I don't know about you, but I'm one of those quilters who absolutely hates to throw any scrap of fabric away unless it's less than 1/2" wide or is damaged somehow. I know that sometimes, especially when trying to tailor block construction to be charm-square friendly, scraps are inevitable ... so what to do with the leftovers? And once you've finished a quilt, do you really want to go through and sew together a million little triangles left over from those flying geese blocks to actually make something, or are you much happier just saving those bits for a rainy day that might never come?
So ... why not make two projects at once? Thus ... the "Lumber Scraps" mug rug was born out of the scraps of my Full House quilt!
When I was constructing my flying geese blocks, I drew two lines on the back of my "sky" square. The first (in blue below) was from corner to corner and was the line I sewed along per the construction instructions. The second line (in red below) was drawn 1/4" away from the blue line. I stitched a seam a 1/4" away from the far side of the line.
After sewing both seams, I cut the block along the red line ....
... and then pressed the blocks open before repeating for the second side.
That way, once I was done with all of my flying geese blocks, I had 36 - 2" half square triangles already assembled! I laid them out in a pinwheel pattern ....
... sewed the blocks into columns, and then sewed the columns together and ended up with a 9.5" mini-quilt.
After a little bit of straight-line quilting ...
... and some binding ....
... I had made myself a little mug rug! I suppose you could also hang it on your wall as a little mini-quilt, or use it as a little place mat for when you eat your lunch at your desk ... or you could even use it as a little Barbie doll quilt!
The best part was that because I had pre-assembled the little half square triangles as I was working on my Schnibbles quilt, I was able to finish this little project in one nap-time, and I;ll be able to add 1/4 yard to my list of busted fabrics for the week! It's a good thing too, since that might be my only bust of the week!
Happy Sewing. :)
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