Welcome to the first full week of FFOctober… ten finishes by the end of the month is my goal! First on my list, a brand new start… ambitious, huh! This is a junior jelly roll that came in my September Sew Sampler Box– I plan to make short work of it before the Halloween box arrives. I picked out a super simple jelly roll pattern from Material Girl Quilts– let’s do it!

    The first step is to sew sets of two strips together– there’s 24 in all. I had fun mixing and matching. There were a lot of brown strips, so I pretty much did one brown in each pair– beyond that, there wasn’t much planning. This pattern looks no fail to me.

    In no time at all, I had them sewn together– I really put the pedal to the metal! I ironed each strip to the dark side– that actually took more time than sewing. But all good.

    Next, each strip was cut into three long pieces. I had a little 2-1/2″ piece left at the end that I trimmed up, thinking I’d use it somewhere, so there is absolutely no waste in this project! Then, you sew the three like-colored strips together. The jelly roll is not my favorite pre-cut– but I trusted if I lined up all those zaggy edges the same way for each piece, it would work out. I did pin the beginning, middle, and ending of each strip together at this point, to avoid the inevitable non-matching ends that can happen on long strips– it worked.  

    The next step is to cut them in three pieces again,  vertically this time. The middle strip is then flipped upside down, and the blocks resewn together– pretty cool, huh! I’m really loving the fall feel of this piece– the fabric is Fancy That Design House’s “Dawn on the Prairie.” A lot of my projects seem to be on the prairie lately– if it’s a metaphor for something, please let me know what it is!

    Finally, you arrange your blocks and finish the quilt! I made sure I mixed them up well– especially that the reds and pinks were separated. Item #1 easily crossed off the list…

well, um, about that…

     I decided I like it SEW much, I really want to add another two rows and make a bigger quilt size! Ha, ha– will she finish anything this month? Anyway, I’m crossing it off for now and making it Item #11 to be done. The extra jelly roll is in my cart at Fat Quarter Shop but not checked out yet– I will see how the list progresses and re-visit my decision later in the month. This whole project only took about three hours and was really enjoyable to make. I might just be friends with the jelly roll at this point!

    But here IS a FINISH! I made my extra end pieces into a little placemat– so cute. Just gonna do some quick quilting on it and use it somewhere in the house this fall. What beautiful fabrics…

    

I also got another eight Summer Memories baskets completed–
only eight more to go!! 

And then a HUGE assembly job– heehee! 

   

    I have cut the pieces for this month’s Pressed Flowers block. 

     And I got the bindings started on the Corn Pop pillows. I’m going to show you how I am making these when they are done. 

So here’s where I stand for a week of work– I’m pretty satisfied with it, there were a lot of distractions last week, but the next three weeks are really free of extra-curricular activities. Most of the items on this list have very little work left in them. If I push, I think I could have ten finishes this month… eight is totally realistic.

1. September Sew Sampler Box
2. Neighbor #5
3. Resilient Quilt 
4. Corn Pop Pillows
5. Pressed Flowers Block 6
6. Oval Table Runner
7. Mod Flower Box
8. Tree Farm Table Runner. 
9. Fruit Cocktail Table Runner-
10. Spooky Box. 
11. Sew Sampler Box Redux

* * Summer Memories Eight more blocks

Hope you were able to review your yearly goals and make a little forward progress this past week– if not, there’s always next week!

xox

Carol