One Hour Friday

I had planned to make another placemat tonight for one hour Friday, but then my lovely hubby asked if I would watch a movie with him and I just couldn't resist. He goes to both school and work full time so time spent together is precious. The only problem was that my quilt room is downstairs and our bedroom is upstairs, which makes it difficult to use my sewing machine and watch a movie with him at the same time!

So handwork it had to be. But what project can anyone make by hand in one hour? I settled on another pincushion to go with this one. Why not start a collection?

I already had some half-square triangles left over from my zig zag quilt (when I say some, I really mean about 600!) so I thought making something with them would make it go faster.Then I was faced with how to sew this thing together without my machine which is downstairs. My only option was to hand piece the entire thing. Luckily I have some experience with that, having started on a lone star 4 years ago, entirely hand pieced using Jinny Beyer's method, which you can read about in this book which I highly recommend if you are interested in learning how to hand piece.

I find it very relaxing, and it's really not much slower than machine piecing once you get the hang of it. You load up your needle with running stitches and go for it! I sewed 4 half square triangles together... ...backed it with a square of Anna Maria Horner fabric, stuffed it and it was all done. Time from start to finish - 50 minutes!
Best of all, there is still plenty of room on my bookcase for more...