Project Quilting Quarantine Challenge 2 - Floral

When I finished the final Project Quilting Challenge last month, I didn't expect that  my next post would be about Project Quilting again so soon!  I didn't expect that a month later we would be looking at another 30 days of quarantine here in Wisconsin, and I didn't expect that I wouldn't be going back to school to see and hug my kids again.  So much has changed, which is funny because we haven't gone anywhere or done anything!  This quarantine life sure is strange.

Time seems to go by slow and fast all at once.  It seems like there is endless time to get things done, and then before I know it, another day is gone.  Some days feel like nothing is different, but there is a moment in every day when I am reminded that the world is upside down and wrong right now.  This is so unbelievable.  I will do a post very soon about my quarantine sewing, particularly mask making.  We are living in a time when EVERYONE and her sister seems to be dusting off sewing machines and ordering elastic, and it kind of cracks me up!  Imagine it - quilters are saving the world!  Anyway, that's a topic for another post.  Back to Project Quilting.

I am grateful that Kim and Trish are organizing some extra challenges for this quarantine time. It seems that not many people are participating, which makes me sad, but I welcome the distraction and having something positive to look foward to.  I did not participate in the first one because that week was FILLED with trying to figure out how to teach my special ed students on line and how to hold two IEP meetings on line, not to mention writing those IEP's.  But, we were officially on Spring Break this week and I took the week COMPLETELY off from school work.  It was a much needed break, which again, seems strange because I haven't been at school in over a month!

I remembered to check for the posting of the new challenge during out Easter dinner last Sunday.  I was happy to see that the theme was "Floral" because, as luck would have it, there was a huge pile of floral scraps on my sewing table at that very moment!  I'll show the project that created the pile in my next post.  For now trust me when I say it was a very pretty pile!  But, what to make?  I really didn't want to make another mini quilt.  I'm out of room on my small sewing room wall.  I don't need a mug rug - I never remember to switch out the one I'm  using now.  I've got lots of projects going right now and knew that I wanted to bring at least one of them to completion during Break, so my PQ project needed to be small and quick.  So, during dinner, I asked my family.  "What can I make for Project Quilting that's small and that we need or could use?"  "Potholders!"   "Coasters!"  "A table runner!"  Huh.  Who knew they'd have such good ideas?

I decided we really DID need potholders.  I recently tossed a few that were nearing 24 years old.  But, I've always heard that potholders and oven mitts should be made with Insul-brite, not regular batting.  That presented a problem because I don't have any.  And I have a self imposed PQ rule that nothing can  be purchased for a PQ project.  Part of the fun is using up things I have on hand.  But, since this is not the regular season and Kim has already said that rules need not apply, I decided it was OK to let that go, just his once.  I added a small package of Insul-Brite to our Wal Mart grocery order slated to be picked up later in the week.  Its not exactly an "essential" and I wouldn't have made a trip just to get it, but since I get it along with my bread and eggs and toilet paper...why not?

So, on Friday, I pulled out some of those floral scraps, glanced at a tutorial for a pocket potholder and spent about an hour happily sewing, snipping and binding.  It's not perfect.  I need more practice binding a circular object.  But, it's functional.  And it matches my kitchen.  And, it's all kinds of floral!  But, there were still a LOT of scraps in the pile.

SO, on Saturday, I cut  four little squares of batting, dug back into the scrap pile, sewed, snipped, turned inside out and zig zagged.  And, voila!  Coasters!  Also done in about an hour.  I forget how satisfying quick finishes can be.

Somehow, even with a full week off of school and LOTS of hours spent in the sewing room, none of my "big" projects got done.  But, they all got a big closer to being done.  And, as it stands today, I"ve got another month of Sew-ical Distancing Time to finish them! 

For now, I'm happy with my pretty little additions to my kitchen!