Mini Mania November Challenge: Churn Dash

I missed out on the Mini Mania challenge last month for a couple of semi-decent reasons, so I was really glad to be able to get back to the challenge! The challenge this month was churn dash blocks. Nine specifically, with a produced mini no larger than 20 inches. I spent a couple days thinking of some fresh modern ways I could do this great block and had settled on a multi-colored scrappy arrangement until I remembered I had some half-square-triangles already stitched together that I had cut off from a different project, and they ended up being just the right size.

As a side note, do you ever take the time to do the extra stitches when you sew corners so you end up with pre-sewn HSTs? I often forget, but I feel less wasteful when I remember. Since triangles/snowball corners are often made with squares, and then trimming the squares down to triangles after diagonal sewing lines are sewn, I like to save the scraps by sewing a second line 1/2" away from my stitched line. It takes a good bit of time, to be sure, but at least those cut offs don't end up in the trash (since I've found triangles are much harder scraps to use). And now I can say I've actually used some!

These HSTs came from a secret sewing project that I'm really excited about. It just might be appearing in a publication in coming months. *squee!* {Hopefully} more on that in a few months.

While it did take longer to use scraps for this project than to just cut from larger leftover cuts in my scrap bags (including the white!!), I am glad I could use up some smaller pieces. And once I'd found everything, the blocks and mini went together so fast.

For the quilting, I tested out a few different colors, but because there is a variety of blues, white worked the best. Even though I didn't actually do any quilting on any of the white pieces. I didn't quilt on the white pieces deliberately, anyway... :-)

I really love how it turned out with just the navy prints.