though they do not look so bright in the picture.  I decided to make a baby quilt.  I cannot decide what to do for a border.  Any suggestions?

Since the new year I have been going through bins and baskets trying to figure out what I have and what I want to do with the fabrics pieces.  I seem to have a lot of strips in various bins.  I think I need to get them all together and make some string blocks.  I have two UFOs with string blocks.  I can make a few more string blocks for each project and then make quilt tops. 

Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Users System is a concept I use.  I have been cutting my scraps into various sizes for years, but it seems that the bins are getting more full every year!  I use my scraps all the time, but they must be multiplying in those bins!

Today I basted another baby quilt.  I have not machine quilted in a long time so I think my skills will need a bit of a brush up before I tackle anything that I am giving away.  LOL!  This baby quilt is made up of "found" triangle blocks.  They are leftovers from a king size quilt I made a few years ago.  I found them when foraging after Christmas.  I sewed these blocks together, sewed on a border, and basted it today.  Maybe I can quilt it tonight or tomorrow.  When both quilts are finished, I will have two baby quilts to donate to my guild for the preemies.  A good way to start the new year.

Happy Sewing