Quilt Blocks and a Little Announcement

Here are some things I've been working on the last little while:

This is almost half of my Punctuation jelly roll, all sewn up into these super easy blocks. I like making these because there isn't a lot of thinking involved, and they are very quick to make. Especially when you cut 4 blocks at a time. I will probably finish the rest of them in the next week or so and put together the quilt top. And this will be the first time I've bought a jelly roll and used the whole thing up. So far.

I have also felt the need to make some improvised scrap blocks. I have my scraps organized by color in big ziplock bags, and I had a little baggie full of those triangles that are left over when I make quilt binding. I decided to make some stars. And one shoo-fly block.

I did something different with these--I only used scissors for any cutting that was necessary while I was making them. I have noticed a few quilts or quilt blocks made this way on flickr and have wanted to try it. These blocks aren't trimmed or squared up yet, and maybe I won't square them up, really, but I think they do have a little more organic, homemade look than blocks cut with a ruler and rotary cutter. My plan for these is to make a kind of scrappy improv quilt, maybe a row quilt. It's something I plan on taking my time with; I'm only making blocks when I want to and I have no plans for when it needs to be finished.

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And now for my little announcement... in the next few days, this little blog will be having its 5th birthday! As a thank you to my readers, I will be having 5 days of giveaways, starting this Friday, April 1. I think you will like them. I hope so! See you then!