Crumb blocks

Yesterday, Joellen & I took a liberated piecing class at The Quilt Asylum. We learned to make crumb blocks. And I made 18! (yes, I did enjoy this method very much!) Don't worry, I don't intend to sew them all together like this! That would be a tad busy, don't you think? I haven't decided if I will sash them and put them all into one quilt (maybe something a bit modern?), or maybe break them up & make some mug rugs from them? For now they are stacked neatly in one of my recently emptied scrap drawers in my ever evolving sewing room.

You might be wondering what, exactly, a crumb block is? Well I was prepared to explain it all to you here, then I saw this awesome post on Knitty Bitties with a tutorial for crumb blocks! Timing is everything! Jodi from Pleasant Home had linked to Knitty Bitties yesterday as part of her scrappy January event. Why recreate the wheel, I say! So head on over & read their posts. Go on... I'll still be here when you get back...

Pretty cool, huh? And imagine doing this with a group of ladies! Many of us dumped all of our scraps into a big community bucket so we had more to choose from (no, I didn't take a picture of the bucket. yes, I did take my camera. Baby steps people). There was lots of laughing, lots of sewing, and yes, lots of crumb blocks made! The really cool thing is how different everyone's blocks were. You see, with liberated piecing there are NO RULES! Blocks could be any size (mine are all 6 1/2 inches), pieces could be any size... you get the picture!

Some of my blocks were mostly polka dots...
Joellen was making all of her blocks 3 1/2 inches with tiny scraps, then sewing four together to make 6 1/2 inch blocks! They were so pretty I had to try one that way...

wow! That one block took a long time to make. You know me, fast is better.... but I'm glad I tried this once.

Be watching for these crumb blocks to appear in a finished item somewhere down the road...