A little Christmas Sewing

Quilting on the Square had a free paper pieced block of the month program on their website - I don't think the patterns are available anymore. They were all compass blocks but I thought they would look pretty with Christmas fabric. So I made this for our foster grandmother.

I pieced this one but haven't quilted it yet.

I feel like they look like stars and work for Christmas.

Aren't Partial Seams the Best?!

I learned how to partial seam somewhere in the beginning of 2012 and it's a great technique. If you haven't tried it you should give it a go. It's so simple to do and it allows you to do more with your quilt blocks. I learned how to do it from a post on About.Com! You can see it here: Bright Hopes Quilt Block.

First used partial seams on the quilt for my nephew. 

There are many tutorials and videos that you can pick up this technique from so give it a go!

I started making this HST Quilt in 2012 with left over 3.5" squares from my niece's quilt. So I started to build the quilt from the centre out. And for a long time I kept crawling on the floor, laying out the HST's and sewing them as I added more. Each time I worked on it I had to rearrange the HSTs so I could start where I left off. A couple of days ago I thought... I should just sew the rows together leaving enough room to add more HSTs to each row and sew the row together. I think this has made it easier for me to work on this quilt which means that there is actually progress on it! :)

So much easier to manage!