Pinwheels!!

I adore pinwheel quilts! You can do so much with that type of pattern. Here are a couple of quilts that I recently finished using the pinwheel pattern as my base.

The first picture is of a baby quilt that I made for the shop where I occasionally work. Sharyn Craig designed this quilt and asked if I would test it out using her new Cutting Corners Ruler. Fabulous!! If you're a quilter, then you're more than likely very familiar with Sharyn. She is a joy to work with and not only full of creativity, but full of life as well. When she's around, the whole place simply lights up! I felt it an honor to work on one of her new patterns and try out her latest ruler. Fun!!

Here is the quilt:



Here's the ruler:



When I was president of a local quilt guild several years ago, one of the many ways in which we raised money was to sell 'stitch and wins' to our many members for $1.00. The gals loved buying these 'stitch and wins' and would willingly buy as many as they could in hopes of winning all of the completed blocks. In case you're not familiar with 'stitch and wins' let me explain. Each of us, as members of the guild, took turns every other month coming up with an easy quilt block pattern that we felt everyone would enjoy making. The one in charge of the 'stitch and win' for the month would also purchase a challenge fabric that she felt would go nicely with the pattern that she had chosen. She would then place a copy of the pattern, as well as a piece of the challenge fabric, in a small sandwich baggie and sell them to the members who were eagerly waiting to buy them. Once a member got home with her little baggie, she was to read over the pattern, find any fabric that she had in own stash and sew the block together. (Because each of us used our own fabric and then added it to the challenge fabric it guaranteed a block that was unique and one of a kind.) Once your block was completed, you simply brought it with you to the following meeting and you were given a ticket for each block turned in. I normally purchased at least two baggies of 'stitch and wins'. And, like everyone else, always hoped that I would somehow win all of the completed blocks that these wonderful quilters had made.

The following picture is of one of my 'stitch and win' quilts. I was blessed to win a group of 'stitch and win' blocks twice!! As you may suspect, some blocks that would be turned in would be quite pretty and some would be....... Anyway.. with this quilt I used all of the blocks... well... except for one. The gal who had come up with this 'stitch and win' drawing gave me all of her left over challenge fabric... (yippee!) which I used on the outer border. I purchased the darker fabric for the inner border and binding. I decided to give the quilt a scalloped finish due to my love of scallops!



If you have some blocks that you don't know what to do with, lay them out on the floor and put your creative mind to work and have fun!!