Hello long lost blog friends! Today’s first hack is how to sew skinny elastic together on a sewing machine. Pin it to a square of fabric, and then you can cut the fabric off when you are done. I figured this out while making baby crib sheets.

My second hack is this. Cut all of your scraps into 2.5″ or 5″ squares for scrappy quilts later. Sort them by color. I started doing this after a friend at quilt guild told us that is what she does, and now that I have a few years of scraps cut, I can throw together 9 or 16 or whatever- patches any time I feel like it.

Isn’t my sewing table cute? My mom’s husband didn’t like it, so they were going to get rid of it. Naturally I had to adopt it.

This is the back of a quilt I made with scrap 2.5″ squares.

I sorted by color, including blacks/ grays, as well as a very colorful section, and a light neutral pile. Then I made blocks that were either complementary colors or close in the color wheel to each other.

For the first time, I read up on a few design rules, and learned that borders on quilts should not be larger than your blocks. I did an inner and outer border. Of all of the quilts I have designed from scratch this might be my favorite. It pays to learn the rules and follow them occasionally, I guess.