Charming Baby Quilt

Baby Quilt  before the cut up;-)

I am making a baby quilt for a coworker who has overcome a year of trying to get pregnant and is now about to have her first little one! I am so excited and happy for her and her hubby. It is nice to have seen the whole romance, marriage and subsequential baby - a very unique story. Anyway, I wanted to make something I haven't ever tried before and this little charm quilt was just the ticket.

The instructions are from "Back to Charm School" by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene - a new book from my crafter's choice book club.

The first part is just making charm squares (5"x5") from 10 different fabrics (8 blocks of each fabric). Then piecing them together in 10 rows of 8 blocks each then add the pink border. This is as far as I have gotten. Next, I get to cut wonky 3.5" squares out of this quilt and carefully keep them in order (99 blocks) and they will get sewn back together in 11 rows of 9 blocks each row. It will make a pinwheel or blocky puzzle piece looking quilt. I will (of course) be posting pictures of the process and of the final product.

Someone asked me what I will do with the rest of the 'cut-up' quilt - I was floored! I hadn't thought about that, but it does seem a waste to discard it. They suggested putting another fabric behind it to make a cathedral quilt. I may do that, or I may applique some owls or large flowers over the holes.

Homemade Trail Mix

A co-worker had a bag of white yogurt covered dried cranberries and asked me to try one.  It rocked my world! But I wanted to do my own version with supplies from my pantry. My first batch just had CRAISINS ( a half a bag that was left from when my daughter and son-in-law lived here) and a half a bag of white chocolate chips. Well, it was a success and I was totally hooked!


A side note : I never liked craisins (dried cranberries) before paring them with the white chocolate.

As you can see in the picture, I also added almonds (with sea salt) in layers in a large jar. Try it, I bet you will like it;-)