First Week of FFOctober-- Check!

    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