gifts Archives - Sarah Goer Quilts

Welcome to my stop on Bobbie's UFOvember Blog Hop. I shared an intro post with the list of everyone participating in UFOvember at the beginning of the month and a few days ago I shared a list (with photos) of all my WIPs. (I realized today I missed one, so it's been aded to the list.) I find that knowing what all the projects are helps me make decisions about prioritizing what to work on. This week folks were resuming a UFO. "Pick up a UFO right where you left off, get it done, happy ending!"

With a newly updated list "in hand" for the first time in over two years, I began working my way through the quilts that just need binding, focusing on the little ones first this month. So I'm happy to share eleven finished quilts with you for my stop on the hop. These mini quilts were all quilted and trimmed, so I spent time this week making and attaching the binding on each of them.

Typically, I bind my quilts with double fold bias binding by machine. But the bulk of double fold is a little much for a tiny little quilt, so I followed Quilting Jetgirl's lead to use single fold binding for my mini mini quilts. I used her Binding Mini Mini Quilts Tutorial as a jumping off point and adjusted as I needed. Most notably, I decided on 1 1/4" wide strips for my binding, because my batting is very low loft.

So now, a little quilt parade. Nine of them are artist trading card sized, 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".

And these two are the big ones, 5 1/4” x 2 3/4” and 4 1/2” x 4”.

These were such a fun way to play with my tiniest scraps of solids using my Scrappy Slab technique. I teach my Creating a Scrappy Slab workshop for guilds, offer it as a lecture/demo presentation on Zoom for guilds, and have an on-demand Creating a Scrappy Slab class available for individuals.

In all of my planned improv work I set parameters for myself. This series started out as monochromatic and built only from my little scraps of fabric. I'd initially been thinking to make them business card sized, but settled on the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" artist trading card size, which made them roughly playing card sized.

Here's a peak at the backs.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out the full list of UFOvember blog hop participants. So far folks have shared their UFO inventories, including tips for keeping track of yours, and their plans and finishes resuming some of those projects. In the last two weeks of the month we'll hear from people who are reworking and rehoming their UFOs. Lots of good stuff!

Have you resumed work on a UFO lately? Tell me about it in the comments!

Two years ago, my son I started making these 8 1/2" monochromatic blocks from my scraps. As with many of my projects, these were set aside in favor of other projects... to be worked on from time to time over the last couple years. I finished it up in October just in time to send to my niece for her 2nd birthday. (I also finished her "baby" quilt.)

The project consists of twelve 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" scrappy slab blocks in monochromatic primary and secondary colors. I prioritized fabrics that had animals and other items, fussy cutting when possible.

I made each page by joining a piece of 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" batting with two blocks by stitching around three sides with blocks right side together. After turning the page right side out I topstitched around those edges, leaving open the edge that would go into the spine. I opted not to quilt the pages.

Then I machine stitched pages together two at a time, then combined those. Four pages (that's four layers of batting and 8 layers of fabric!) was the thickest my machine could handle so I hand sewed the two halves together.

I was just making it up as I went from there. I chose the last of my favorite rainbow print from Timeless Treasures for the front and back covers and finishing the spine. I opted for hand stitching and a little hot glue to cover the corners of the spine, then used a hand binding to cover the spine. This spine is a little more than 1/2" thick.