Project Quilting 16.6 - Button It Up

The last challenge of this year!  I always look forward to PQ season, and have mixed feelings about it being over.  On one hand, I'm sad that it's over.  On the other, it always ends when spring is beginning! 

I'm definitely not a winter gal, so my spirits always rise when I see signs of spring.  I noticed the snow crocuses blooming on the front bank of my yard a couple weeks ago, and the forsythia is in full bloom outside my sewing room window today.  Yay, spring! 

My snow crocuses

I didn't have a lot of time to devote to my project this week because of other obligations, and I am going on a quilt retreat with my guild starting in a few hours, so I needed something quick and simple.

Quick and simple usually means a potholder, but you know what?  I'm TIRED of making potholders!  And the drawer where I store small items for last minute gifts is full of potholders.  Time for something else.

A few years ago, I made a cute pincushion from instructions I found on Joan Ford's blog on her Hummingbird Highway site.  I spotted it sitting beside my machine and realized that it fit this challenge!  Pincushions always come in handy, so I decided to make another one for this challenge.  I had to scroll all the way back to March 2020 to find the instructions.  Her pincushion resembles a chair cushion with boxed corners.  The reason that this pincushion meets the challenge is that it uses 2 buttons through the middle! 

Having decided what project to make, I went digging in my bins to find the fabric.  Lo and behold, I found an 1/8 yard piece of a sewing themed fabric with flower pins all over, and a coordinating one with buttons all over it! Win, win!  

Project 16.5 - Follow Your Arrow

I wasn't too sure about this week's Project Quilting challenge.  'Arrows' didn't seem like something that I would want to put on a quilt. But then I read further, and thought, OK, I can do this!  Especially when I saw that flying geese and chevrons were shown as examples. So I didn't have to put an actual arrow on my project; I could use an arrow-like shape.  

Last weekend I participated in a guild-sponsored  workshop on Seminole Patchwork. A couple of the motifs are basically zig-zags, or chevrons, so I considered doing something with that technique.  But Seminole Patchwork is done in strips, and the patterns that were provided make rather long strips.  This is shaping up to be a crazy busy week, so unless my project is super simple, it's not going to get done. So long strips of Seminole Patchwork would be too big and complicated for me to do for this challenge. While I plan to use my new skills in Seminole Piecing to make a quilt someday, this is not the day!  

But something about 'arrows' rang a bell way in the back of my memory, so I went digging in my UFOs.  Sure enough, I found a bin that contained a copy of the November/December 2010 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.  I save magazines which have patterns that I like so that I can make them at some point.  This particular issue contains the pattern for a quilt made from a block called Anita’s Arrowhead! 

This is a striking pattern that looks way more complicated than it is.  I had a dozen blocks done, and I even put some fat quarters that I planned to use into the bin.  I have no idea what caused me to put it away, but now that I found it, it’s going to move to the top of my ‘to-do’ list. 

Anita's Arrowhead ~9.5" square

But I digress…. back to PQ 16.5!  I grabbed a couple of 10-inch squares left over from a layer cake and made an Anita’s Arrowhead potholder. I feel like I make potholders way too often for Project Quilting, but they are useful and it's good to have a stash of them for last minute gifts.