Milk Money Quilt Block Tutorial

The project I'm sharing with you today is the most fun I've had in ages. I could not stop making these cute little blocks. If you like fussy cutting, you're in for a treat today.

Do you remember bringing a quarter to the cafeteria every day to buy your pint of milk at lunchtime? I do. This quilt block brings together my love of retro packaging, fussy cutting, and downright nostalgia. It's also a great way to use up tiny scraps of special prints that I keep stashed in a drawer because I just can't bear to throw away even the littlest bits. 

I had so much fun working thematically on each block, picking a main color and theme for each pint of milk or fruit juice. I joined my six blocks together with pale pink sashing and strawberry squares, adding a thin border of red and white polka-dot print to give the illusion of piping around the edge. 

The backing is a pink retro floral dot. The finished cover is a little smaller than the 12 x 16" form that I was just barely able to cram inside, but it gives me a beautiful overstuffed pillow for my breakfast nook. I'm absolutely crazy about it, and I wanted to share the pattern with you so that you can make something fun for yourself. These little blocks would be adorable on a lunch bag, water bottle carrier, table runner, coaster, or even a baby quilt. Here's the tutorial!

Milk Money Quilt Block
Finished Block Size: 3.5 x 3.75”

Materials

From white solid cut:

• (2) 1 x 1” squares (A)

• (1) 1 x 1.5” rectangle (B)

• (2) 1 x 3.25” strips (C)

• (2) 4 x 1” strips (D)

From navy hexagon print cut:

• (2) 1 x 1” squares (E)

From navy stripe print cut:

• (1) 2 x 1” strip (F)

From navy gingham print cut:

• (1) 2.5 x 1” rectangle (G)

From floral print cut:

• (1) 1.5 x 2.25” rectangle (H)

From feature print cut:

• (1) 2 x 2.25” rectangle (I)

Instructions

1. Sew the right edge of the H piece to the left edge of the I piece. Sew an A square to the right short edge of the F strip.

2. Using the photo above as a guide (different colors because this was taken after I finished the navy block -- sorry!), position an E square on the lower edge of the B rectangle with right sides together (RST). Place the other E square on the left end of the G rectangle RST and the other A square on the right end of the G rectangle, also RST. Follow the drawn lines on the squares in the photo above to see which direction to sew in order to create half square triangle edges on the rectangles. After sewing the diagonal lines, measure 1/4" from the stitched line and trim off the rest, pressing the seam open.

When you're finished, the pieces should look like the photo above.

3. Sew the lower edge of the A/F strip to the upper edge of the E/G/A strip.

4. Sew the right edge of the E/B strip to the left edge of the piece you made in step 3. Then sew the lower

edge of that combined piece to the upper edge of the H/I piece.

5. Sew a C strip to the right and left edges of the block.

6. Sew a D strip to the upper and lower edges of the block.

And that's it! If you make one of these and share it on social media, please tag

it #milkmoneyquiltblock and tag me @fabricmutt. I would love to see your work.

Have fun!

Darling Gift Bag: Birthday Edition

I restarted my Instagram page this week after a pause of about three years, and it's been a whole lot of fun. Chatting with old friends and seeing all the gorgeous projects on there has been amazing. I'm trying to find a way back into my happy sewing time again this summer, but carefully...lest I fall back down the rabbit hole of obsession. It's a fine line to walk, so I'm constantly checking myself. I really miss sewing with friends, but I want to do things right this time around -- or at least better. One day at a time, as they say...

I've been wanting to try resewing a few of my patterns and tutorials, starting with the most recent: the Darling Gift Bag tutorial.

I put together a fabric audition based on the colors of a birthday candle print from Buttercream by Emily Taylor for Cloud 9 Fabrics, which is the sweetest little retro collection. I've always been partial to a color scheme of white, red, blue, and pink, and these colors look so sweet paired with a polka-dot cream linen from my stash. 

The patchwork squares finish at 1". I love them so much.

A tiny picnic gingham from Buttercream makes cute handles, and I used the candles print for the lining. 

Normally the tutorial calls for an elastic and button closure on top, but I really loved the way the bag looked before sewing the button on -- sort of like a mini grocery tote bag -- so I just snipped off the elastic I had sewn on earlier and left it as is. I'll probably end up gifting this to someone, but for now, I'm just so happy looking at it on the table beside me while I plan my next sewing project.

Way Forward

My Greek Cross quilt is finished at last, beautifully quilted by my sweet friend Jennifer of Farm Fresh Stitches, washed and dried to crinkly perfection, and now lovingly draped across the arm of the overstuffed chair in my bedroom. A quilt used to take me about a month to sew from start to finish. This time it took a year and a half from piecing the first block to putting the last stitch in the binding, but considering everything else that happened in that span of time, this feels like a special victory.

This quilt was for me and my husband, so I used a lot of vintage style prints for the centers since we both love that look. Each block felt like its own little work of art. I've really come to believe that if you love every block by itself, you'll love them all together as a group, especially if it's a large group. Sometimes quantity really does seem to enhance the quality.

I've been doing a lot of cleaning and purging over the last few months, trying to let go of things I don't need and share them with others who might be able to use them. As I was going through my storage room, I came across several large containers of sewing samples made over a few years. It was a little sobering to look at all those projects, sewn up quickly and compulsively so that I would have a large enough supply of bright, shiny photos to put in my Instagram feed. I think I would rather stop sewing altogether than get back on that hamster wheel. Meaningful, enjoyable projects -- no matter how long or short a time they take to complete -- seem like the sane and happy way forward.

Life As I Know It

Now that we're a few days into the new year, I feel like I can finally sit down and write about the old one. 2023 was rough for our family, and while I'm thankful for the good things, I'm not terribly sorry to see it go. My father had three surgeries on his heart over several months, one being particularly delicate and serious. And then three weeks after his last surgery, I had a hysterectomy in an attempt to heal the anemia that I've been dealing with for years, the original health problem that forced me to take a break from professional sewing work back in 2020. It was, to say the least, a lot to deal with all at once. We spent months in recovery with some very difficult days, but the Lord brought us through it. Both Dad and I are doing very well at this point, in so much better shape than I would have expected, and we couldn't be more grateful for the dear friends from our church family who carried us through that time with prayer, encouragement, and lots of home cooked meals. 

In light of all that, there wasn't quite as much sewing as I'd hoped there would be in the second half of the year, but I did manage to fit in a few projects during the last few months.

A zipper pouch for a dear friend of mine...

A little quilt for a sweet mama who just had her second baby girl...

And the beginnings of a clamshell project using paper templates from the Etsy shop of one of my longest and dearest quilting friends, Erin of Why Not Sew. I have yet to sew these together, but they've been waiting for me on a wooden tray in my sewing room. I went with a breakfast theme in my fabric choices, an ode to my youngest daughter who loves the first meal of the day, and my plan is to eventually turn these into a pillow for our breakfast nook.

I have fabric for two more quilts on my sewing table right now. One will be a baby quilt for another friend who's due in early summer, and the other will be a graduation quilt for my eldest daughter who finishes high school in late May. It's such an interesting pairing, those two quilts-to-be -- the beginning and end of childhood in two stacks of fabric. I was sorting out the prints for my daughter's quilt the other day and was reminded again that life as I know it will be changing forever at the end of spring. This is the way it is, I tell myself. Every mother comes to this moment. It's good and right that our children grow up and become the independent adults we wanted them to be, and I wouldn't have it any other way, really. But there are moments when my heart cries...just a little.