Quilting Frenzy

I've been in a quilting frenzy for the last 10 days, quilting for a hour and half or more most days. The relatively simple quilt tops for Project Linus make up pretty quick, so there's been a lot of output compared to my normal mode of operation.

I've decided that August will be UFO and scrap busting month, so I've been working to finish the projects I brought home from our last 3rd Sunday Project Linus meeting. But I didn't stop there.

This is and Easy X quilt top. There were 2 different colors of background squares - white and a pale yellow check. I arranged them to create a secondary pattern of 2 white pinwheels and red & white hourglass blocks in the corners. In retrospect, I could have done 4 white pinwheels instead. I made it up as I went, not uncommon for me, and what's done is done.

Most of the squares for the triangles were cut last summer for our 3rd Sunday Project Linus group. Unfortunately, most of the group wasn't enamored with the long diagonal seams and I had a bunch of squares left. The left over squares kept getting moved around my quilting area and occasionally I made a top with them. This is the last of those squares, so one less thing is cluttering my quilting area. Yesterday, I started a Yellow Brick Road quilt top using the fat quarters I bought at Margie Pearls, something else that's cluttering my quilting space.

How to Rip a Seam

The red fabric is a directional print with Christmas stockings. I managed to sew some combinations I decided should be different, so I had some ripping to do. There are many ways to rip out a seam, but I didn't want to stretch the bias edge.

I used my seam ripper to cut every 4th to 6th stitch on one side of the seam. Then I firmly, but carefully, pulled the thread on the other side and the stitches just popped out. The short bits of thread between the cuts are a little tedious to collect, but it is a reasonably quick and easy way to rip a seam without stretching it.