I was looking around for a quick and fun project to do in between quilt finishing, or as it is commonly known, procrastinating. I have a bag full of old table placemats and too small for current table cloths, napkins etc. It was supposed to go to good-will, but it didn’t make it in time. I have been thinking about the Kawandi quilt that Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict made a few months ago.

I happened to walk by the bag of table stuff, when I had the idea to use one of the woven placemats as a base for a Kawandi quilt-let. The two sewn edges of the mat had to be picked out, I thought they were too thick, I coaxed them down with some water and a hot iron. Then, as a challenge, I pulled a bin of scraps down from the closet. I figured there was a bunch of stuff in there that I could use. So I set up my backing, also a scrap from a quilt back, and got out my school glue stick and went to work.

As I pulled the gobs of fabric out of the bin I noticed that there were mostly strips in there. None were wider than 2 inches, most were 1 ½ or 1 1/4 inches wide. Weird because I don’t really remember saving strings specifically. Most of the fabric scraps in this bin are between ten and twenty (?!?) years old, I recognize them.

This little quilt went together quickly, I used a wave blade to cut the rectangles and squares, and put glue on the corners and placed on the mat. Like Sarah, I quilted a free form squared spiral. My machine went through the layers with no trouble, I did lengthen the stitch a bit though. The mat was a good size, easy to handle and maneuver through. There was a just long enough strip of single fold binding in the bin, which looks okay with the scraps. It was a fun quick and easy distraction, however, it also is leading me on to another tangent. I really want to make a Lego quilt. This post from 2011, Lazy Gal Quilting, shows a tutorial. There are others out there too, actually I saw one the other day on Sew Preeti Quilts blog Her scrappy quilt used lots of different shapes and fabrics. I enjoyed reading about her memories and comments about this quilt.

After the place mat was done, I started to finish the quilting on the Promenade quilt. Wouldn’t you know, the first block I quilted, I used the wrong motif? There are two blocks, I chose two motifs to alternate with the block patterns. One is a lot denser, read as “takes a long time to stitch”, than the other. Mr Murphy was helping that day, and I put the dense stitched motif on the wrong block. Oh the temptation to leave it was strong, but I couldn’t change the alternating pattern as I was on the second to last row. It just wouldn’t have looked right. In between picking that out and watching the machine sew out the others, I started ironing the strips from the bin. There are a lot.

Linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday today.

Be Kind