Donation Quilt Wednesday--Jaye's blocks

Jaye just posted this week about her own donation quilt blocks for her guild. http://artquiltmaker.com/blog/2012/02/donation-blocks/.

I've been trying to be more methodical and regular about cutting my scraps to usable sizes. The sizes I decided to go with are 10" squares, 5" squares, 3" squares, 2 1/2" squares, 2" squares, and 2 1/2" strips. Basically, I start with the largest sizes I can get out of any given scrap and work my way down from there. The sizes I chose to focus on are those used in a lot of the books I own (layer cakes, charm packs, jelly rolls), and those used in the ScrapTherapy method, another book I own. I figured if I kept it simple and easy for me to use them without having to use a whole lot of math (!), I'd be more likely to actually use them.

As we know from recent posts, I've been able to use up some of my 2 1/2" strips in donation quilts. I'm looking forward to more possibilities in my future. Jaye, thanks for the inspiration! Great blocks!

A wonderfully quick gift--sachets

Lavender Sachet
Originally uploaded by sandyquiltz

I whipped up this sachet tonight adapting a tutorial from Quilting in the Rain blog at quiltingintherain.blogspot.com. Her tutorial has a different design which I really, really like and will do at some point--it just didn't fit the particular scraps I wanted to use tonight. These are scraps from my MIL's quilt so guess who's getting the sachet?

My LQS had bags of dried lavender there when I stopped by last week. Couldn't resist picking up a baggie. Now I want to go buy more and use up a lot more scraps. I just started growing lavender myself last summer. We'll see if I get enough expansion this summer to be able to dry some myself.

The corners aren't pointy because I decided to reinforce the corners a bit by sewing a short seam diagonally across the corner seam. I had a sachet years ago (it was either a gift or I'd picked it up at a gift shop at one point--don't recall how it came to me now) that popped a seam in a corner and I ended up with little whatever-they-weres all over my drawer. So now I'm a bit nervy about those things. I decided I'd give up a bit of corner perfection for a bit of reassurance.

Anyway, cute project. Fun project. Fast project. Check out her blog!